Atomic Dog (1998)

Wonderful character development!

just watch it!

Amateur movie with Big budget

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Just before my local Hollywood Video closed down (RIP) I went in and and picked up a number of Videos on sale,which appeared to largely be films that have not come out on disc. Despite being taken by clips of his movies in the doc Not Quite Hollywood I for some reason have never got round to seeing a flick from Brian Trenchard- Smith.Sorting out Videos to view for the IMDb Horror boards October Challenge,I found an unwatched Hollywood tape of a Trenchard- Smith's family offering,which led to me letting the atomic dog roam free.The plot:Finding leaks,a nuclear plant is ordered to shut down right away.Refusing to go with his owner,a dog stays as everyone leaves the plant. Over the next year,the dog licks up the nuclear wastes and mutates. Crossing paths with a female dog who has wandered on the plant,the now-mutant dog breeds with it. Returning home,the Yates family find that their loyal dog has returned with puppies. As they meet the puppies,their dog dies.Keeping the puppies,the Yates start to see the dogs act very strangely.View on the film:Working with the "family TV Movie" dog tags,director Brian Trenchard-Smith and cinematographer David Lewis surprisingly show some real white fangs with Ozploitation-style first person tracking shots from the mutant dogs point of view,and the good old boy being having a liking to rip any persons throat out,who tries to keep him apart from the family. Whilst having to shoulder some aw-shucks TV family moments (with Isabella Hofmann and Katie Stuart being welcomed inclusions)the screenplay by Miguel Tejada-Flores grabs the collar for some rather unsettling bites at Horror,which includes killing almost every dog in the film, (sweet dreams kids!) and giving the lead mutant dog a sharp mind which allows for tense traps to be made for the stupid humans,as Cujo Jr wags his tail.

Okay first things first & that is this is a movie not an Animal Planet documentary so it will do as all movies should & that is suspend belief but this does not ask you to suspend it to stupidity levels like any of the Shark Attack munch munch naked women about to get made into shark food do. The movie does slightly mislead you from the poster as you are expecting some sort of super power dog when this starts with a man (cleaner I think) & his puppy who are at the Nuclear power plant when it suffers a LOW LEVEL I will repeat this a LOW LEVEL leak & the plant is immediately shut down & all staff removed including the cleaner who is refused allowance to go get his pup (admittedly you would have thought he would have sneaked back in & got him but nope he does not). Move on a year & you have a family new to the area comprising of dad (an inventor of gadgets,mum (a writer of children s books),teenage son (& no just a normal teen not a troubled one) & lastly but not lastly a daughter (this bit really says a lot about the people who wrote the description as they say about the son being the main character where as to me it is the daughter) & the family Labrador bitch. The son is going out with some of the towns boys for the evening & the dog goes with them & they end up at the abandoned power plant where one of the son's new friends decides to take out his .22 rifle & shoot at the exterior lighting where upon they see the pup (but he is now a full grown dog) & being a fool shoots at the dog so the dog runs off & this friend decides to trespass onto the site. The film is not a horror & does not have anything that would make me think unsuitable for older children (10 plus)so I would say give it a try.

*As obvious as this film may be, there may be spoilers in this comment.* The main question that came to me when watching Atomic Dog was: "What was going through the casts' minds during filming?". This film is terrible from the absurd plot that it entails to the poor acting on screen. The story of a dog made evil by radiation that terrorizes a friendly community that seems to know everything about dogs, including what they're thinking about. The dogs in this movie are trained horrendously bad and when you think that the stunts probably cost more than the movie will have grossed, that makes you think. To add to insult is blasphemy, as the atomic dog decides to recreate with the little girl at the end, because it likes her character. Was the movie not bad enough without this lame 'Alien like' twist at the end? Stay away from this film, just as much as you'd stay away from an overused porter toilet at the 3rd day of a festival! Serious! 2.5/10

I think this is a crazy but good movie about a family that runs out of luck when they discover that the pups from their dog Trixie are actually mutants. Well, half-mutants. Why oh why....? Because the dog who is responsible for this 'accident' is a mutant himself! He lives in the Power Plant nearby and is actually a devoted father. When he returns to get his 'children' back, the troubles begin...! And when I say 'troubles' you may expect the worst. To avoid a spoiler alert, I must stop here. I already read somewhere that this movie is 'educating' in some ways. That could be true, because living near or in a Power Plant does effect your body and your DNA. Poor doggy, he could have had a normal life, but... Finally, to make you realize you should see this movie, I should warn you that it has a (SO MAYBE THIS IS A SPOILER!!!) dramatic ending. Figure out yourselves what that's supposed to mean, all right?