Dogs of Hell (1983) User Reviews

The Duke bites back

[Chase_Witherspoon · 5/10 · 11 June 2011]

Amateurish, bloody, dimly-lit North Carolina production has the inimitable Earl Owensby as a mumbling, expressionless sheriff who must protect a town of unsuspecting yokels from an onslaught by a pack of aggressive rottweilers, trained by the government as special operations assassins, accidentally set free after the convoy transporting them overturns.

Filmed in 3-D, director Keeter (a frequent Owensby collaborator, e.g. "Wolfman") builds an effective (and bloody) climax as the rabid hounds systematically corral the occupants of a luxury country club then treat themselves to the buffet. Camera angles framed for the purpose of accentuating the 3-D effects obviously do little when you're watching this on your regular TV-set (as I did), and the action is at times so cloaked in darkness (not to mention the incoherent dialogue) that it's often difficult to follow what's happening.

If you accept that the flaws are attributable to its independent production values scale, and yet despite those constraints there's plenty of gory attack scenes and expensive looking explosions for those interested, then you might be persuaded to watch "Rottweiler" (aka "Dogs from Hell") at least once. Hard to locate, I got my copy as a VHS reject during the DVD revolution and I suspect the ex-rental market is the only place you'll find a copy, until someone enterprising (perhaps Owensby himself) decides to unlock the 3-D potential and re-release on DVD.

Shot and originally released in 3-D

[Stereo3dguy · 5/10 · 23 January 2006]

This film must be seen in the original widescreen 3-D process; as the excellent use of stereoscopic space is its only virtue. If you like cheesy horror flicks, you'll likely appreciate it a bit more. Earl is no actor, but he's fun in this silly little movie.

After seeing COMIN' AT YA! rake in the cash in 1981, Earl got the idea (as did many a producer at the time) that 3-D would bring attention to his low budget southern flicks and decided to shoot everything that way! This was the first of SIX 3-D movies made by Earl Owensby in the 1980's. The others were TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION, CHAIN GANG, HIT THE ROAD RUNNING, HYPERSPACE, and HOT HEIR (aka GREAT BALLOON CHASE).

Another horror dog of the 80s.

[Coventry · 3/10 · 14 May 2018]

Next to approximately three dozen of other horror themes and subgenres, yours truly is also a giant fan of movies with killer dogs. After recently having seen the surprisingly decent 2015 Aussie effort "The Pack", my interest to seek out some older canine flicks got re-sparked, but then you are instantly confronted with the large number of truly bad titles that exist here. The early and mid-70s still spawned a few cool movies, like "Trapped" (1973), "Dogs" (1976) and "The Pack" (1977), but the 1980s excelled in horrible killer dog movies! The list is quite long already ("Mongrel", "Play Dead", "Monster Dog", "Humongous") and "Rottweiler" (a.k.a. "Dogs of Hell") may be added to it as well. Like with the others, the best thing about this film is the poster image, and everything else is beyond bad. The script is weak, the lead characters don't have any charisma, the acting performances are miserable, the few potentially exciting dog-attack sequences are poorly lit and fuzzy, and the whole thing is stuffed with irrelevant and downright dumb footage (like for example mud-wrestling contests and bar fights). US Military scientist Fletcher was assigned to train a pack of Rottweilers into becoming powerful army weapons, but at the beginning of the film we witness him begging to his superiors to abandon the entire project because the animals lost all their emotional capacities and developed a hatred against humans. The military top refuses, naturally, and the dogs escape during transportation. Apart from unstoppable fighting machines, these nasty puppies are apparently also Houdinis, since they manage to escape from a truck that immediately explodes after a collision. Now they are at large in a sort of mountain spa resort community, with only a lousy Sheriff and a couple of rednecks with guns as their opponents. I understand from the other reviews that lead actor/producer Earl Owensby enjoys some kind of cult reputation, but I certainly cannot guess where that comes from. His performance as the Sheriff is the worst of all (hardly could understand a word he was saying) and he also didn't bother to liberate any budget for the action scenes. Isn't that what producers are supposed to do? There are a few idiotic and senseless plot twists, like the devoted scientist suddenly turning into a madman, and far too many sentimental dialogues/monologues coming from people literally nobody cares about.

So, weren't there any good killer dog movies in the 80s then? Well, the adaptation of Stephen King's novel "Cujo" is enjoyable, but also certainly not a masterpiece. The only truly brilliant film that I would recommend in this genre is Samuel Fuller's "White Dog" (1982).

It's kind of a fun movie...

[lost1-1 · 9 June 2003]

yup... it's kind of fun to watch "Dogs of Hell" if you like to watch movies that were originally intended to be in 3D and pretend to be wow-ed by the scenes where they intend to shoot, throw, or point things out at you. Originally released as "Rottweiler" in 1982, you can see how the entire movie is relying on the fact that at some point they're gonna throw something towards the camera. As I watched it I thought after the first hour that I'd rented a movie called "Mystery Dog" because you never actually saw what was attacking these 80's act-bots (so amazing how they could manage to have such 2-dimensional actors in a 3D movie). And the dogs you eventually see look like your neighbor's dogs do when the kids tease it...hardly a fright. But it wasn't as though the film were a real disappointment as I hadn't expected much. The highlight of the movie for me was when the sherriff would shoot the dogs with his big ol' 44. You'd see the picture cut away from a snarling rottweiler to a cheap, paper machete casting of a rottweiler's head that would then explode throwing bologna, chocolate milk, stale beer and whatever else they decided would look like dog brains all over the place. Yup. "Dogs of Hell" was a moderately humorous way to neglect quality time and a gem if you're into watching obscure movies that don't diserve to be remembered just because you know they wont be.

Don't waste your time on this movie

[wbells · 1/10 · 10 February 2002]

This movie was very disappointing. When I chose this movie to watch, I expected to see lots of dog scenes & lots of blood. Most of the attack scenes consisted of some snarling then somebody screams & runs from the camera & then you see them with some scratch marks on their face & throats. I could have done better effects from my kitchen. The dialogue was awful & boring, the editing was terrible, there is not one thing worthwhile about this movie.

nice doggy, good doggy...

[.gif · 1/10 · 23 April 1999]

Oh my, how scary. Nice doggies wagging their tails. What are they going to do? Lick my face 'til death?

Rock-bottom cheapie.

[gridoon · 1/10 · 6 October 2002]

You know, it's really a shame that most people have never heard of this movie. Because viewing it might just alter your perceptions about bad films. You will realize, after this, how often the phrase "this is the worst movie ever made" is inappropriately used; "Rottweiler" IS the worst movie ever made! I guess there have been, and there will be, movies AS bad as this one, but it's highly doubtful whether there has ever been a movie WORSE than this one. It's the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" of killer-dog films. It looks as if it was shot with a bad video camera, and the acting is beyond bad. How can anyone give it anything higher than a "0"?

The scariest thing about this movie is the mud

[aztrshbyz · 2/10 · 23 July 2017]

This movie wasn't worth the time it took to watch it. Originally shot in 3D, I saw a video copy of 2D.

The film is about rottweilers that have been trained by the military to be killing machines. They get loose and wreak havoc.

First of all, let me say that I have no issue with that fact that this film is about killer rottweilers - there was a similar movie that featured German shepherds (I own one) in the same vein as this one that I thought was as ridiculous for the same reasons. I didn't dislike this movie because I'm loyal to the breed - I disliked it because it was pretty awful all around.

For starters, Dogs of Hell suffers from poor acting that was just painful to watch. I don't know if it was the print I saw, but half of the actors sounded like they had been sucking helium. Even so, the way all of the actors delivered their lines was just terrible.

Secondly, the script wasn't great - you have a doctor who can't even determine if a neck wound was made by something with sharp teeth or a "knife wielding maniac". I won't be making an appointment with him anytime soon. It was also really, really predictable to the point where I could tell who was going to die when and who, even though the character was taking a chance, wasn't going to be attacked. Too, the film has a fair amount of jump scares that did nothing but annoy me.

However, the mud is the scariest stuff I've ever seen. I have no idea what that was that folks were wrestling in but it certainly wasn't mud (there is a mud wrestling scene in a bar towards the beginning of the film).

The movie does have a fair amount of blood and gore, but only one scene where you see the dogs actually attacking two people in tandem. You can tell that all of the other killing scenes were filmed separately.

Give this one a pass unless you really, really hate rottweilers. Even so, don't say you weren't warned.

A dog of a movie

[meathookcinema · 2/10 · 24 September 2018]

Ahh, the 3D craze of the early 80's. Some films were great and used the gimmick really well (take a bow, Friday the 13th 3D) whilst others were films just a flat and mediocre in 3D as they would have been in 2D. This film belongs in the latter category.

I only watched this as I saw the VHS art on a friend's Instagram page and it looked luridly interesting.

A truckload of killer dogs trained by the army to fight like a whole battalion of men runs off the road and crashes releasing it's deadly cargo in a small American town- the kind of town that has mud wrestling in the local bars. The scientist who trained the dogs arrives to try to make sure the dogs don't kill too many people. Or is he secretly interested in saving his work?

There are no spliffs being passed to the audience, no eyeballs being popped out or snakes in sense shattering 3D to look forward to here. In fact I watched this in less than stunning 2D and the film feels more like an early 80's TV movie like The Savage Bees (but not as good) than like a proper film made for the cinema. In fact this feels like it was only distributed as a film as it was shot in 3D and the gimmick wouldn't have worked if it was shown on TV's rather than on a cinema screen.

In fact the guy who consulted on the 3D for this film also worked on Jaws 3D. If theres any bigger warning against seeing this film then that's it.

See it in 3-D!

[brettdavidsmith · 6/10 · 19 November 2006]

I first saw this in 2-D VHS and didn't really like it. A few years later i got my hands on a 3-D (field sequential)VHS copy and was quite surprised by the photography. The film was originally titled 'Rottweiler'. The story concerns a pack of genetically engineered attack dogs (for the military) that escape and cause havoc among citizens of a sleepy mountain town. Think 'Jaws' with dogs instead of sharks. You get the idea. Many scenes were well composed to take full advantage of the 3-D medium. Of course the acting is horrible, plot and script nearly missing but hey, it's a 3-D movie. What did you expect? Just sit back, put your 3-D glasses on, turn your brain off and enjoy it for what it is. A z-grade 3-D guilty pleasure. Otherwise, skip it.

A watchable movie.

[Scurfield · 5/10 · 29 June 2000]

This 3-D horror film, from Earl Owensby Studios, pits the local sheriff (played by Earl Owensby) against a pack of specially bred man-killing Rottweilers.

The U.S. Military has developed a new experimental weapon; Rottweilers who have been specially bred and trained to replace soldiers in gorilla warfare situations. Unfortunately for the residents of Lake Lure (America's Mountain Playground) the dogs have escaped and are killing anyone they come across.

Although dead bodies are turning up left and right Sheriff Hank Willis inexplicably decides not to warn the community, but instead puts together a posse to hunt down the dogs. The dogs are quite easy to kill, as their heads explode whenever they are shot, but finding the dogs before the dogs find their next victim is no easy task. Eventually the truth of the bloody-deaths reveals itself to the population, but common sense in this small resort town is in short supply. Soon only the sheriff is left alive to protect his town and family from the savage killers. Complicating matters further is the presence of Adam Fletcher, the scientist responsible for the creation of the military super-dogs. Fletcher wants to protect his experimental canine subjects, and is willing to fight Willis to save his dogs.

Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell is not the worst film of its kind (Skeeter immediately comes to mind). It is a watchable movie, but I would recommend it to only the most serious of Rottweiler lovers. I rate it a 5 out of 10.

Still bothers me

[QueenoftheGoons · 9/10 · 14 January 2021]

I was allowed to watching anything growing up. whatever dad had on VHS i slipped it into the VCR. This was one. Had nightmares for weeks, horrified to go to bed. I had a real Rottweiler scare not long after this so i think that's why it bothers me some and still to this day. i love Earl Owensby so i watch it every so often now that i have the DVD. No horror movie made scares me, i can watch torture, rape, murder any of it, with any beast or man killing movie. This one still bothers me. But its sensible, i mean we live among dogs. Rabies and killer dogs exist, zombies and vampires don't.

3D dogs

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 24 April 2023]

I'm so obsessed and delighted by the movies of Earl Owensby, who produced 18 movies with his own studio, including the Elvis death cash-in starring his last girlfriend Ginger Alden Living Legend: The King of Rock and Roll, Christian slasher - yes, really - Day of Judgement, the anthology with a doubled up title Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D and religious retribution movie Dark Sunday. Man, he even made Lady Gray, a movie with David Allen Coe as the star. He even loaned out his studio to other films, like The Order of the Black Eagle and The Abyss. He also had that Cannon idea down before they did: his E. O. Studios' success was due to never spending more than a million dollars on a movie and never signing a distribution deal that made him less than eight million in profit.

Owensby made movies in Shelby, North Carolina and they played drive-ins in towns just like it. He knew his audience and what they wanted. And for this, well, they wanted 3-D dogs.

Also known as Rottweiler 3-D, this was the first of six movies from E. O. Studios that required special glasses to watch. The others - in case you're like me and want to watch all of them - are Hot Heir, Chain Gang, Hyperspace, Hit the Road Running and Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D.

Director Worth Keeter also made several movies for Owensby - how many times can I say Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D in this - and went on to direct episodes of Power Rangers and Silk Stalkings. And the aforementioned The Order of the Black Eagle plus Sybil Danning in L. A. Bounty. Writer Thom McIntyre directed, well, you guessed it, Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D, and wrote several of Owensby's other movies under names like Lynelle Grey and Grey Lynellee.

Up at Fort Bragg, the military is trying to replace soldiers with dogs. As you can imagine, things get out of control. This is a welcome event, as the town of Lake Lure isn't the most exciting place to be. Owensby plays the sheriff; the town has a vibrant mud wrestling scene; somehow fashion models show up there and get torn to pieces in the woods in 3-D by the dogs.

Released months after Cujo - that's how you do it! - this has a dog's head blow up real good, an effect created by Fred Olen Ray. I mean, the dogs are driven insane by the military-industrial complex, but I do hate to see dogs be the victims in movies.

I have no idea why Earl Owensby's movies aren't more available. Let's make that happen, boutique labels.

"Rottweilers...and they were trained to kill."

[Backlash007 · 8 January 2004]

Okay, I give up. It really is impossible to make a good killer dog movie. This is a prime example of what not to do. Don't set the movie in Hickville, don't cast a bunch of real hicks, and don't take ten years to get to the dog action. The title was so promising: Dogs of Hell!! I was more than ready for some hell hound horror. You do get a small dose of that, it's just not what you want. Chick screams then gets covered in blood. You hear the dog panting but you never see him. The camera stays in the dogs POV. The Rottweilers and the humans are never onscreen at the same time. Dogs of Hell is a mega-low budget movie and is not worth your time. This dog just has no bite.

"They were perfectly trained for one task: Manslaughter!"

Hell hound childhood

[stuarchie · 10/10 · 6 July 2016]

True story .. In 1990 I was a 5 year old harmless young lad. One day I was shown this movie by my loving sister' how bad could it be' well considering we had 2 fully grown Rottweilers living as happy family dogs May of caused the issue. After watching it I didn't feel any problems wasn't till it was bedtime then boom terrifying nightmares every week or so I was even scared of the tape itself. Actually destroying it in the end I was young never actually scared of Zara and Sugih They were great dogs. So after reminiscing and watching this film again I can say 10/10 for effort I'm properly still scarred in some way .

Ugly!

[kita117 · 12 November 2002]

This movie is so stupid. I went through a lot to try to find this movie. I only could rent it anyway. Maybe it was just for rental because it was too bad enough to keep on the market for people to buy. You could not even see the dogs killing people as if they would switch the camera every minute. Being a horror movie genre fan, you would think the title had a good significance as to why I would want to see this movie really bad. I wonder are there any other killer dog movies that beat this one.

Free on YouTube

[maclem-41391 · 8/10 · 5 March 2020]

You can Watch this movie free on YouTube I don't like this app a lot of movies not available or they won't to change you 😩😩😩😩😩

My first Earl Owensby flick - and probably my last!

[Wizard-8 · 30 June 2002]

An unbelievably bad effort by independent producer Earl Owensby, not just for the fact it rips off "The Pack" and "Dogs". It's unbelievable in its ineptness, starting with photography so poor (especially during the night sequences) that the movie looks like it was shot in 8 MM. The attack sequences are very lazy - mostly we just HEAR the attacks instead of seeing them, and when we DO see them, it's only for a split second. We do see the aftermath of the attacks, though the poor makeup jobs aren't any compensation. The main problem with the movie is that it's simply BORING for the most part, devoting most of the running time to showing these country folk talking to each other and going around the area. I can't see ANY reason why this could be of interest to anyone, even if someone happened to star or work on the movie. If you want to see a killer dog movie, see "The Pack". Heck, even see "Dogs" over this; though it's not very good, it's a masterpiece next to "Dogs Of Hell"!

"There's Catfish In There As Big As Dolly Parton's Last Hit!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 28 June 2021]

DOGS OF HELL is about a top secret military project involving the killer canines of the title. These ruthless Rottweilers have surgical implants, making them ferocious fuzzballs of doom.

Oh no!

They're accidentally unleashed upon an unsuspecting populace!

Starring intergalactic omni-star, Earl Owensby as Sheriff Hank Willis, this is another low-low-budget schlocker from the 1980's. As such, it must hold some sort of record, considering that every character in it is an annoying idiot. Ranging from squeaky dweebs, to yowling yahoos, the denizens of the fictional town are all equally insufferable!

Thankfully, many of them end up as dog chow.

Of particular interest are the "wilderness photoshoot gone awry" and the obligatory "mud wrestling" sequences.

Ludicrous to the extreme, this could / should have been a masterwork of slack-jawed insanity. Unfortunately, it loses points for its long stretches of trance-inducing dullness. To be fair, it's almost saved by the southern-fried, musical soundtrack, bringing to mind a sort of Lynyrd Skynyrd / Hee Haw hybrid.

The perfect movie for de-wrinkling one's brain...

Not Enough Here to Hold Your Interest

[Michael_Elliott · 14 October 2016]

Dogs of Hell (1983)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The evil U.S. government have created Rottweilers that are trained to attack and kill humans. A truckload of them are going through a small town when the truck crashes and sends the dogs on a killing spree, which has Sheriff Hank Willis (Earl Owensby) having to take control.

This here was the first of six pictures that Owensby would produce in 3D but to my knowledge there has never been a home video of this version. Most copies out there are from the video and are full screen and don't look the greatest so it's hard to judge the effects obviously but at the same time there were very few things that "jumped" at the screen outside an early scene involving a dart.

As far as the rest of the movie goes, it's really no different than films like THE PACK or DOGS. This one here contains a certain regional atmosphere, which is a plus and it's always fun seeing that charm of Owensby but outside of this there's really not too much here to recommend. The biggest problem is that the film has the majority of the attacks off the screen so we get the cheap effect of a dog growling and then the aftermath of the attack.

DOGS OF HELL has a certain low-budget appeal but there's just not enough here to make it interesting enough to recommend. That is unless you're a fan of Owensby.

"A weapon you can control. These creatures you can't control".

[lost-in-limbo · 4 February 2011]

Independent star / producer Earl Owensby 3D fable "Rottweiler: Dogs from Hell" is a trashy, but mildly fun cheap-jack little animals run amok horror enterprise. I saw this one when I was only a kid and certain scenes had stayed in my head. I couldn't remember the title, where I only found it out recently. Came across a copy and when watching it the memories came flooding back. Don't remember it being as dodgy as it was, but it remained diverting enough.

A pack of Rottweilers are trained by the military for warfare, but these vicious killing machines are accidentally released within a small mountain community when the truck they are in crashes. Soon bodies start piling up and it's up to sheriff Hank Willis (Owensby) to put an end to this carnage.

Outside this systematic set-up (that has shades of "Jaws"); there are the small-town dramas to give it that genuine sense of community. Such distractions as angst teenagers (father and son issues), catfish talk, reflective time and women mud wrestling… these kinds of things feel like nothing more than filler. There's too much of it. When it came to the dog attacks, it's rather sloppy or off-screen with crude blood effects being splashed about. However when Owensby uses his magnum on the dogs; we are treated with graphic head imploding shots. There were one or two effectively minor intense set-pieces that spring out some calculative tension. Also we get plenty of POV shots from the dogs, as well growling which sounds more like someone's stomach is churning behind the camera… maybe that's where the panting arrived from too. Nonetheless is didn't sound as bad the daggy music score with its weepy piano pieces… which always felt it was going to cut to a sequence of someone playing a piano. It was just that odd in its placement. The performances are pretty much one-note, but Owensby equips himself quite well despite the script coming off as blunt and clumsy. Low-grade shoddiness, but sort of entertaining in that.