Director – Burt Brinckerhoff, Screenplay – O’Brian Tomalin, Producers – Allan F. Bodoh & Bruce Cohn, Photography – Bob Steadmn, Music – Alan Oldfield. Production Company – Mar Vista Productions/Bruce Cohn Productions.
Cast
David McCallum (Dr Harlan Thompson), Sandra McCabe (Caroline Donoghue), George Wyner (Dr Michael Fitzgerald), Eric Server (Jimmy Goodman), Sterling Swanson (Dr Morton Koppelman), Linda Gray (Charlotte Engle), Barry Greenberg (Howard Kaplan), Dean Santoro (Dr Aintry), Holly Harris (Louise Koppelman)
Plot
Harlan Thompson has recently transferred to the science department at the university in a small Sacramento town. He puzzles over a number of dog attacks in the area. He and colleague Michael Fitzgerald come to the conclusion than that the dogs are somehow being affected to behave as a pack and are acting much more aggressive than usual. The university’s dean Morton Koppelman ridicules them when they suggest asking the townspeople to stay inside at night. The dean’s wife then comes under attack when the dogs at a dog show turns on the humans. Everywhere the townspeople come under siege as the dogs turn against humanity with killing intent.
The 1970s brought a sudden interest in Animals Attacks films. The way was started by Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), which created the familiar trope of an animal species suddenly, inexplicably turning against humanity. Subsequent hits such as Willard (1971) and in particular the behemoth that was Jaws (1975) created a fad for such films. To follow would be the likes of Frogs (1972), Chosen Survivors (1974) with vampire bats attacking survivors in a nuclear fallout shelter, Phase IV (1974), Grizzly (1976), Rattlers (1976), the killer worm film Squirm (1976), Day of the Animals (1977), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), The Swarm (1978), The Bees (1978) and Alligator (1980), among others. (I have an essay on the topic here with Animals Attack Films).
Making dog attacks into the basis of a horror film has proven of variable effectiveness. Certainly there are films that have done so with Rottweiler/Dogs of Hell (1983), White Dog (1982), Man’s Best Friend (1993), Rottweiler (2004), The Breed (2006), The Pack (2015) and Bullet Head (2017), as well as the demonic canine minions in The Omen (1976), even Zoltan … Hound of Dracula/Dracula’s Dog (1978). Some of these do so better than others. I have a particular liking for The Pack (1977), a much superior dog attack film that came out eight months later the same year as Dogs, and the subsequent Stephen King adaptation Cujo (1983).
The problem with Dogs is that a number of the dogs look cute and inoffensive and never pose much of a threat. In many of the early scenes at least, director Burt Brinckerhoff does not do much to make the attacks seem that threatening, although things do pick in the latter half. There is one moderately vicious scene where Linda Gray is attacked by a dog that enters her house while she is in the shower. The film reaches its peak during the scenes with David McCallum and Sandra McCabe trapped in her house and barricaded into the garage as the dogs force their way in, which are interspersed with scenes with the students at the university under siege from a massed dog attack.
(l to r) George Wyner and David McCallum face the threat of killer dogs
I was quite surprised about the script. Of all these Animals Attack films, it is the only one that starts to look beyond theories like pollution or sunspots as the cause of the animal’s behaviour. It has George Wyner giving college classes on pheromones and how they alter behaviour and scenes with he and David McCallum testing out theories as to how the dogs are suddenly given to start acting as a group. There is even a scene where McCallum gives an explanation as to why giant insects wouldn’t work in reality. The film never particularly settles on an actual cause but the search for answers makes it not uninteresting.
The film’s only major starring name is David McCallum who was then known as a teen heartthrob as a result of tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-8) and subsequently roles in tv’s Colditz (1972-4), Sapphire & Steel (1979-82) and NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (2003- ). In the introductory scenes at least, McCallum gives a disgruntled performance as though he gives the impression he wasn’t too happy being there but thereafter settles to play with a solid-headed certainty. The other recognisable name is Linda Gray, not long after to gain fame as J.R. Ewing’s wife Sue Ellen in the hit tv series Dallas (1978-91), who here plays a faculty member behind a pair of glasses.
Dogs was the only theatrical film directed by Burt Brinckerhoff. Brinckerhoff had a career as an actor in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s, Brinckerhoff became a director in tv, mostly episodic work, while also a producer of tv’s 7th Heaven (1995-2007). His other genre works include the possession tv movie The Invasion of Carol Enders (1973), the tv mini-series adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian work Brave New World (1980) and an adaptation of Frankenstein (1986).
