Customer Reviews

Rottweiler

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Director Brian Yuzna must have been on some kind of hallucinogen when he signed on for this dog of a movie. ROTTWEILER is filled with so much artistic nonsense and such bad acting it's a wonder it managed to get filmed at all. The mechanized Rottweiler is really little more than a murder weapon and has little to do with the movie's so-called plot. Set in some kind of apocalyptic future, the movie focuses on a prisoner who escapes and is out to find the girl he abandoned. Flashbacks try to fill in the plot's numerous holes, but it's all so confusing and improbable, the movie dies in the first reel. Avoid unless you really like bad horror movies..and I mean bad.

I looked forward to the release of Brian Yuzna's "Rottweiler." Why? The plot, for starters. "Rottweiler" is a movie about a murderous robotic dog chasing an escaped prisoner through the Spanish countryside. Fun! But even more importantly, the movie comes from the warped mind of Brian Yuzna, a man who needs little introduction to the hardcore horror aficionado. His filmography, as either director or producer, reads like an honor roll of cult horror flicks. He's been involved in "Re-Animator" and its sequels, the seriously deranged "From Beyond," "Return of the Living Dead 3," "Warlock," "Dagon," and the hilariously gory camp classics "The Dentist" and "The Dentist 2." Yes sir, Brian Yuzna knows how to deliver the sauce in a way that most directors and producers try to avoid in order to secure a friendlier 'R' rating at the theater. Then again, most of Yuzna's films nowadays, and this includes "Rottweiler," are unlikely to appear within a hundred miles of a theater. It's purely straight to video schlock here, folks. And unfortunately, it's not great schlock but rather a middling affair that occasionally rises to the level of entertaining despite several serious flaws. Yuzna can, and has, done much better before.

I'm not exactly sure what I got with "Rottweiler." The storyline is, to say the least, a bit on the murky side. Yuzna's movie opens with the information that the year is 2018 and the location is an immigration control zone somewhere in Spain. We see a badly beaten chap writhing on the floor of a prison cage. This unfortunate wretch is Dante (William Miller), obviously the main character of the film. After receiving a beating by a vicious prison guard outside of the van, a distraction allows him to escape into the woods. Regrettably, he's chained to another prisoner who quickly falls prey to the titular dog, a Rottweiler sporting metal teeth and glow in the dark eyes. Thanks to the dog ripping this poor yutz to pieces, Dante is able to flee and begin what turns out to be a long, looooooong journey through the Spanish countryside. The vicious prison guard recaptures our hero only to lose him again in a spray of bloody carnage. Dante then meets up with a trio of drug traffickers, one of whom lives to regret the fact that he stole the prisoner's boots. Then there's a very painful scene at a riverbank where Dante, exhibiting far more of his physical form than I wanted to see, battles the robotic dog.

On and on it goes, as the prisoner meets various people only to see them die horribly at the hands...er, paws...of the Rottweiler terminator. As the film progresses, we learn through a series of flashbacks exactly why Dante is in this threatening predicament. He and his girlfriend Ula (Irene Montala) attempted to sneak into Spain on a boat but found themselves in the clutches of the evil Kufard (Paul Naschy). Ula performed a service to obtain their freedom, quite a service considering Kufard's sleazy personality, but somehow the situation backfired. Dante doesn't remember the specifics, at least not initially, but his memories become clearer as his journey takes him closer and closer to the place where he and his gal ran into trouble. Helping him come to terms with his horrible experiences are several surreal apparitions, one of whom is the prisoner he watched die after his escape, that pop in to say hello and also to drop cryptic hints about his unremembered past. Even the deceased prison guard shows up from time to time, whether to torment our hero or help him I wouldn't know. "Rottweiler" is often more confusing than it ought to be considering it's really a low budget piece of schlock.

While I enjoyed certain parts of the movie, namely the gore and the psychotic dog, most of what I saw here left a bad taste in my mouth. The acting isn't anything to write home about and, since the film used Spanish actors, most of the dialogue is dubbed into English--and not in a way that makes you laugh at unintentionally hilarious lines. I also had a serious problem with the backstory. Who exactly is Kufard and why is he doing what he's doing? Why did Dante and Ula attempt to sneak into Spain? What was the importance of that lady and her daughter Esperanza? "Rottweiler" tries to provide a few answers to a couple of the questions I had, such as mentioning something about Dante and Ula coming into the country because of some game, but it doesn't make much sense. For that matter, considering the surreal aspects of the movie, I'm not sure I can believe even these few explanations. I had hopes that the movie would be a straightforward, unmitigated gorefest involving a group of young airheads trying to flee from some experimental type pooch with a bad attitude. "Rottweiler" is not that film. It's not even as gory as it could have been, although the chewed up bodies, torn out throats, and a beheading did at times provide a boost to the lagging pace.

The DVD contains several supplements, none of them very noteworthy. We get extremely short interviews (a minute or two at most) with William Miller, Irene Montala, the guys who created the animatronic dog, and director of photography Javier Salmones. There are trailers for "Premonition," "Faust," "The Devil's Rejects," "Dagon," "Alien 3000," "Arachnid," and "Zodiac Killer." Rounding out the underwhelming extras section is some behind the scenes footage that isn't that interesting. I'll give "Rottweiler" three stars since I think it's intriguing enough to watch once, but Yuzna's latest film is strictly a so-so affair that only avid horror fans will want to pick up. All other viewers should stick to the Dentist films and "Return of the Living Dead 3."

Selecting to view the film, Rottweiler, as it features a half cyborg killer dog in it may reflect poorly on my taste in films. Be that as it may, Rottweiler makes a key mistake in my opinion by focusing on the humans in the film. It is set in the future and the Spanish prisons apparently have cyborg hunter dogs as part of their retrieval teams for escapees. Rather than follow the hapless "Dante" on his often al fresco journey across Spain, featuring incomprehensible flashbacks and odd one dimensional characters, why not more of an examination of the dog? The movie is titled Rottweiler. It might be interesting to know how the dog was created or changed. The runtime says 97 minutes but it feels much longer. Go with "Man's Best Friend" or "Cujo" if you want psycho dogs. A thoroughly disappointing effort.

This ain't a horror movie; it's a soap opera with a cheesy looking killer dog thrown in.

The primary story about the guy escaping from prison and being chased by a mechanical dog is an alright idea, but unfortunately in the hands of Brian Yunza it ends up more silly than scary. The secondary story - told through endless flashbacks - about how the guy lost his girlfriend (hint: after she gets raped by an old cogger don't say "sounded like you enjoy it.") is not only boring but completely pointless.

I'm usually pretty forgiving/understanding with low budget films especially if there's enthusiastic writing and you get a sense that they really tried, but ROTTWEILER is a dead duck any way you look at it. The DVD cover looked cool though!

Watch MAN'S BEST FRIEND again instead.

"Rottweiler" is terrible. There's no way getting around it. Directing-wise, it REALLY tries to be artsy. There's gratuitous amounts of slow-motion, Rottweiler-vision, and weird angles. To top it off, the story is not told in your typical narrative. It occasionalyl jumps from one point to another. While I wasn't entirely lost as to what was going on, it was just really bizarre for this type of movie. It worked with "Reservoir Dogs" because it was structured and helped the story. Here it's just ridiculous.

The other problem is the Rottweiler "monster" that is dispatched to kill our hero once he escapes from the prison. Domestic pets becoming monsters has always been a tricky matter, because if done wrong they can turn the film into an unintentional comedy. Look at any horror movie that has tried making domestic cats scary and you'll see what I mean. Dogs are easier, and certainly Rottweilers (along with Doberman Pinchers) are notoriously nasty dogs. However, this Rottweiler was not as convincing. First, it has weird patches of fur taped to it, and has more of a look of "Ooh, is that a bone?" than "Must kill." The puppet for close-ups is terrible - what does it look like? Imagine Triumph the Comic Dog without the cigar and with blue eyes. I am not kidding. Whenever I saw it I expected it to say, "What a great script...FOR ME TO POOP ON!"

Another matter I have to discuss is our hero. He gets a lot of innocent people killed in his stupidity. The Rottweiler follows him, and he knows its following him, and doesn't seem to mind the innocent people murdered as a result. Take, for example, the mother and daughter he runs across. He could have told them about the dog, but instead doesn't, getting their two pet dogs killed and their house under attack. Then when the mother fires a rifle and plugs a round into the Rottweiler through the front door. The hero says, "Give me the gun! Trust me!" He then - get this - sticks it through the bullet hole! Any one who has seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon knows this is a no-no. As you might suspect, the Rottweiler grabs the barrel of the gun, pulls it out, and destroys it. What does this result in? The Rottweiler chases them outside and the mother has to sacrifice herself to save her daughter. The daughter gets to watch as the Rottweiler tears her mother to shreds: tears fall down her cheeks, she cries out her mother's name as blood drips onto her face...and all because the guy said, "Trust me!" when the mother seemed perfectly capable handling the rifle.

Our hero, ladies and gentlemen...

So do not see it. Go to your adoption center and get a real dog. Not a Rottweiler, get a Great Dane. They're as faithful as German Shepherds, but without the separation anxiety.

"Rottweiler" is just plain bad. It features plenty of no-name actors and actresses and a cyborg mutt with a really bad attitude. It takes place in the near future somewhere in Spain. As we watch the story unfold, we learn that our hero, Dante, has been thrown into a futuristic prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He and his girlfriend, Ula, are playing a deadly game known as "Infiltration," in which rich kids scamper across the world and try to get away with big capers. Well, their luck runs out in Spain, and Ula is forced to do a deed to get them released from prison. Naturally, things don't go quite as planned and Dante is left to attempt an escape with a cellmate. The prison's guards sick "Rottweiler" on them and he quickly dispatches Dante's mate. Dante then runs off into the wilderness only to be captured a few days later. He escapes again, but does so by killing the rottweiler's owner. Not a good idea.

The cyborg pooch goes ballistic, killing any and everything in sight while he attempts to catch Dante and exact his revenge. Sounds decent, right? The truth is that this story is flat from the opening credits. Dante isn't a likeable guy, the rott seems terribly vicious when it catches anybody but Dante, who manages to escape rather easily.

The dog looks pretty good considering the shoestring budget this snore-inducer was made on. However, the director takes a little too much artistic license with flashback sequences and makes it rather hard to understand exactly what is going on. Also, the ending is nothing short of dull, making me wonder why I wasted so much time on this flick.

As B-flicks go, this one includes plenty of nudity (and a little bit too much in one sequence). It's also got a reasonable amount of gore, not to mention one rather violent sequence that lets us see a young child witness her own mother's death. It isn't a funny B-movie, and it isn't even a serious B-flick. It's just a mush of gore, nudity, and violence that leads nowhere in the end.

Two stars are given for the dog in this flick. He actually looks pretty convincing through most of the film. However, I would only rent this flick if I were into cheesy B-horror. If you don't fall into that category, I'd skip this snoozer altogether.

Not recommended.

This's one of those "Hey, that sounds cool! No... Wait... This sucks!" kinda of movies. The idea of a Terminator Dog is, indeed cool. But the so-called hero is someone we'd all like to see fed to "Rott". He deserves to be killed, not made the hero of the movie... Rott should've been the hero of the movie. That would've made it at least watchable...

It's kinda like The Ring movie Ya know if you watch it youll die.Well you wont die from watching it but I garinty you will become dumber....see I cant even spell anymore!!I have been raeding encyclopedia's like crazy and I still can't Un-dumb myself.

I would rather have someone kick my face into a running lawnmower blade than EVER watch this movie again.

Screw war.We could take over the planet in a matter of months if we flooded other countries with this movie.They would become so dumb they would forget they hated us and would have no clue how to operate any weopon system what so ever.

when I am on my death bed the thing I will remember most is the whole 1 1/2 hrs of life I lost watching this movie that I will never get back!! GOD please forgive my soul for using the precious gift of time to watch something so..so.....so.....so......so .......dumb!!

Over all the movie is pretty good, if you sit back and just watch the movie, you should enjoy it,the story is quite simplely a tale of redemption and revenge. it starts with a guy and his girl,playing some stupid game,sneaking into a factory/prison etc, and they get caught,one year later he is released from prison, and go's looking for his girl. at the same time a rottweiler begins tracking him,and kills everyone it meets,thur flashbaks you find out why he is desperate to find his girl friend,and how he brought, about this whole twisted hell he finds himself in,it's werid,and tragic .

I watched this with my dad the other night. This movie is so stupid, no words can describe it. The plot is worthless and has no point. It doesn't fully explain what's really going on. I should have relized the movie was going to be horrible when it's only 10 minutes in and two people have died and he's already escaped. They also did a horrible attempt on making the dog look real. In about half the movie, it's a real dog but when it's not, it looks so fake it's unbelievable. Besides, a lot fo the people in this movie have no common sense at all. It's a good idea to create a vicious half dog and half robot pooch that's used to track down prison escapees but come on! This movie? This is the best you can do?
I think the movie deserves only one star but I gave it an extra one because the dog (when it's a real dog) is awesome! I love the rottie's ice blue eyes.