With its second "canine as violent metaphor" title following France's The Dogs, Severin Films has unleashed a somewhat notorious Spanish action thriller lensed in Venezuela by director Antonio Isasi, his penultimate feature following titles like They Came to Rob Las Vegas and Summertime Killer. Initially released as El perro or The Dog, this fascinating anti-totalitarian chase film has to qualify as the most surprising acting turn for famed playwright Jason Miller (That Championship Season), best known for playing Father Karras in The Exorcist. Under the titles A Dog Called... Vengeance or simply Vengeance, the film made the rounds on VHS in several countries (including one from Trans World in the U.S.) and has been bootlegged a few times on DVD, including its baffling inclusion (still VHS-sourced) in Videoasia's Tales of Voodoo line paired up with Scorpion Thunderbolt. Marking the first official release in decades, the 2024 Blu-ray from Severin is going to be a real eye opener for anyone who's either suffered through bad dupes before or never even heard of this unorthodox animal attack epic before.

As the opening text informs us, our story begins "in a Central American country under the dictatorship of Leonides Arevalo. For some, he is known as the Benefactor. Others call him 'The Dog.'" Said dictatorship has an ugly practice of imprisoning any dissenters in brutal prison camps and hunting down any escapees courtesy of ruthless guards and trained dogs, which doesn't stop political prisoner Aristides (Miller) from making a run for it when his own life is threatened. In the wilderness he's forced to kill a tracker guard whose dog, intent on both doing its job and avenging its master, becomes laser focused on chasing down and killing the escapee at any cost. From there our story becomes somewhat episodic including a quasi-romantic interlude involving Lea Massari (L'avventura) and a major shift in tone and locations in the second half that makes you question the ethical stance of humanity in general.

A not so subtle dig at the fascist regime in Spain that had just ended, Isasi's film offers a solid showcase for Miller as well as a striking role in the final stretch for the director's wife, actress Marisa Paredes, who went on to glory in some exceptional roles for Pedro Almodóvar like All About My Mother and High Heels. However, the real star here is the dog itself who puts that relentless pup in Tenebrae to shame by swimming, running, and pouncing its way across rural and city environments like you won't believe. The film's most outrageous sequence involves a dog vs. skinny-dipping Miller showdown, but all of its appearances are memorable and intense. The strictly human sequences can't help but suffer by comparison (especially given the somewhat indulgent 114-minute running time), but each time the pace lags, that canine pops up again to give the film a shot in the arm. It's worth noting that the uncut Blu-ray presentation includes a note from the filmmakers at the beginning saying no animals were harmed in the making of this film, though that seems a bit suspect given a very unsimulated and savage dog-on-dog fight scene and multiple shots of animal actors flinging through the air. At least the dead animals are mercifully very unconvincing, still breathing and blinking while covered in pasty stage blood.

Along with the excellent 2K scan from the original negative, the Severin Blu-ray offers a choice of English or Spanish dialogue tracks with optional translated English subtitles. The film was shot entirely in English, though only Miller provides his real voice; the Spanish version has a better mix though, so it's a bit of a draw and you're fine either way. In "A Film Ahead of Its Time" (14m18s), Sitges Film Festival Head of Programming Ángel Sala chats about the director's successful thrillers that led to this one, the attempts to adapt to modern audience tastes, the loose adaptation of the source novel, and the taste for political cinema in Spain around that period. In "Memories of a Guerrilla Woman" (20m57s), Pareses looks back at how she met her husband, their times together in the film industry during their eight-year marriage, the lives of her two stepchildren with him, and the process of making this film in Caracas. Finally in "Daughter of Titans" (13m19s), the couple's actress daughter, María Isasi, shares her memories of her very active father and growing up in the busy world of Spanish showbiz. The English trailer (as The Dog) is also included.

Reviewed on July 12, 2024