Like Dogs – Different enough to make it worthwhile

I didn’t really know what to expect when I saw down to watch ‘Like Dogs,’ – the blurb didn’t really give much away, other than two people had been captured and were being treated like – you guessed it – canines.  And that’s actually a pretty good summary.

When the film opens we meet the protagonist – a woman who has been abducted against her will, chained to a wall in a seemingly nondescript building and is being fed some sort of dubious meat-stuff in a bowl off the floor.  Naturally, she’s not too pleased with her masked captors and does her best to escape – but, seeing as she’s chained to a wall, she obviously doesn’t get very far.  Soon she realises she’s not alone in there, as there’s also a man in an equally degrading position a few bays down from her.  They strike up a bond and, more importantly, ideas on how to break free.

I’ll leave it there in terms of plot as there are some elements that you might not see coming (I didn’t, but then I’m notoriously bad at predicting ‘twists!’).  I expected what was probably going to be ‘torture p0rn’ and, I guess there are some elements, but there’s also a lot more to the mystery than first meets the eye.

As it got into the final act the dynamics of the movie shifted a bit over the way it appeared to be heading and, for a moment, I thought it was going to do a 180 degrees and effectively undo all the dark undertones that had been building.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when this was merely an attempt to lull the audience into thinking it may actually be going in a different direction, before making sure it course-corrected and stuck true to the elements it was building on.

‘Like Dogs’ certainly won’t be for everyone.  There’s no special effects, epic battles, big name stars or flashy direction, but what is there instead is a disturbingly dark tale of an insight into the deranged human mind.  Few films get much darker than this, but if you’re in the mood, this one might fit the bill.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that