Friday, May 22, 2009

Rottweiler

Four words. Brian Yuzna. Paul Naschy. That should be all you need to determine that Rottweiler is the the unsung hero of the dog/robot hybrid movies from Spain, if there was ever such an untapped subgenre.  You don't even have to go put it at the top of your netflix because I've taken the necessary steps to ensure that upon reading this writeup won't actually have to see the movie. Hey, it's Memorial Day weekend, you shouldn't be cramped up at home drinking wine by yourself, with your many cats, watching horror movies anyway. You should be out there celebrating this holiday for some reason. 

That being said, *looking deeply and intensely into your eyes* do you know how much I love you? I love you a lot. I love you so much that I've watched Rottweiler twice now. I love you so damn much that I purchased Rottweiler so I could watch it again just for you. Actually it's because I just won't rent something twice. I think if you're willing to watch something twice, you should just buy it and have it in your collection. Because somebody might come over one day and say remember that robot dog ghost movie that you were talking about that time you had too much blow and you couldn't stop talking? And I can be all like, no, but yeah, Brian Yuzna's Rottweiler, wanna watch it? And then I can show it to that person that asked about it, rather than having to find clips on youtube. But our love is still like the deepest of oceans or something. 

See the lengths I'm willing to go? 

Okay, yeah, the movie. Dante is this douche American who, along with his girlfriend Ula, play a game called Infiltration. Basically, to play Infiltration, you travel internationally without a passport or other credentials to see if you can go to other countries without getting caught. Dante and Ula are aboard a immigrant vessel bound for Spain or somewhere, it doesn't really matter, and get caught by Kufard played by my boyfriend Paul Naschy. I think if I got caught anywhere by Paul Naschy, I would spontaneously explode. I say that to Christian all the time, like if we went to a convention and Naschy was there, I just wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't be able to stand in his line and meet him, I would be too nervous. I would probably just go rock back and forth in a corner or something. 

So they get caught by Kufard and Kufard does sexy times with Ula in an SUV in exchange for their release. Some other stuff happens (there are lots of flashbacks), and Dante finds himself separated from Ula and in a Spanish prison, which he manages to escape from, which is no easy task, being as how there's a bounty hunter and a part-robot rottweiler on his trail. Most of the film is Dante fleeing from his captors and said rottweiler. At one point, he kills the dog, only to have some fog rise up from the ground to resurrect the beast and get him up and running to find Dante again. Dante's sole purpose is to reunite with Ula, who may or may not be a prostitute in some red light district somewhere. 

Dante also manages to get raped by a woman in a house where he seeks refuge, which is not something you see too often. I can't even think of another movie off the top of my head right now that features a woman raping a man. It's an interesting choice to portray this. While he gets raped, the rott kills the woman rapist's dogs, something I was not happy about, since I can't stand stuff like that. Somehow it's okay when Dante shoots the rott, because it's so fakey looking, and the eyes are all glowing blue and some of the metal is exposed; it's like it's not a real animal. When the rott killed and maimed the real dogs, I got upset. I got even more upset because the woman's daughter, the little girl that played Ophelia in Pan's Labrinyth, is moved to tears when she sees her precious Bella dog all bloody and fucked up. I'll watch people get killed and mutilated all day long, no problemo, but show a dog, or even worse, a cat, get killed or abused, and I will start freaking out. It's part of a horror movie being effectively fucked up for me, when there's animal cruelty. Not that I enjoy it, but it is something that often has to be endured in this genre. 

Where was I? Dante eventually makes his way to the red light district and faces Kufard again. Seems that Kufard had the dog engineered (not that that explains the whole incident with fog, unless the dog's programming was off wack and it just needed some fog to reboot the system, yeah, that sounds about right) to track Dante throughout this whole process. Kind of like Dante's little game of Infiltration, Kufard was playing his own game with Dante as the game piece. He orchestrated the whole Dante in prison and escaping bit for his own amusement. If only I was so powerful...

It's all kinda dumb but also kind awesome. But it wasn't all for naught. It was a learning experience.  I learned the following about cyber-rottweilers:

1. They can't go into water.
2. They can eat firearms.
3. They are capable of leaving wounds that bleed when they are the vicinity of the victim. 
4. They frequent red light districts. 
5. They can attack in the day or night.
6. They can only be killed by fire. 

So I'm ready now if the cyber-rottweiler Apocalypse comes anytime soon. I know their patterns and I know their weaknesses. Oh, they might prove to be worthy opponents at first, but I know what to do. Do you think the aforementioned apply if the dog is any breed besides rottweiler?

I'm not going to stop watching Brian Yuzna movies. I will not forgive Faust, but I really enjoyed Rottweiler. Shit, you could do worse than Corbin Bernsen in the The Dentist. And Society is on the top favorites of all time list. Slap Yuzna's name on it and I'm there. And I don't care if Paul Naschy has a bit role as a mean ass motherfucker border patrol guy with a cyber dog, that's the role he was born to play. You think Yuzna and Naschy get together over tapas and tempranillo and talk about the horror movie biz? Then they prank call Jess Franco, Stuart Gordon, and Guillermo del Toro. 

Okay, it's Friday night. I was supposed to work but the boss let me go early because no one wants spaghetti on Memorial Day weekend. So you guys come over and we'll watch something cool. But we won't really watch it, we'll just get fucked up and rant a lot, start pointing at each other and saying, no, no, that's not it! my point was this! and maybe we can even make some prank phone calls and eat pizza. 

3 comments:

  1. Brian Yuzna for some reason always reminds me of John Waters when I see him, even though they are nothing alike and I'm sure it's somthing to do with them both having pencil thin mustaches.

    Still I really will have to check this one out, as I've love so many of his other films, especially "Society" which you mentioned and which of course has that all so mememorable ending.
    Also it seems that you might have created a new genre, for these kind of films with your "Animals invading the human sphere", which I'm not determined to use when I reference one of these kind of films.

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  2. Gotta love all those practical Screaming Mad George FX. I fell in love with Brian Yuzna mainly because of SMG. That makeup in Return of the Living Dead III has me revisiting that movie several times a year.

    Although SMG didn't work on Rottweiler, and there is a bit of CGI in it, for the most part they put makeup on a dog. I respect this and the dog didn't really seem to mind (there's a feature in the extras that shows the dog being put into makeup.)

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  3. The best part of the entire flick is still the awesome chicken reaction:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4OHfPdcB54

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