Product Details

• Actors: Wendy Adams, Randy Becker, Martha J. Cooney, Darren Dryden, Ty-Ranne Grimstad
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Walt Disney Video
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1997
• Run Time: 84 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303920721
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #364,979 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This low-budget independent feature from 1995 is notable for its whimsical lack of substance and its self-effacing sense of humor. Writer-director Wally White plays Tommy, a gay man from New York City who flees the urban crush for the promise of an idyllic summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Working as a houseboy, Tommy encounters various characters as he navigates the seemingly carefree gay community, leading a Candide-like existence, betrayed by employers and friends alike, and always coming up short in friendship and in love. Randy Becker (Love! Valour! Compassion!) plays a con artist who takes advantage of the good-natured Tommy, and Darren Dryden plays the shallow and unattainable object of Tommy's affection. While the film, White's feature debut, is short on meaning or resonance, the vignette feel of the story allows for a few choice comic moments. The film is surprisingly well made for a low-budget effort. All in all, Lie Down with Dogs is an offbeat diversion and a slice of life not often seen on the screen. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Unintentional Horror Film, December 31, 1999

By 

Edward Aycock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lie Down With Dogs [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is, quite simply, one of the most shallow, pathetic and depressing films I have ever seen. What's even worse, it operates under the guise of a fun beach movie. Granted, I may be gay but am not one of those club going, circuit party, drinking guys who seem to drift through life in pursuit of good clothes and sharp wisecracks, and watching this film makes me even more secure in who I am. First off, this was filmed during off-season apparently, which gives Provincetown the look of a ghost town. One expects to see tumbleweed drifting through the streets in the establishing shots. Secondly, the poor misguided hero leaves New York because he is sick of it and the people (at least, that is what I can gather from the badly acted prologue...the friends the hero wants to get away from seem to have stepped out of a gay Fellini film...one without subtitles) So, our plucky hero goes to Provincetown, and instead of convincing us how wonderful it is, we come away with a bad taste in our mouths. One of his new best friends is an alcoholic who does not help him when he is sick, we are supposed to root for our hero at the end when the guy he likes ends up going with another man, and then we have the Randy Becker character who is a dangerous combination of pulchritude and stupidity (but then after watching this film, it begs the question...are brains and beauty mutually exclusive?) The worst thing about this film, besides the shallowness and charisma factors of zero in just about every character is how genuinely unfunny it is. Jokes fall flat...and if we are supposed to think jokes about older men (i.e. responsible) in AA are funny, then I suggest you check this film out. Me? I tend not to. I much prefer Boys in the Band, which, despite all its hard knocks seems to be more universally reviled due to its truthfulness. Lie down with Dogs is not a great, liberating film. It is shallow, it is unfunny, and it is best forgotten. And good riddance.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars FLEA-BITTEN, July 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Lie Down With Dogs [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is the gay filmmaking at it's shabbiest and most incompetent. Every moment of this film is a nightmare of mind and nerves. I was unable to watch more than fifteen minutes at a time--I was so stupified that I had to take breaks. The only redeeming quality of this film is that it's easy to point out who's responsibe for this atrocity: Wally White. He not only stars in this film, but he wrote, directed, and produced. Appearantly, the only thing he didn't do was cater and pour coffee. That's a blessing, cause if he did that as badly as he did the rest, everyone else in this film would have gotten food poisoning. The "story" is about a young gay man from NYC who goes to Provincetown, MA looking for romance and happiness. White plays the hero, and gives a truly annoying performance. His obvious belief that he's an attractive and compelling presence makes it even worse. With his whiny, grating voice, bulging belly, and embarrassing dialogue, he has the romantic charisma of Gilbert Gottfried and the sex appeal of Barney the Dinosaur. It's no wonder that he can't find romance in NYC, and when he gets propositioned by a hot gym buff, it's like watching science fiction. He looks for work as a houseboy, and stumbles in and out of yawn-raising misadventures. You won't care. Everything else about this film is also awful. While the setting (Provincetown) is a beautiful, lively place in real life, it's photographed so badly that you'll think it's a coastal slum. The sound is poor and scratchy, and the co-stars behave like relatives in someone else's home movie. Also, the choppy editing causes lapses in coherance. But none of that takes away from White's irritating screen presence, and his determination to be the center of attention. Even during quiet and sentimental scenes, he tries so hard to upstage everyone else, he treats his co-stars like boxing opponents. And when he does close-up monologues with the camera, you'll wish you had darts at your disposal. I don't know what Wally White has done since making this film. Hopefully he holds down a job that has nothing to do with making movies.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fun in the summer sun, June 8, 2006

By 

IfOnlyI "To Give the World the Lie" (Rocky Mount, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lie Down With Dogs (DVD)

The latest critics (or whatever they consider themselves) provide an unjust and almost vitriolic view of this playful, not-to-be taken-seriously movie that nonetheless hides the truth of many of our (your) lives and fantasies. Wally White has achieved a splendid little essay on stereotypes (how hated they are!) and situations (how true they may be!) and has done so cheerfully and from the inside, not as an outsider looking in to damn; criticism of the our lifestyle there is (and it does apply in more cases than the self-styled critics would like to admit) but it is always tongue-in-cheek, fun, robust, playful, outrageous (even if often true, and I have seen it); and the new-wave gay, with his ultra-modern platforms who does not recognize the "truth" underlying this charade is merely self-deceptive and egotistical.
The movie is a little treasure of fun and frolic and should be taken for no more and treasured for no less. And its detractors should look a little more deeply into themselves before condemning it.