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Cast: Larry Joe Campbell, Marian Mayberry, Kimberly Guerrero, Stacie Hadgikosti, Luke Bonczyk
Hanklin Purvis (Larry Joe Campbell) enjoys the outdoors, and he loves to hunt. He and his wife, Dorothy, live on a farm in the rural Midwest. For some reason, during the season before autumn, things start happening. The first victims are family pets, then wild animals. But it's not until people are injured that the police get involved. The attacker is not human, that's for sure and it needs to be stopped. Then they discover that the wounds have a deadly bacteria and the clock is ticking for those infected. Enter Hanklin's neighbor, Francis Wellman,a Native American who believes she has discovered an ancient antidote. And will they ever find the perpetrator of these horrifying attacks?
"Dogman" is a similar to any other Bigfoot type film, there's a creature in the woods, it's big, hairy and deadly. I was looking for to checking this out mainly because of it's cast and on that end I wasn't disappointed. On the down side I was hoping for a bit more creature viewing and more killings but there really wasn't much of any and the creature pretty much stays off camera most of the film. I can understand the budget is low and all but I was expecting a bit more.
Now I mentioned the cast before, I have always enjoyed watching Larry Joe Campbell in just about everything and he doesn't disappoint here as Hanklin. He always seems to have that goofiness about him but at times he can unleash this seriousness, like a man on the edge of insanity and he brings it all to his character perfectly. Mariann Mayberry is also very good as his wife and both show great chemistry together. The rest of the supporting cast did a great job as well.
Production-wise the film itself looks great and the locations are perfect for this type of story but the woods are a bit under used in my opinion. Other than that and the fact that the creature could of been shown a lot more the production was pretty solid.
I really wanted to like this film a lot but some how I felt it missed the mark. Now don't get me wrong here not everything about the film is below par, in fact it does have a few very good things going for it. The cast as I mentioned before and the story, slow at times but there is always something going on and the film tosses in a few wrinkles along the way as well, plus I did enjoy the twist at the end.
I think fan's of Independent cinema will enjoy this a bit more than regular movie goers, some Indie films cross over well but I don't thing there's enough thrills here to keep most people's attention. So if you like Indie films I recommend checking it out and supporting the efforts of Director, Richard Brauer and his cast and crew, who knows with a bit more budget the sequel(if there is one) could be something special.
The DVD comes with Special Features that include:
Dogman: Behind the Scenes
Dogman Testimonials
You can order it HERE.
Released by Osiris Entertainment
** 1/2 Out Of *****