Rottweiler

'Relatively speaking' means in comparison to all of the films he's directed. Yuzna is not a seminal horror film director but he does have a certain style and following, and is not merely a hack. For example, a few of his films can stand up with seminal horror directors such as Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, and George Romero, and ROTTWEILER is one that can.

It's not a straight-out, routinely linear-plotted opus, but rather asks the viewer to follow a storyline that jumps through past and present. There is a purpose for this, that mostly being to maintain an intrigue about how the events leading to the chase of the bionic rottweiler and the hunted man came to be, and how the rottweiler itself became a killing machine.

There are also plot points that need the viewer to exercise some mental abilities to follow, and in doing so reward the viewer with a more inclusive experience rather than that of being a 'couch potato' merely as a recipient of programmed emotional effects. These are the folks who complained that they couldn't understand what was going on.

As a point of example for this, it's shown in subtle ways that the bionic rottweiler tracks the hunted man by his scent and the scent of his blood. Anyone who gets this scent on them becomes a victim as well, or if they are between the dog and the man. Those who are not do not get attacked. But the viewers who are looking only for simple plot devices and completely explained maneuvers won't get these subtleties.

This is Yuzna's most interesting horror film to date and the most enjoyable for me, and as I feel it is his best so far, I've called it his masterpiece. Plus it does have the gore that we've come to expect from him.

Spain's Fantastic Factory strikes again with this Brian Yuzna (Beyond Reanimator) directed hokum. Dante and Ula are playing infiltration (apparently a rich boy's game of sneaking into third world countries) and when it goes horribly wrong they are caught by the authorities and separated. When Dante makes a daring escape and then finds himself being hunted by the titular title character which is now more Terminator than dog. It eats everything. It destroys everything and it can't be stopped. How will poor Dante find his beloved Ula with the Doginator on his trail? Well where shall I begin? The script is pretty ratty even for low budget fare. Giant leaps in logic and plot inconsistencies are plenty in this tale. Unnecessary flashback sequences try to unlock or more correctly infer a twist in the ending but it fails to generate anything to sustain you that far. Things just don't jell in the end. The acting by the no name cast of Spanish actors is pretty straight as one would guess with a script that requires the lead to get attacked, shoot a shotgun, have sex with the local bimbette (while she holds a gun on him no less) and wander the desert starkers for 25 minutes you can't expect much and you end up rooting for the dog. The dog effects however are the only bright spot of the film as the kills can be pretty bloody and cool and the animatronic dog was actually pretty spiffy. Heck, the dog gives the only worthy performance here.

In case you are slightly familiar with horror cinema, you must have heard of the name Brian Yuzna already. He started as the producer of some hugely successful horror flicks in the mid-80's ("Re-Animator", "From Beyond") but quickly went on to directing his own grotesque and spirited horror projects ("Society", "Return of the Living Dead part 3"). Personally, I'm a rather big fan of Yuzna. His movies are always very entertaining and stuffed with blood & gore, even though the stories are hardly ever impressive...or even 'good', for that matter. For his latest effort, "Rottweiler", the story is even completely and utterly retarded and then STILL this is a very amusing B-movie with loads of absurd aspects that genre fans will love! "Rottweiler" is set in Spain in a not-so-distant future (2018). In order to avoid further immigration, the misanthropic Kufard (small but terrific role for veteran Paul Naschy) arrests everybody who washes ashore Puerto Angel. One day, he also arrests the young American couple Dante and Ula. They were playing the rich-kids game of "infiltration", in which the players illegally have to cross country borders. That game is just asking for trouble, if you ask me... Some time later, Dante escapes from a prison-transport and heads back to Puerto Angel in order to save Ula, only he's chased by a partly robotic and bloodthirsty Rottweiler that rips every living thing to pieces. The movie is truly incoherent, with extended and unnecessary flashbacks, and often provokes unintentional chuckles. It's fast-paced, though, and contains loads of sleaze and bloody deaths. The Terminatoresque dog looks thrilling and the music as wells as the opening credits are very funky. The acting is atrocious, but that what happens if you recruits cheap Spanish actors and force them to play American characters. The lead guy looks a lot like Orlando Bloom but his acting skills are even worse. "Rottweiler" surely is a meaningless horror film, but it remains fun to watch.

Brian Yuzna's directorial career started off well with the innovative and freaky Society, followed by a serviceable sequel to Re-animator and the excellent Return of the Living Dead III; but since setting up his own production company, Fantastic Factory, in Spain, Yuzna's output has been surprisingly bad, with Rottweiler being the biggest dog of them all.

Set in the near future, the film sees a risk-taking young couple, Dante and Ula (William Miller and Irene Montalà) caught by the authorities as they play a game called 'infiltration', which calls for them to try and illegally enter a country without papers. Dante is sent to a high security prison, but is soon presented with an opportunity to escape into the surrounding wilderness, where he finds himself relentlessly pursued by a savage, cyborg tracker dog.

Admittedly, the above synopsis sounds like it could shape up to be a quality piece of sci-fi/horror entertainment—kinda like Westworld crossed with Cujo—but that is only half the story, and how the plot develops after Dante's prison break is simply insane.

However, since the sheer unpredictability of the narrative is the one of the only enjoyable aspects of the film (the other main 'positive' being the gore), I'm not going to spoil things by revealing too much, suffice to say that you should prepare yourself for some unbelievably poorly executed action, including a silly chase sequence involving numerous shots of Dante's naked ass, the least harrowing rape scene in movie history, the hilarious sight of the dog disposing of a gun (twice), and a priceless shot of a surprised chicken that is easily the best moment in the whole damn mess (the bird certainly gives a more convincing performance than the rest of the cast).

A fugitive escapes from a Spanish prison and is tracked down by a robot dog in the distant future. Oh, Brian Yuzna, why did you make this awful, awful movie? In general, I like the films he makes through his production company, Fantastic Factory. Faust, Dagon, and Beyond Re-Animator were fun, well-made horror movies. Hey, even Arachnid had its moments. But this…ouch, this was absolutely unwatchable. To start, it was boring as hell. The action was uninteresting and bland, the acting was often very poor, and the visual effects were crappy. Then of course you have our "hero" running around nude for about five minutes of screen time and one of the most tasteless sex scenes I've ever seen (I actually felt sick to my stomach during it), not to mention that even the gore is badly done and uninspired. To be fair, Yuzna gives the film a pretty decent look via desolate Spanish locations and the effects on the robot dog (From Vincent Gaustini, who was also responsible for the effects in Dogma, Requiem for a Dream and the made-for-cable adaptation of Stephen King's Thinner) weren't bad at times. Oh, and the opening title sequence was actually quite cool and creative. These three pros, unfortunately, do absolutely nothing to make the film more watchable. It's painful, terrible, and all-around bad.

Just don't see it.

1.5/10.