Doghouse

I have a pretty serious love/hate relationship with Netflix. I love the service, love the convenience, and love the fact that I get the opportunity to watch lots of movies that I otherwise would never have even heard about. On the other hand, I don't have a whole lot of free time and anytime I log in to Netflix I'm assaulted with so many choices and movies that look good, I feel like I will never get caught up. Of course this plays hell with my border-line ocd, which is where the hate part comes in. I do make an effort to watch at least one movie on Netflix every week though, and last week a British zombie/comedy titled "Doghouse" caught my attention.

Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about Doghouse, other than I thought the cover was pretty cool. I read the synopsis and saw that it was a British zombie flick, and had the words "dark comedy" in the description. As we all know, these are usually pretty damn good. So I decided to give it a watch, and Doghouse definitely didn't disappoint. The funny parts were funny, the gory parts were gory, and the story at least attempted to do something a little different in a zombie genre that is well past done to death.

A group of friends all decide to ditch their wives, girlfriends, and significant others to go on a road trip in an attempt to cheer up a recently divorced member of their group. Their plan is to take a bus out into the country, to a small village named "Moody" where it's said the women outnumber the men four to one. When they arrive, the village at first appears to be deserted, but they soon discover that Moody is a village that lives up to it's reputation. The only problem is the women that outnumber them four to one are all flesh hungry zombies. The gang fight for their lives against a horde of zombie women, while trying to figure out what exactly happened and why there are no zombies of the male variety in Moody.

If nothing else, Doghouse is just fun to watch. It's one of those movies that as soon as it's over I'm ready to watch it again. I looked it up on IMDB after my initial viewing because the director, Jake West, was a name that was familiar to me but I couldn't remember where from. Turns out it's the same Jake West that directed Evil Aliens and direct to dvd sequel Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes, both of which I liked. Doghouse is definitely his strongest work yet, and I'll be keeping an eye on him from now on.

This is the perfect kind of movie to grab a couple of beers and watch with your buds. I highly recommend it to fans of horror/comedy along the lines of Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, but even die hard gorehounds will find something to like here. When you're done with Doghouse, track down and give Evil Aliens a watch too.  Jake West is a director who deserves more recognition, particularly from horror enthusiasts.