Play Dead
Play Dead
| 15 July 1983 (USA)
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A woman uses her magic powers and a vicious Rotweiller dog to murder her relatives.

Reviews
Leofwine_draca

I was looking forward to this one, as there was a picture of a dog with three heads on the cover. Wow, I thought, a dog with three heads. Cool. Unfortunately the dog in the film only has one head, and is less than convincing. This film looks like it had no budget at all and we frequently see the boom mike hovering about at the top of the screen. It's a vehicle for the ageing Yvonne De Carlo who keeps a dog which has the power to murder people. The background story is something ripped from Great Expectations (an unlikely source, I know).The murders are all very tame and the most gore is blood running down someone's face. A woman is electrocuted in the bathtub, a man is strangled with a dog leash, a man is hit by a car. We are supposed to believe that a dog is capable of all of these murders. It's slow and very dull indeed and some scenes are downright laughable, especially the rubbish ending where Yvonne De Carlo is licked to death by the dog.However as is the case in a lot of these type of films there are some good bits, one of these is the actor playing the old policeman who is pretty entertaining. In fact he is probably the only good actor in this film. The main female lead was appalling and screeched whenever someone died in so horrible a fashion I was forced to cover my ears to shield myself from the noise. Give this rubbish killer dog flick a miss unless you're a glutton for self-inflicted punishment.

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Bezenby

This might be some kind of b-movie classic. This is a film where a dog is the killer, but those expecting Cujo style dog attacks will be well let down, because this dog does it's whacking gangland style, yo.Some Auntie who's into Satan and all that jive isn't too happy with the way her dead sister's estate turned out (I think). So she trains up this dog to be a killer and gives it to her niece as a present. Only prob is that this dog is out to kill all of aunt's enemies and does so by accidental car death, electrocution, strangulation and poison.Like you I was wondering why it didn't just rip the throats out of folks, but there you go. Maybe it was because the dog involved was such a cutey and no one could believe it could kill someone using it's teeth. Who knows.Also, there's this sex scene that seems to involve body doubles, and the body double covering for the chick has bweuubs three times the size of the actress she's covering for so watch out for that.This film is great!

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Tikkin

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.

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drhackenstine

Trashy looking horror movie about an angry old woman (Lily from The Munsters) who uses her devil worship on a dog to get even with her family members. The dog stalks the family members and many 'accidents' occur. Sluggish in many spots, and never really entertaining. It looks like it was slickly produced at times, but also seems like maybe the production was rushed. The horror scenes are pretty bland and the most exciting come when Lily Munster holds demonic séances. The horror scenes with the dog are pretty much forgettable. Features some nudity, some violence, a woman electrocuted in a bath tub, and that's about it. One Star.

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