Doghouse – On DVD now

This British horror comedy twists the classic ‘battle of the sexes’ scenario to the extreme. We begin with Vince, soon to be divorced whose friends decide that what he needs to cheer him up is a lad’s weekend – booze and birds and testosterone. The group of friends take themselves off to the isolated village of Moodley where they hear that there are 3 women for every man – what could go wrong?

Unfortunately the village isn’t all that they expected as the female population has been affected by a classified military experiment that has turned them into flesh eating zombies – feeding off the men and guess who are now on the menu.

I came to this film with not many expectations, the only thing I knew about it was that Noel Clark and Danny Dyer are in it and it’s a British zombie film. I suppose that should have meant that I had nothing to loose by watching it which I guess is just as well as this film disappointed on many levels.

The male vs. female premise was flimsy and crude to say the least, for me I cannot understand why you would feel sympathy for a bunch of misogynists, admittedly some of the characters are not – token gay guy for instance but they are few in number and largely underdeveloped. As for the portrayal of women from the outset – even before the group hit Moodly they are portrayed as screaming harpies only good enough to be called ‘slag’ or ‘Candy’ and when in the village there are so many more stereotypes it just gets really boring.

The script to largely borrows from the superior Shaun of the Dead, or numerous other zombie films but falls short of being funny. You are much better watching Shaun or Zombieland – at least they deliver the undead and humour. Noel Clarke is also wasted in this movie - he deserves so much more.

All you are left with is a lot of gory effects and the loosest possible storyline – if that’s your thing by all means watch this film.

Director: Jake West

Cast:
Danny Dyer – Neil
Stephen Graham – Vince
Noel Clarke – Mikey
Terry Stone – Sgt Gavin Wright
Christina Cole – Candy

For the official website click here