Summary:
In the post-apocalyptic year of 2024, a boy and his telepathic dog travel across a wasteland in search of food, shelter, and sex.
My Thoughts:
I heard about this film long before I watched it. This is one of those staple films in the post-apocalyptic genre; after all, it came four years before the original “Mad Max” (the initial entry of what I consider the pinnacle series of post-apocalyptic films) and was one of its main inspirations ( also one of the main inspirations for the Fallout series, if we’ve got any gamers reading). At the same time that I had heard of this films existence, I had heard differing reports as to the quality of the film, and, to make matters worse, the first person who told me about this movie described it as “A boy and a psychic dog go around looking for people to rape,” and while that certainly sounds weird, it also wasn’t exactly something I wanted to go out of my way to see.
Now, having watched this film, I wouldn’t honestly say that that description is wrong, but it’s not wholly accurate either. The film certainly contains a few scenes of misogyny towards women, and our protagonist, Vic (Don Johnson, “Knives Out”), isn’t exactly an upright individual, but if you give the film a chance to let itself play out, you can start to understand why Vic is the way that he is; you might start to understand the relationship between Vic and Blood his dog (voiced by Tim McIntire, “Jeremiah Johnson”); and you might even begin to chuckle at a bit of the black humor that permeates their world. “A Boy and His Dog” is not a film that will appeal to everyone, but it certainly worked for me.
“Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority.”
One of the things I liked most about this film was how it just plopped us down next to Vic and Blood and we had to figure out what was happening and what the rules of the world were, and then, once we did figure out the rules, it was obvious they could still shift at any given moment. The relationship between Vic and Blood is rather contentious, and through their bickering we come to learn about the world: a place ‘Over the Hill’ that supposedly has utopian living above ground; the Downunder, a place built by humans to survive the apocalypse (think the Vaults in the Fallout Games); and we learn bout the rules of the world- the fact that men have largely regressed to being savages, and roam in hordes across the wasteland, looking for women to have sex with. Because Vic grew up without parents or an education, he follows the status quo, while Blood, whom is ironically the smarter, more well read of the pair, simply follows Vic because he will provide him food.
After the two find a woman named Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Benton, “Catch-22 (1970)”) they are surprised when she doesn’t resist sex, but instead offers it to Vic. Vic, unsure of how to handle this new twist, goes along with it and soon finds himself attracted to Quilla, much to Blood’s disgust. Quilla then reveals that she’s from Downunder and asks Vic to accompany her, again, to the displeasure of Blood. The film takes a weird, almost Lynchian turn after that, but it only half succeeds in my opinion.
(SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW)
After Vic goes into the Downunder, he finds a world that is undeniably weird- where everyone is forced to makeup their faces to look as if they’re smiling (they look like the woman behind the radiator in “Eraserhead”), and the dwellings made to look as if they were pre-ww2 America; the world feels very cultish, and that part I liked. The problem was, the scenes in the Downunder and the scenes above ground feel as if they’re from completely different worlds, and it took me about as long to adapt to the world underground as it did for those scenes to come to their conclusions. The Downunder has just as many weird rules and characters as the above ground wasteland, but that world is only given maybe thirty minutes of screen time, and it’s hard to really fully appreciate everything that’s going on. It just felt so rushed. Though it was weird and slightly surreal, and I honestly don’t think the production design was that great when compared to the far more detailed world above ground. I still appreciated what the story was doing, I just felt as if it could’ve been handled better and differently.
The ending of this film is what really solidified it as a good film in my opinion; though the stuff below ground really sort of wavered in quality, the final scene where Vic comes back above ground to see Blood still waiting for him was absolutely wonderful. It was heartwarming to see the relationship between Vic and Blood, and then it was absolutely hysterical to hear implied what happened to Quilla after she suggested they leave Blood behind. The final line of the film really was probably one of my favorites of the whole film.
Verdict:
I really enjoyed this film, and I honestly think anyone who has an interest in post-apocalyptic/ exploitation/ weird sci-fi cinema should see it. At this point, the film has become enough of a cult classic that it even received a Blu-Ray release, and it is currently (as of the day I write this review- 1/31/20) streaming on Amazon. If you like weird movies, this one is one you shouldn’t miss.
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