User Reviews

if i could use one word to describe this movie,it would be:disconcerting.not really scary,but there was a slight air of unease hovering over the film.the acting was surprisingly okay,and the premise was an interesting one:50 years ago,two children disappeared, a young boy and a young girl.the girl's remains were found,but the boy was never seen again.it was rumoured that he was possessed by a local Indian tribe which may have killed the girl as part of a ritual to stop a severe drought.originally the natives apparently used a white dog in their ritual,(hence the title)rather than humans.no reason is given as to why they would then kill a girl instead.flash forward to present time.five people are sharing a cabin in the same remote location where the girl's body had been found found.I'll leave it at that.the one really annoying problem with this film is the soundtrack.every once in awhile a rock song would startup,which sounded as if the so called band would fail to make the grade as a bar band in the worst fleabag bar in existence.there were at least four occurrences of this,and each band was as horrible as the last.add to that the music does not fit the movie in any way.i'm suspecting the filmmakers hired the band as a favour to someone.it is this element which nearly sinks the movie into "B" movie oblivion.the other problem was the stupid and unsatisfying ending. i'll give this a 5*/10

The White Dog Sacrifice is set at Snake Lake just outside the Indian Reservation & northern farming community of Minden, three teen lads Jason (Jonathan Cherry), Ken (Matt Murray) & Simon (Steve Arbuckle) are given the exclusive & free use of John's lakeside log cabin. John flies them up there in his plane only to discover two people already there, a photographer named Kim (Kathleen Munroe) & her friend Rob (Christian Potenza) who were staying there & get invited to stay longer with the lad's. However things turn sinister as a dead body is found floating in Snake Lake & they start to mysteriously disappear, could it have anything to do with old ancient Indian legends?

This Canadian production was written & directed by Michael Flaman this is an awful film which is some sort of horrible mix of comedy, horror & thriller. The script is terrible, the character's are awful as is the dialogue, the story is awful & nothing, & I mean virtually nothing happens for it's entire duration. There's a stupid opening sequence (we know it's set in the past because it's in black and white) & for the remainder of the film it's just these annoying teens doing annoying things, speaking terrible dialogue, making stupid decisions & generally irritating the viewer a lot before a truly awful so-called twist ending which turns out to the most obvious way to end the film. I mean even if the makers had sat down & said to themselves 'how can we end this thing in a really predictable way' they couldn't have come up with a more lacklustre & frankly unsurprising climax which is also terrible besides being obvious. What about that dead body they fished out of the annoyingly named Snake Lake? They seemingly totally forget about him, how he died, how he got into Snake Lake & who he was, but then again the makers didn't think small things like explaining major points of the plot was that important so why should we complain? The White Dog Sacrifice (there isn't a single white dog in it much less the comparative excitement of a sacrifice) is a really terrible film, I'm sorry but nothing works, it will put you to sleep, there are major plot holes, the script is terrible, the character's are awful & I cannot stress how boring & uneventful it is.

Director Flaman does OK, at least the film looks competent & isn't anywhere as cheap looking as a lot of recent low budget horror films. Surprisingly he shoots in full 2:35:1 widescreen although he does nothing with it. The lack of blood & gore is alarming, I would go as far as to say that there isn't a single drop of blood in the entire film, not a single drop. All of the death's occur off screen & there's absolutely no horror here at all, it's not scary (showing a unseen man chop a tree down with an axe is not scary or mysterious), there's no atmosphere & there are sequences which don't make sense. The nighttime scene when Simon runs off with the boat is one, nothing is made clear & you can barely understand what has happened.

Technically the film is alright, compared to a lot of low budget horror crap to turn up on DVD lately it's not too bad but that's simply not enough, Christ this will put most people to sleep if it doesn't bore them to death first. The acting is average although the comedy relief guy Rob is both awful & irritating in equal measure.

The White Dog Sacrifice is a terrible film if you can really call it that, it's some awful horror, thriller & comedy mix that just fails on every level. Absolutely terrible & definitely not recommended.

To start with, the story idea was great, but the movie turned out to be a complete washout. Earlier reviews have already covered its pain areas. The DVD artwork/plot description being attractive enough, I recommend viewers to switch subtitles ON, fast forward it on speed 1 or 2, and you won't miss much and minimize frustration. There is no horror in watching the actors in a continuous loop of talking/bickering, fishing, walking through woods, with random bursts of songs in unrelated scenes, AND not a single white dog throughout this boring marathon. The lovely location (lake/woods) is thoroughly wasted too. The 5 min. appearance of the one night friend was to lead up to the sacrifice. If he hadn't scared Simon into getting lost in the woods (and then found & hypnotized by the Indian), the rest of them wouldn't have been separated and killed off one by one so conveniently. Didn't get the ending though… knowing that your friends are missing, how can these guys sit in the cabin instead of searching for them? And who the heck is Cam - identified as one of the four found dead with Jason, Kim and Kenny. Rob's body is not accounted for and Simon is (as we know) the hypnotized killer. So shouldn't they have searched for Rob/his body? The "surprise twists" and oversimplifications ruined this movie. Handled well, it could have been a worthwhile suspense thriller.