User Reviews

Yvonne De Carlo (everyone's favorite Munster) gives away quite a scary and praiseworthy performance as Hester Ramsey, a rancorous and slightly deranged elderly lady who lives alone in a large mansion with her harshly trained Rottweiler Greta. She holds a *slight* grudge against her family because she's convinced that her sister stole the one true love of her life and now she developed the fiendish plan to use Greta's killing capacities to get revenge. It's a fairly interesting and original concept for an 80's creature feature, but the film lacks tension and there's too little gore and bloodshed. Greta is an astonishingly trained dog, but her skills are still underused and the script at one point even reveals that black magic is responsible for her turning into a merciless killing machine. Why the hell was that necessary? Who needs voodoo to explain the aggression of a Rottweiler? There's nothing as pathetic as wanting to make a horror movie about a dangerous killer dog and then cowardly blame his action and behavior on the black magic powers of his owner. Greta also has voyeuristic tendencies, because she observes a young couple having (overlong) sex not once but twice. Instead of doing that, or instead of electrocuting people in their bathtubs, she ought to rip out throats, dammit! The character of the police inspector provides some comical relief, with his witty remarks and arrogant behavior towards his younger colleagues, but it's just a small positive detail in an overall extremely dull and forgettable movie. Good horrors revolving on murderous dogs are quite a rarity. Top of my head I can only think of "The Pack" and "White Dog". "Play Dead" belongs in the mediocre-to-awful section, alongside "Rottweiler", "Devil Dog", "Dogs of Hell" and "Monster Dog".

Apparently a *construction company* produced this film? Well, that makes just about as much sense as anything.

The movie starts with shots of a Rottweiler attacking a person who is prostrate on the ground. Then, we're at the funeral of a woman. Hester shows up, and her voice is instantly recognizable as that of the actress who played Lily Munster: yes, it is she.

She is the late woman's sister, and she is not well liked by her sister's children.

Hester is rich, and she is angry at her sister and her niece and nephew, because she had had a relationship with her sister's husband prior to their marriage., and she feels she would have been better for him. He died years ago, but she has a place of honor in her house for a photo of him, and she likes to imagine herself dancing with him in slow motion in front of a mirror.

Hester owns a Rottweiler that she brought back with her from Europe. She also dabbles in black magic of some kind. She left a necklace with a pentagram on it in her sister's casket. The dog also has one on its collar. The dog also does things in slow motion.

Hester gives the dog to her niece, and pretends that she cares about her niece and nephew now that her sister has passed on. However, she does rituals involving blood and chanting Latin in order to remotely cause the dog to bring about the deaths of her nephew, her niece's neighbor and boyfriend and others.

The movie doesn't really have any resolution at the end. A real non-ending, not setting up a sequel, but just petering out without letting us know what happened to some of the main characters.

I've been after this movie for a while, though mainly because of the cool VHS cover and the fact that Yvonne De Carlo is in it. Well, I finally found a copy at a market. The film didn't live up to my expectations, but I'm used to that, being a fan of low budget horror.

The film is kind of watchable and semi-interesting, but isn't much of a horror film because there are no violent deaths. The deaths are caused by the dog but in very tame ways. The plot also seems muddled and the motivation for the killings is unclear. I found the ending rather bizarre but slightly surprising.

The main reason to seek this film out as far as I'm concerned is the VHS cover (the UK one). It looks good amongst my collection of big box horror films and I love the artwork. Other than that, there's little reason to seek out this film, even for fellow fans of low-budget horror.

In PLAY DEAD, Hester (Yvonne De Carlo) lives with Greta, her friendly Rottweiler. Hester just wants her family to be close, though most of them can't stand her, only wanting her vast fortune.

One day, Hester decides to use her occult powers to make things right. Soon enough, her relatives begin having terrible "accidents", seemingly caused by a big dog.

Hmmm.

The police are stumped, unable to prove anything about these "coincidences".

As Hester continues her ritualistic mumbo jumbo, her family shrinks through severe attrition.

Released through Troma, this is one of their better acquisitions. Contains semi-gory violence, nudity, and 1980's cheeeze aplenty! Though it's somewhat slow in spots, Ms. De Carlo is at her best! It's her appearance that raises this above the usual bilge...

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Play Dead; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.25 Direction: 1.00 Pace: 1.00 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.00

TOTAL: 5.50 out of 10.00

Two things keep this Dark Thriller of a Horror flick from greatness. The writing and the direction. However, it's a case of swings and roundabouts - when the narrative works, the filming doesn't and vice versa. For example, the ending is logical, though predictable. Since you can anticipate the finale, you need something that keeps it from feeling old and stale. The writers give the audience this, though the director fails to make it gripping enough, and it falls flat. But when we have the black magic rituals, the direction is spot on, though the writers needed to give us some believable dialogue in the way of spell casting.

I have to admit I loved the story concept of a killer hound possessed by its owner to kill her family due to her jealous hatred. I cannot think of another possessed dog tale off-hand, so kudos for that. All the characters required fleshing out a tad more as they appear two-dimensionally flat. It would have been nice to see some of the romance between the nephew and niece's dead daddy and their auntie. It would have proffered more engagement for the audience and taken the touch of dullness off.

The direction suffers from averageness. Due to the flaws in the writing, the filmmaking needed to be more engaging. The simple point and shoot are okay, but better composition would have gone a long way. The entire movie feels like a bad made-for-TV. It doesn't help that when Auntie Hester is thinking back to yesteryear and her yet-to-be brother-in-law, the director uses slow-motion to display her reminiscing. And, it gets worse with the foreplay. When the niece, Audrey, is making out with her bo' by the fire, the sultriness is cheapened and dulled by the smooth jazz soundtrack. It gives the section the feel of a soft-core porno. It is truly cringe-inducing.

The acting is also average, though Yvonne De Carlo as Aunt Hester is on form and adds a touch of class to her scenes. The ones she has with the policemen are the best. It shows how dominant and how much a force of nature she is. The other stand-out performance comes from Glenn Kezzer as Otis, the detective. It's a shame that some of the worst dialogue comes in his scenes, though he delivers it like a pro.

All-in-all, Play Dead isn't too terrible a movie. It entertained me enough to waste an hour and a half. Though, I may not be reviewing the possessed killer rottweiler anytime soon. If you have nothing else to watch and killer pooches yank your leash, then Play Dead is worth a look-see, at least once.

Please feel free to visit my Absolute Horror, Killer Thriller Chillers, and Monstrous lists to see where I ranked Play Dead.

Take Care & Stay Well.

I expected at best a kind of Poor man's CUJO or something in the line of WHITE DOG but I was misunderstaood. It is a horror thriller with a painful watch for me to find the great Yvonne De Carlo lost in such a mess. I loved so much De Carlo in Paramount features from the fifties, adventures little gems made in Technicolor, and it it hurts me to assist to her downfall in such grade Z films. She is still beautiful for her age. That's the only thing that I will remember from this film. Just the last minutes are interesting.

Yvonne De Carlo of "The Munsters" fame star in this horror about a very bitter heiress who former lover falls for her sister. Because of this, she would take matters in a supernatural way. The former lover has a child, who is now grown, loses her mother in a tragic accident. Animosity and resentment gets involved in the reunion. Trying to make peace with the family, the aunt wants to move forward. But there's another thing, she has a Rottweiler from Europe that seems docile, but the appearance can be a ploy. Not only is the aunt is wealthy, she's involved in sinister black magic. She used that hulking dog to exact revenge on the lover and her sister. And turns it loose on the siblings as well. Driving the niece out of her mind, and causing much mayhem. This dog is so smart, it can throw off the brightest of detectives. Especially, when he put that drain cleaner along with the seltzer. Can't tell which is which. This movie was not well made. A little spoiler from the crew was spotted during the love scenes. In fact, I was wrong about "Dogs" in 1976, this movie really was barking up the wrong tree. 1 star!

This might be some kind of b-movie classic. This is a film where a dog is the killer, but those expecting Cujo style dog attacks will be well let down, because this dog does it's whacking gangland style, yo.

Some Auntie who's into Satan and all that jive isn't too happy with the way her dead sister's estate turned out (I think). So she trains up this dog to be a killer and gives it to her niece as a present. Only prob is that this dog is out to kill all of aunt's enemies and does so by accidental car death, electrocution, strangulation and poison.

Like you I was wondering why it didn't just rip the throats out of folks, but there you go. Maybe it was because the dog involved was such a cutey and no one could believe it could kill someone using it's teeth. Who knows.

Also, there's this sex scene that seems to involve body doubles, and the body double covering for the chick has bweuubs three times the size of the actress she's covering for so watch out for that.

This film is great!

Right off, I have to explain why I've given this film ten stars.

Bad films are something of an art form in themselves. Think Ed Wood, think Brian DePalma (come on... be honest, he s*cks, and you know it.) Play Dead has no pretensions. It knows it's a pile of crap, and it revels in it (in as much as a film can do anything more than just exist, but bear with me, I've got this theory...) Look, the dog, while a bit underbitten and mopish looking, just excludes sweetness. She's a Serious Canine Actress, and a God Dog, and she's trying -- for God's sake. Can't say much for Lily Munster though, except, for a husky old broad, she still looks pretty good.

Come on -- it's a film about a Satan-inspired Rottweiler serial killer, what did you expect? Straw Dogs? Mystic River? Hell Comes to Frog Town? Hand me another Heinekin and I'll shut up, serious.

And come on -- the dog was cute.

Play Dead aka Killer Dog is a pretty mild horror film about an mean spirited elderly woman (Yvonne De Carlo), who uses her rothweiler Greta (one of the nicest dogs you have ever seen) to get rid of a few people who are in her way. And not in the kind of way you would expect from a dog which is supposed to be ferocious, De Carlo uses cuty pie Greta and her black magic to kill her victims off in quite creative ways, how to discribe this movie... Greta the killer dog convinces the audience to be one of the most lovable dogs ever, and the added growling effects are quite laughable. They tried to add some intensity to use slow motion each time Greta comes in action, which failed in my opinion. The death scenes them selves are a bit foreboding, you know what's about to happen before the deaths itself. A bit of gore would've been nice (since there isn't any), to make a long story short. I would only reccommand this "killer"dog flick if you're into unknown works of obscurity.

Satan's Dog is the British title for Play Dead, the VHS came with striking artwork but as is so often the case the film did not live up to the packaging. Yvonne de Carlo plays a rich but bitter woman who imports a large Rottweiler from Europe called Greta and uses black magic to control her, killing people for her own greedy ends. If you are hoping to see gory dog on human attacks then you will be disappointed. Greta is a very intelligent dog and doesn't want the deaths traced back to her, for example while a woman is taking a bath the clever dog drops an electrical appliance into the water and zap! Having said that a couple of deaths do see some of the red stuff. The black magic scenes don't have much bite either. Much better is the movie Devil Dog (1978)

My review was written in October 1986 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.

"Play Dead" is an old-fashioned horror film about a killer dog. Though filmed in Texas in 1981, picture was not released until early this year.

Yvonne De Carlo toplines as Aunt Hester, a rich woman who decides to kill off her relatives. Her sister just died after years in a mental home and Hester was always jealous of her, and in love with sis' husband who also died. Bringing a rottweiler dog named Greta home from Europe, Hester gives the animal as a gift to he niece Audrey (Stephanie Dunnam) and via supernatural incantations orders the dog to kill Audrey and other family members or innocent bystanders.

Silly film unfolds leisurely as a police investigation with folksy Det. Otis (Glenn Kezer) padding out the running time with his slow-witted tracking down of clues until the dog slips a dose of lye into Otis' Alka-Seltzer. Pic's finale of Hester ironically getting her just desserts is not very exciting but is played twice, once as a flash-forward during the opening credits and later in its proper sequence.

Director Peter Wittman (who later made the comedy "Ellie") uses stop-motion slow motion footage of the dog during each attack, bu Greta remains unscary, as does the film itself. Acting is okay, with De Carlo a campy highlight. Oddly, Earl Owensby produced his much-publicized but little-seen 3-D horror opus "Rottweiler" (a/k/a "Dogs of Hell") in 1981 also, but neither production was able to extract horror from the noble breed.