Movie Info
Movie Name: The Breed
Studio: Film Afrika Worldwide
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): June 1, 2006 (Italy)/January 5, 2007 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
This will be a fun getaway!
Nicki (Michelle Rodriguez), Sara (Taryn Manning), Noah (Hill Harper), and brothers John (Oliver Hudson) and Matt (Eric Lively) are having a weekend island retreat at Matt and John’s uncle’s cabin. When they find a puppy, Sara is bitten by a wild dog, but the dog isn’t alone. The group discovers that wild dogs have overrun the island and the dogs are smarter than average dogs. Getting off the island will be a challenge, and a bite from these dogs might mean more than just rabies.
Directed by Nicholas Mastandrea, The Breed is a man-vs-nature horror movie. The film was produced by Wes Craven and released to largely negative reviews.
I love a good man-vs-nature horror movie. A film where man should have the upper hand and nature flips on him. There were a number of these great horror movies produced in the 1970s, and The Breed feels like a remnants of these films…but misses the fun and grittiness of the those movies.
“I feel like I’m trapped in a woman’s prison”
“I feel like I’m trapped on an island”
The story is pretty incidental (as expected). The twenty-somethings get trapped on the island and the dogs attack and trap them. The plot is muddled by a kind of psychic rabies carried by the dogs that gives those bitten by them a connection to the dogs. It feels like the movie needed to just be straight forward. A huge pack of vicious dogs trapping people…instead, the movie drags and never is scary or suspenseful.
The cast is young and led by Michelle Rodriguez who was already making a name for herself in movies and on Lost (ironically where she was also trapped on an island). Orange Is the New Black’s Taryn Manning gets the meatier role (if there is a meaty role in the movie) of the one being overtaken by viral dog. Erick Lively and Oliver Hudson are the battling brother where Hill Harper is the third wheel and feels like a sacrificial lamb.
He just wants to play
The movie does an ok job with the violence toward the dogs in that it looks relatively real (often dog movies look like they are shooting fake dogs etc). The movie doesn’t do a great job building any jumps or suspense. If the film was darker and grittier looking, the movie might work better. The film is set on an island but if you look at the cove where the plane landed there are mountains and more in the background. It seems like they could have found a better (or real) island.
The Breed is a snoozer, and it feels like they worked on it. With that in mind, it should have been better and more entertaining. The movie ends with a generic “jump” and even that doesn’t help the limp horror film. The Breed needs to be put down.
