There was no horror, no comedy, and no extreme violence. All there was in the movie was a psychotic dog that chased a deranged man. The story makes very little sense as it is not told in the correct order. The only entertaining moment was when the robot dog does its terminator impression. What should have been a violent tongue-in-cheek monster creature movie was just a boring and lackluster yawn.

A convict escapes from a prison convoy, killing a hunter in the process, only to be relentlessly pursued across the arid landscape by a cyborg canine, hell bent on avenging the death of its handler. Unusual sci-fi horror follows the plight of William Miller mistakenly incarcerated after being caught in an illegal immigrant sting with his girlfriend – the pair apparently part of an elaborate game of risk where participants perform daring adventures to compete with other players. But when his girlfriend is apparently raped by the evil detention centre boss (a typical sadomasochist portrait of villainy by Spanish horror veteran Paul Naschy), Miller finds himself in a nightmarish situation, haunted by fractured hallucinations, and the real game begins.Throughout the ordeal our hero endures countless narrow escapes from the steel jaws and tenacious predation of robot-dog, even running afoul a lonely farmhouse wife who sees an opportunity to satisfy her pent up sexual urges when he emerges from the wilderness, naked and despairing. As the connubial cougar becomes more incoherent, his parrying gives way to plundering, tucking in wholeheartedly, akin to a doomed man's 'last supper'. If it hadn't already proved its R rating (decapitation and dismembering befall one poor escaped convict), then the MILF seduction scene surely qualifies.Barren wilderness and semi-industrial wastelands paint an acrid post-apocalyptic anachronism of hopelessness and despair. Even the finale, where the hero comes full circle to avenge his injustices, does the film offer little respite from the hedonic procession of brutality and cruelty in which director Yuzna seems to engage with a sort of carnal cinematic relish. The point-of-view visual effects borrow heavily from the originality displayed in the far superior "Wolfen", but with much less technical agility.It's primitive and an at times unattractive, but it must be said, memorable even if only for the disorganised miscellany of ideas and sensational showcasing of animatronic special effects.

'Relatively speaking' means in comparison to all of the films he's directed. Yuzna is not a seminal horror film director but he does have a certain style and following, and is not merely a hack. For example, a few of his films can stand up with seminal horror directors such as Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, and George Romero, and ROTTWEILER is one that can.It's not a straight-out, routinely linear-plotted opus, but rather asks the viewer to follow a storyline that jumps through past and present. There is a purpose for this, that mostly being to maintain an intrigue about how the events leading to the chase of the bionic rottweiler and the hunted man came to be, and how the rottweiler itself became a killing machine.There are also plot points that need the viewer to exercise some mental abilities to follow, and in doing so reward the viewer with a more inclusive experience rather than that of being a 'couch potato' merely as a recipient of programmed emotional effects. These are the folks who complained that they couldn't understand what was going on.As a point of example for this, it's shown in subtle ways that the bionic rottweiler tracks the hunted man by his scent and the scent of his blood. Anyone who gets this scent on them becomes a victim as well, or if they are between the dog and the man. Those who are not do not get attacked. But the viewers who are looking only for simple plot devices and completely explained maneuvers won't get these subtleties.This is Yuzna's most interesting horror film to date and the most enjoyable for me, and as I feel it is his best so far, I've called it his masterpiece. Plus it does have the gore that we've come to expect from him.

This movie is another proof that we, Europeans, can't find a middle way in cinematography: masterpieces are mixed together with big chunks of pure crap. Like "Rottweiler". An interesting story is massacred by stupid acting, idiotic storyboard and more idiotic lines. The main character has serious mental problems: he see and talk to his fellow dead former inmate and to his (former?) girlfriend. The little girl is, on the other hand, annoying and obviously, has nothing in common with acting. The three easterners in the cave (smugglers, bandits ?)just laugh like retarded morons every two sentences. And finally, the camp boss had the most idiotic lines you can heard in the entire world cinema history.Almost 30 years ago, another Spanish director made a little gem, a movie almost similar to this one (minus the sci-fi flavor): "El Perro". Go watch it, if you have the occasion. And then compare it with this awful movie. And you'll find that tens of years later and a new century doesn't mean necessarily what we call "progress". At least in the seventh art.Just two stars, one for the slaughtered story (RIP), another one for the music and the sound effects, who saves this film from being a totally submerged wreck. And one thumb down.