Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Crazy Dog

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Christian Bates-Hardy
    Pod Person

  • Crazy Dog



    Directed By: David Petrucci
    Released By: One 7 Movies
    Released On: September 9, 2014
    Cast: Giuseppe Schisano, Marco Bonetti, Tinto Brass, Franco Nero
    2012
    Purchase from Amazon

    The Movie

    Crazy Dog (Original title: Canepazzo) begins in 1983 as a man is stalked and killed by a sickle wielding serial murder dressed all in black, and in typical Giallo fashion, wearing black leather gloves. Marco, the son of the man who was murdered, grows obsessed with needing to solve the mystery of his father's murder, and that provides the catalyst for this 2012 throwback to the 70s Giallo and debut feature film from Italian indie director David Petrucci (Hope Lost).

    Marco is a traditional protagonist for a Giallo film; he's an amateur detective, and although he doesn't witness his father's murder first-hand, he makes it his mission to reveal the killer's identity without the help of the police. Any number of Giallo protagonists fit this basic description, and Marco doesn't break the mold here. To find the identity of the killer, Marco pays a visit to a criminologist named Raul Chinna, who has made his career out of studying the Crazy Dog murders. The interview between Marco and Chinna, as they discuss the history of the Crazy Dog killings, provides the frame narrative for most of the movie. This narrative involves another amateur sleuth, a journalist named David Moiraghi, who becomes obsessed with piecing together the links between the Crazy Dog murders. Each of which is distinct, except for the killer's trademark of leaving his nom-de-gore, Cane Pazzo (Crazy Dog) on or near the body of his victim. David's investigation quickly leads to him being targeted for murder by Crazy Dog, and he becomes drawn deeper into a bloody web of intrigue. It would be intriguing, at least, if this movie weren't so goddamned boring.

    Stylistically, Crazy Dog draws heavily from the Giallo films of the seventies. Or at the very least, it attempts to mimic the style of those older, but better films. The summary on the back of the DVD claims that the movie is particularly informed by the work of Sergio Martino (Torso, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), but honestly, I don't see the connection. Even when they dipped into some sleazier territory, Martino's films had a lot more style and class to offer than Crazy Dog. This film has a much trashier aesthetic, and it's not improved by its its cheap, digital camerawork either. Sure, the killer wears leather gloves, but visually this bears little similarity the stylish films it claims to be inspired by. Perhaps Martino's films had a bit of a looser, almost cinema verité quality than the precisely composed films of Dario Argento, but I think the connection between Martino's work and Crazy Dog is very tenuous. Really, the quality of the film-making on display here is really unworthy of such a comparison. At its best, Crazy Dog has the look of a low-budget foreign independent feature, and at its worst, it looks like a haphazardly constructed student film.

    There are a lot of strange sequences in Crazy Dog that don't go anywhere, and just feel like they're there to pad out the already brief 83-minute running time. There are also a lot of free form montages that knock the movie's sense of pacing completely off the rails and leave it feeling aimless and self-indulgent. The dialogue isn't especially well-written, and it's full of cliches, so there isn't much to pay attention to in the way of dialogue either. In the second half of the film, the action slows right down to a crawl as David meets more people that Crazy Dog wants dead, including some gangsters connected to a Mafia boss he had previously murdered (played by Tinto “Loves the Ass” Brass). Eventually, David's sanity is called into question, but is this just another red herring, and do you even care by this point?

    Fans of Italian genre cinema might appreciate the cameos from Tinto Brass (Caligula, All Ladies Do It) and legendary actor Franco Nero (if you're visiting this website, chances are good that you know Django). Nero's monologue is arguably the highlight of the movie, but even so, these performances don't really add a whole lot to the film except a reminder that there are better movies you could probably be watching instead of Crazy Dog. I don't want to be too hard on it, since it is a debut. Crazy Dog has an interesting premise, and it has a lot of elements that I would enjoy if it were handled differently (an amateur detective, gratuitous shots of nude Italian women, a killer who wears black leather gloves, etc). The problem is that Crazy Dog doesn't know how to adequately use the language of film to put these elements together into a satisfying whole.

    Audio/Video/Extras

    Crazy Dog appears for the first time on DVD in North America courtesy of One 7 Movies in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The quality of the video presentation here is all over the map, and mostly, it's pretty bad. It is hard to tell which is more responsible for the low quality visuals, the film-making or One 7 Movies, but considering my other criticisms regarding the cinematography, I'm going to blame the source. Crazy Dog never really sticks to one kind of aesthetic. Is it a polished looking digital feature? Maybe for a few minutes. Then it becomes a gritty, under-lit feature that looks like it was shot on Hi-8. These are indulgences that the director is ulimately responsible for, and the result is a film that doesn't look very good on DVD. It probably won't ruin your enjoyment of the movie if you like the story or what it has to offer, but the presentation here is barely adequate in the age of HD independent cinema.

    On the audio side, there's not much to say either. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track really just sounds like 2.0 stereo to my ears, as there isn't a lot of depth or layers to the audio mix. The Italian dialogue is clear, and the English subtitles are easy to read, but the whole sound mix is a little on the quiet side. There's an ambient electronic soundtrack that sort of fades in and out of the film but there isn't a lot of music present and the sound mix that is here isn't great. The film never uses audio in a way that really increases dramatic tension, and it definitely lacks the funky and progressive sounds that you'd associate with 70s Italian cinema.

    Extras include a picture gallery of behind the scenes photos, and an original trailer.

    The Final Word


    One 7 Movies came out with Crazy Dog around the same time as their reissues of vintage Italian films Top Model (L'Attrazione) and Prince of the Night (starring Klaus Kinski), but I honestly can't see why they chose to release this newer film. Those films would have been of interest to collectors of lesser-known vintage Italian films, but Crazy Dog is a modern Giallo throwback that just doesn't deliver the goods. Unless you are absolutely desperate for a new Giallo, Crazy Dog isn't worth 83-minutes of your time.











      Posting comments is disabled.

    Latest Articles

    Collapse

    • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Severin Films
      Released on: April 30th, 2024.
      Director: Lee Frost
      Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
      Year: 1969
      Purchase From Amazon

      Hot Spur – Movie Review:

      Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
    • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Mondo Macabro
      Released on: April 9th, 2024.
      Director: Max Pecas
      Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
      Year: 1985
      Purchase From Amazon

      Death Squad – Movie Review:

      Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
      ...
      03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
    • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Quality X
      Released on: February 28th, 2024.
      Director: Chuck Vincent
      Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
      Year: 1982
      Purchase From Amazon

      Roommates – Movie Review:

      Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
    • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Blue Underground
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Jess Franco
      Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
      Year: 1970
      Purchase From Amazon

      Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

      Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
    • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Saul Bass
      Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
      Year: 1974
      Purchase From Amazon

      Phase IV – Movie Review:

      Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
      ...
      03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
    • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
      Ian Jane
      Administrator
      by Ian Jane


      Released by: Radiance Films
      Released on: March 26th, 2024.
      Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
      Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
      Year: 1969-1972
      Purchase From Amazon

      The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

      Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
      ...
      03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
    Working...
    X