| Richard
Crenna, Yvette Mimeaux, Kim Richards
In an occasionally hot but overall dull "suburban family adopts spawn
of hell puppy from man with vegetable cart" story, the luminous (and
rapturously overdressed) Yvette Mimieux and her husband
Richard Crenna (uh... right...) try to deal with the
fact that their little scrap of a pooch has murdered their maid and possessed
their children, who are conveniently played by the little shits from Witch
Mountain (did they come as a matched pair?). After the death
of their dog Skipper, the grieved family falls prey to the puppy-bestowing
wiles of a produce peddler whose side job is apparently distributing demonic
puppies throughout the California suburbs. Whatever -- it's a living.
The pooch -- with a patented lazer-eye stare -- brainwashes the kids,
then mom, who turns from loving wife to vicious ice-bitch with a flourish
that might be considered "acting".
Crenna
is finally onto the scheme, but will he destroy Super Scrappy Satan Pup
before it's too late? Most of this by-the-numbers possessed-pet drama
is
pretty lame, to be quite honest -- but it's worth checking out for the
occasional glimpse of the pooch in full demon drag -- he sports fake horns
and a black feather boa, which make him look more ready for a Cher
concert than a satanic ritual. Or perhaps I'm splitting hairs.
The final-act "investigating" done by Crenna is so half-hearted
that you wonder why they even bothered to shoot it -- he ends up in Mexico
with a cab driver, or something -- I don't know. But as long as the camera
is on the gorgeous Mimieux or the adorable (evil! adorably evil!) puppy,
things are kind of hot. Director Curtis Harrington is
best known for his big-screen camp thrillers (The
Killing Kind is pretty awesome), and here he doesn't really
stand out from the pack -- no wonder he hung up the MOTW reins and went
on to directing nighttime soaps. Best scene: the sequence where Mimieux,
thumbing through a fashion magazine, is gradually stalked by the clueless-looking
dog in the living room, and the subsequent "chase". Pure camp.
|
