Score: 2.5 / 5
In Short: Dogtooth is a stylish test of endurance. Exposing the audience to a horrific morale calamity but evading all opportunities to go beyond the initial shock.
Raising your kids on a remotely isolated ranch with no connection to the outside world isn't the most responsible thing a parent can do. In fact it's probably how the whole Clonus Horror thing started.
But if you were to also feed your captive juniors some brain-scrambling nonsense (a la clonus horror), and play on their juvinile imaginations into late adolescence: then there'll be little surprise when they blossom into a pack of misguided gollumites. Throw in some crispy nuggets of incest, season with violence and serve in a cardboard bucket of bizarre family rituals, and you've been served Dogtooth. A family-sized portion of harrowing subject matter, for (definitely not) the whole family to enjoy.
Of their achievements, chief of which include hitting each other with hammers and blaming it on ninja cats, killing said felines with garden shears and performing home dental surgery with workout gear.
It probably doesn't help that the parents are even stranger than the captive offspring. In fact, dad's a real heavyweight with the VCR Player (as pictured above).
In short, pointless meandering and sex scenes don't leave room for any real story.
Sadly the film ends just as it should be getting going. The only level of character progression is thinly spread and there's no morale redemption or big payoff. Not to say that every film needs these components to work, but Dogtooth wastes too much time to be an exception.
Hear truth: Boys and girls of the future, for I speak to you through the Portals of Time. Internet time to be precise, as the first draft of this post was penned in early 2008.
So what has kept the merry ship Fubar Gaming, then Out of Mana and now finally, Manawolf stranded at the dolorous port of blog limbo for nigh on three years? Lethargy? Procrastination? An irrational fear of FTP?
Some mysteries may never be solved.
But hey! Don't be blue, it's all double Nectar Points from here on. Gird your loins for incoming waffle, reviews, big ups, pointless opinion and probably more. We might even finish one of our projects. You can friend us on facebook, here. And feel free to comment as updates trickle in.
But for now just kick back and grab yourself a cool Mana Potion while we get this shaky show on the road.
Ambiguously yours,
Lou,
Manawolf Team
Welcome one and welcome all to the grand 2010 re-launch of Out of Mana.co.uk, home of Neon Relapse, Sunken Orchestra and all sorts of babbling News and Features. We've been offline for over two-years now yet our top minds have calculated this as being the fifth incarnation of the website which started oh-so long ago as Fubar Gaming. This time around we hope to bring you more than just game development resources and guides. Neon Relapse, our debut webcomic is coming along strongly and features exciting scenes like this!
[NR Image Here]
For those out there more into steampunk, level-ups and 16-bit action then Sunken Orchestra might just be worth keeping an eye on.
[SO Image Here]