Yvonne De Carlo of "The Munsters" fame star in this horror about a very bitter heiress who former lover falls for her sister. Because of this, she would take matters in a supernatural way. The former lover has a child, who is now grown, loses her mother in a tragic accident. Animosity and resentment gets involved in the reunion. Trying to make peace with the family, the aunt wants to move forward. But there's another thing, she has a Rottweiler from Europe that seems docile, but the appearance can be a ploy. Not only is the aunt is wealthy, she's involved in sinister black magic. She used that hulking dog to exact revenge on the lover and her sister. And turns it loose on the siblings as well. Driving the niece out of her mind, and causing much mayhem. This dog is so smart, it can throw off the brightest of detectives. Especially, when he put that drain cleaner along with the seltzer. Can't tell which is which. This movie was not well made. A little spoiler from the crew was spotted during the love scenes. In fact, I was wrong about "Dogs" in 1976, this movie really was barking up the wrong tree. 1 star!

Yvonne De Carlo (everyone's favorite Munster) gives away quite a scary and praiseworthy performance as Hester Ramsey, a rancorous and slightly deranged elderly lady who lives alone in a large mansion with her harshly trained Rottweiler Greta. She holds a *slight* grudge against her family because she's convinced that her sister stole the one true love of her life and now she developed the fiendish plan to use Greta's killing capacities to get revenge. It's a fairly interesting and original concept for an 80's creature feature, but the film lacks tension and there's too little gore and bloodshed. Greta is an astonishingly trained dog, but her skills are still underused and the script at one point even reveals that black magic is responsible for her turning into a merciless killing machine. Why the hell was that necessary? Who needs voodoo to explain the aggression of a Rottweiler? There's nothing as pathetic as wanting to make a horror movie about a dangerous killer dog and then cowardly blame his action and behavior on the black magic powers of his owner. Greta also has voyeuristic tendencies, because she observes a young couple having (overlong) sex not once but twice. Instead of doing that, or instead of electrocuting people in their bathtubs, she ought to rip out throats, dammit! The character of the police inspector provides some comical relief, with his witty remarks and arrogant behavior towards his younger colleagues, but it's just a small positive detail in an overall extremely dull and forgettable movie. Good horrors revolving on murderous dogs are quite a rarity. Top of my head I can only think of "The Pack" and "White Dog". "Play Dead" belongs in the mediocre-to-awful section, alongside "Rottweiler", "Devil Dog", "Dogs of Hell" and "Monster Dog".

I've been after this movie for a while, though mainly because of the cool VHS cover and the fact that Yvonne De Carlo is in it. Well, I finally found a copy at a market. The film didn't live up to my expectations, but I'm used to that, being a fan of low budget horror.The film is kind of watchable and semi-interesting, but isn't much of a horror film because there are no violent deaths. The deaths are caused by the dog but in very tame ways. The plot also seems muddled and the motivation for the killings is unclear. I found the ending rather bizarre but slightly surprising.The main reason to seek this film out as far as I'm concerned is the VHS cover (the UK one). It looks good amongst my collection of big box horror films and I love the artwork. Other than that, there's little reason to seek out this film, even for fellow fans of low-budget horror.

Not a great deal you can say about a film where the best acting comes from a dog. Yvonne De Carlo is supposed to be creepy and scary as the evil aunt but she was far more frightening as Lily in the 'Munsters.'The cops investigating the killing done by the aunt's evil possessed canine seem to have acquired their detective skills from a mail correspondence course from the back of a magazine. It's not surprising that they fail to solve the crimes.It's left to auntie to be the architect of her own doom when she seriously upsets the pooch. Word of warning: if you have 'Satan's Dog' (as my DVD copy was entitled), never, ever get on it's wrong side as it will all end in tears.....Dull and boring, poorly acted, a waste of time really. Go watch 'Cujo' or the original 'Hound of the Baskervilles.'