By Ben Bussey
Boy, Ozploitation’s really gone to the dogs, hasn’t it? Heheh… you see, that’s a pun, because this is a film about killer dogs. And. Erm. Yeah. That’s about it. Please excuse my painfully lazy and feeble attempts at humour – but in my defence, this movie left me in so near-catatonic a state of boredom that anything of even the vaguest comedic value was to be welcomed with open arms. Now, to be fair, it’s not that The Pack is a truly bad film as such: it’s well shot, well edited and well performed. It’s all just so damn nondescript. With its farmland setting and nuclear family protagonists coming under attack from furry little bastards with a taste for flesh and blood, it could almost be a retread of Critters – only played straight, with no alien bounty hunters. Or you could think of it as Dog Soldiers, without all the Geordie soldiers telling jokes. Which, as you can see straight away, sounds a lot less fun.
So this is about the long and short of it: at a remote farm in rural Australia, Carla and Adam Wilson (Anna Lise Phillips and Jack Campbell) are up shit creek financially as a large percentage of their livestock keeps turning up torn to bits. A snooty guy from the bank comes by offering to buy them out, but because Adam’s all proud and manly the way movie dads in financial trouble always are, he won’t hear of it, regardless of how hopeless things look and the fact that his 18 year old daughter Sophie (Katie Moore) hates him for making her live out in the sticks where – wouldn’t you know it – they don’t even have cellphone reception. Still, their youngest Henry (Hamish Phillips) loves it there, because he’s all wide-eyed and imaginative and loves playing with the dogs. However, that love is set to be tested, as those same wild dogs that have been chowing down on the sheep have now decided they’d like to add people to their menu.
So… yeah, that really is about the full extent of it. We have about thirty five minutes of quiet, understated character development and equally quiet, understated aerial shots of picturesque rural Australia (they like that in Ozploitation movies, don’t they? And fair enough, it is all very pretty, but it only stays interesting for so long), then it turns into a farmhouse siege. I suppose in a way it’s a refreshing change that Evan Randell Green’s script doesn’t bog things down in the usual gratuitous subplots, but there’s simply nothing to fill the gap. Given that the antagonists are dogs, it’s little surprise that the film runs into problems with showing them doing their thing; happily there’s little to no obvious CGI, but instead director Nick Robertson aims to convey more by suggestion. But in keeping the action centred entirely on four main protagonists for the duration, none of whom are developed much if at all in the interim, there’s very, very to hold your interest.
If you’re in the mood for something utterly undemanding, The Pack may be passable enough. Otherwise, steer clear. And just to end on another utterly pathetic dog pun, this ain’t no best in show – it’s the runt of the litter.
The Pack opens today in Los Angeles and New York cinemas, and on VOD/digital platforms including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, XBox and Playstation, via IFC Midnight.