Doghouse | Horror/Comedy | rated R (L,V,G) | starring Danny Dyer | 1:29 mins
In an attempt to pull their recently divorced friend out of a funk, a group of guys head out for a guy’s weekend in the small pub town of Moodey. Once there they find the town deserted of men and crawling with mutant, man-eating zombie women.
A battle of the sexes satire seen through the prism of a zombie movie. It’s one of those wickedly fun ideas that pokes you right in the imagination, sends you pondering the comic possibilities and cannot possibly live up to those expectations. I know, I know. After movie critics’ Best of the Decade lists have heaped a whole lot of praise on Shaun of the Dead, hyping it up beyond belief as the best comedy of the past 10 years, the idea of another British zombie comedy might seem derivative. I can’t stand reviewing one movie by comparing it to another. Yet at the same time I am finding it hard to talk about Doghouse and not bring up Shaun or any of the other zombie comedies the movie comes in under a tidal wave of.
If it recalls Shaun of the Dead, it would be in every way that that movie worked and this one doesn’t – except that both films have an eye-rolling pension for silly wordplay gags. And the thing is, I don’t want Doghouse to be Shaun of the Dead. It has a very good gimmick in it’s own right (not zombie babies or zombie Nazi’s – zombie woman!), but one it doesn’t explore with the right amount of scathing, battle-of-the-sex politically incorrect attitude that you can just tell it wants to. A few of the one-liners that creep out lean toward the attitude I was looking for, which I guess could be described as Playfully Misogynistic. A movie that made fun of women, but wasn’t mean-spirited about it. Kind of like how in Splice the “dangerous” part of the mutant was the human side, in Doghouse the dangerous part of the zombie could have been the woman side. That’s the great meta-joke that sits around like the elephant in the room begging to be tackled.
Suffice to say, writer/director Jake West doesn’t go there. West’s obvious touch with the comedy and Doghouse playing it safe is what keeps it from standing it out from the other quirky European horror comedies. Instead of establishing a brash personality, it just lathers in silliness. A decapitated head on a remote control car. Zombie women distinguished by their goofy costumes. The bride, the burning witch, the dentist. The movie doesn’t go for the throat as a comedy and we never feel the horror movie stakes are very high. For his part, star Danny Dyer, who played a more charming version of the sleazy everyman in Severance and Malice in Wonderland, comes off as a straight-up jerk here.
Too many of the bits in Doghouse are too on-the-nose for my taste. A gag, centered and with a lantern hung over it just so you don’t miss it. West’s style even goes as far as bringing in wacky music in case you couldn’t tell the tongue is solidly in cheek. He’s not well-equipped enough as a filmmaker to pull off the horror/comedy tonal balancing act this kind of movie requires. And the thing is Doghouse isn’t that bad. It’s entertaining. But it’s one of those movies that works in parts, but not as a smooth cohesive whole. Fits and starts of cleverness and inspiration that are just enough to make you think that had the movie kept up that level of wit it could be terrific. With the myriad of zombie movies out there, this one finds a hard time distinguishing itself.