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 he
funniest thing about "The Breed" is how
every other line of dialogue in the film's first
30 minutes revolves around how they were once
young, what they were doing when they were young,
etc. Meanwhile, in the back of our minds, all we
can think of is: "Give me a break. You're all
in your late '20s, one of you is in his late '30s,
and you're pretending to play college
students." Such is casting in this day and
age of derivative horror movies; no matter how
hard they try to break apart from the pack, the
more they are drawn back to the clichés of their
genre.
"The Breed" begins
the way these movies always do, with a gaggle of
college "kids" on their way to a faraway
party, or rave, or isolated cabin, or island. In
this case, it's a party at an isolated cabin on a
remote island. (Hey, three out of four ain't bad!)
For the next 30 minutes, we are treated to the
type of character development only interesting to
the same group of girls that hang on every
brilliant line of dialogue from shows like
"One Tree Hill" or "Everwood"
or whatever it is the mindless MTV kids watch
these days.
In the guise of interpersonal
relationships, we have: Matt (Eric Lively) and
John (Oliver Hudson) are battling brothers in a
tiff because Matt is currently shagging Nicki
(Michelle Rodriguez), who used to be John's girl;
there is the blonde Sara (Taryn Manning, standing
in for Tara Reid, California beach blonde hair,
hoarse voice, and exposed skin and all); and of
course, Noah (Hill Harper), aka the Token Black
Guy, who does all the things his character does in
these movies, namely act chauvinistic and loud and
full of himself. (Thankfully, he never utters the
line, "Now that's what I'm talking
about!")
Thirty minutes later,
genetically engineered dogs show up and chase
them, with only one thing on their mind -- food.
(And yes, someone does get to say, "They were
playing God!" somewhere along the way.) Well
actually, it takes a while for the dogs to show
up. First we have to endure more sibling rivalry
between the irresponsible John (we know he's
irresponsible because he keeps saying how he's
"the irresponsible brother") and the
studious Matt (we know Matt is studious because he
keeps talking about all the exams he should be
taking on his way to med school). Things picked up
when Sara gets bitten by a dog and starts acting
weird. And then the dogs really attack, and Matt
shoots Nicki in the leg with an arrow. Ouch.
If you like movies about
attacking dogs ala "Cujo", I suppose
"The Breed" is pretty good. It has
plenty of human flesh chomping goodness, and the
dogs are quite vicious, even if they don't look
it. (I can't help it; all dogs look cute to me, as
I used to own a few when I was younger.) The stunt
work in the film is quite good, and the movie's
many attack sequences are the film's highlights.
In a way you can understand why the filmmakers
kept the dogs at bay for so long. After all, when
the dogs finally attack and have the humans
cornered, how many situations can you come up with
that forces the humans to wander outside in order
to be chased by the dogs? What they do come up
with (getting to a car in a nearby barn, running
to their seaplane) borders on ridiculous to begin
with.
"The Breed", like
most horror movies, has a couple of really
unintentionally funny plot holes. For one, they
are trapped by dogs that, though smart, are still,
well, dogs. So you would think it wouldn't be that
hard for John to pick them off one by one with his
bow and arrow. Granted, the guy's first shot at a
dog missed the dog altogether and nailed Nicki in
the leg, but that was from a great distance. Plus,
later he shows amazing accuracy with the weapon
and actually shoots
a dog from a distance as it's jumping in mid-air.
And with the dogs oftentimes just standing around
waiting for them, would it really have been that
hard to just pick off the suckers? And I mentioned
Nicki's wounded leg, which causes her to hobble
through the rest of the film, but otherwise, she
seems amazingly unbothered by it, judging by all
the acrobatic moves she makes. Michelle Rodriguez
must be a fast healer.
The cast actually does a
pretty decent job, even if their characters are
obscenely derivative and stereotypical as to be
condescending. Written by Robert Conte and
directed by Nicholas Mastandrea, "The
Breed" comes with Wes Craven's name attached
as executive producer, and if the film should ever
make it to American shores, it will undoubtedly be
as a direct-to-video feature. Although production
values on the film seems high, and as mentioned,
the action is quite well done, there is nothing
outstanding or impressive about the film to
warrant the cost associated with a theatrical
release. Then again, Halloween is around the
corner, so maybe Craven might be feeling lucky…
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