Film Corner: The Breed

The Breed

I was supposed to work today but I have a sinus infection? I can't sleep because I have to be ready to answer the door for Reasons, so I'm going to do another #AnaWatches. It's tricky finding just the right movies for this sort of thing because I want something bad but, like, an actual movie that *tried* and wasn't just a parody like Sharknado. Not that I dislike Sharknado, by any means. I was going to try another movie about the Countess Bathory but alas the only other movie about her on Amazon isn't Prime-free. I would've expected more movies about her, to be honest.

So for now it's back to bad monster movies in honor of October. This one is called THE BREED. "A group of five college kids are forced to match wits with unwelcoming residents when they fly to a 'deserted' island for a party weekend." I hope "match wits" means a really intense and high-stakes game of chess. Oh please, oh please.

Credits tell me that this is a Wes Craven production with Michelle Rodriguez, which is immediately WAY higher production and cast values than I expected for an Amazon Prime movie. Usually it's eastern European actors I've never seen before. Okay, but this has that dubbed eastern European *feel*, so that's nice. The blondest couple in the world lounge on a boat and talk about being lost and drunk until they find a creepy island. The girl goes off alone, as one does on a deserted creepy island.

Blond Girl is instantly dragged off by blur-doggos while her boyfriend futzes about on the boat. Mild gore. Smash cut to a plane and our actual group of protagonists-slash-chewtoys. They are a diverse group of college students. Michelle is dating the serious pre-med white guy who complains that he needs to study over party weekend. He and his brother are trust fund babies who, I guess, own Werewolf Island.

They're that special sort of Hollywood college kids that look in their 30s, claim to be in their 20s, and act like they're in their early teens. First: a dark basement in an attempt to get electricity to the cabin. Some drama is alluded to wherein the oldest brother is upset that Michelle is dating the youngest brother because Michelle dated the oldest brother "ten years ago". So when she was 10 or 11? Good grief.

The kids play at drinking, ziplining, hammocking, and so forth before finding a 9-week-old puppy that charms them all with its cute puppyness. They assume he was abandoned by a boater. I'm trying not to be annoyed at how bad these people are with dogs. They just want to cuddle him and aren't letting him run and play. He's a baby! He needs play!

Welp, the (new) Blond Girl who looks significantly older than the rest of the group has been bitten by a doggo. I assume she either has rabies or is a werewolf now. Pre-Med Younger Brother wants to take her back to the mainland for rabies shots but Dickhead Older Brother convinces her she can wait a few days and not to spoil the party. In bed, Pre-Med confesses to Michelle that there used to be a dog training facility on the island and that a few years ago all the dogs had to be put down as rabid. But those dogs couldn't be *these* dogs because rabies would've killed them a long time ago.

Blond Girl kisses and kiss-bites Dickhead Older Brother, so I assume he's a werewolf now too. At breakfast, she's ravenous and eating everything at the table. No one considers this odd, because of course. The boys go hunting with a bow and arrow, and notice there's no wildlife on the island. No birds, etc. Oh holy shit! The blond guy from the opening shows up, covered in blood, and says "the dogs don't want you here" before being mauled by three of them.

I can't enough stress that all these dogs are just normal dogs. The kids run back to the cabin and dogs attack Michelle. Older Brother fires an arrow at the dog and pierces Michelle's leg, but the dogs run off. Pyrrhic victory, I guess. She takes it well. Pre-Med says these dogs are acting like they're rabid but that it doesn't make sense because they should be dead. A dog explodes through the window to attack the Black Friend, who survives without a scratch to my complete surprise.

Dogs have taken the dock where the water-plane was parked. They have chewed through the anchoring rope. The plane is floating away. Drums, drums in the deep. HAHAHAHAHA, Older Brother swims to the plane to retrieve it but there are dogs waiting on the wing of the plane. They dive into the water to chase him. The kids run back to the cabin. (The two girls are doing well given that they've been bitten and arrow'd, respectively.) They nail up wood to zombie-proof the windows. I want this entire movie re-made with cats.

Michelle zip-lines from the house to the garage (which has a car that works after years of neglect) so they can drive to the other side of the island and call for help from the facility that made these NuRabies dogs. Cool plan, yes. Unfortunately, the elderly car doesn't work and she has to climb through the sun roof to escape the doggos. They only just manage to zip-line her back to the house, so that was a monumental waste of time.

At night, the cabin electricity goes out. IS IT DOGGOS? The Black man goes down to the basement and dies first. The remaining four flee to the attic. Pre-Med is bitten. They haul the attic ladder up while Good Doggies look quizzically up at them. I cannot stress how WEIRD it is to watch what is essentially a standard zombie movie premise but the zombies are perfectly ordinary puppies. Why don't we do this more often? Cats. Pandas. Koalas. Give me a zombie koala movie.

I need you to understand that these boys are the most foolish fuckers I've ever seen. Somehow they get the car working, which the dogs are alternately afraid of or attacking, depending on the scene. The bitten Blond Girl has some kind of magic eye contact power over the dogs, but gets herself impaled on a child's merry-go-round. Mild gore. Dogs instantly show up to attack and/or eat her corpse. The music jangles menacingly. The trio explore the "seeing eye dog facility" and deduce that the dogs were being genetically experimented on. Pre-Med grapples with his likely impending death from being bitten. Older Brother works to hook up a cell phone to a radio tower.

Older Brother has electrocuted himself and gotten flung off the radio tower. Now he is being menaced by doggos. I idly wonder how many zombie movies Michelle Rodriquez has been in, really. More or less than 7? Michelle is about to perish in an electrical fire. Oh. Apparently they can ALL hypnotize dogs with direct eye contact and that's just a Dog Thing and nothing to do with magical bite powers. I am skeptical.

Both the boys have been bitten. They and Michelle make it to the boat from the beginning, and speculate that surely a doctor can "cure" them from...whatever they have. There's literally no symptoms, so good luck with that I guess! They open the cabin door to "get some sleep" and DOGS SPRING OUT. Smash cut to credits. So it basically was Sharknado after all, but with perfectly ordinary dogs. I feel cheated.

I'm inclined to agree that this was probably supposed to be an actual zombie movie but then they ran out of money and just used the actors' dogs instead. Like, they aren't even scary dogs, just regular doggos.