"The Hounds" - - It's A Loser Alright

I usually start these reviews off with a trailer of the film, but this time let's try something different.

I mean, what horror movie would be complete without it's own music video featuring a garbage bag wearing Evanescence knock-off?



That's not a fan made video. That music video is one of the Special Features on the DVD. Actually, it's the only Special Feature. You get the movie, scene selection, and "The Loser." Had I just watched the music video before I watched the movie I would have had a bit of a heads up into how bad "The Hounds" was going to be. But, alas, I did not. No, I wasted an hour and half watching two separate plots go nowhere as people screamed inches away from each others faces.

"The Hounds" is about three young adults going camping in the woods where they find a dead body at their campsite. Technically, that's what it's about but it takes a full 30 minutes before we get there. First we're bombarded with "character" development as absolutely nothing of consequence happens. We see the three camping kids and their friend hanging out, some dodgy looking people getting in and out of cars, and some slob talking to his wife on the phone.

I fell asleep twice during this first act so I had to re-watch several scenes twice. The things I do for this website . . .





Anyways they get to the campsite and after they pitch what seems to be the world's biggest tent . . .

Just so we're clear, there's a full film crew in there as well. The other guy has his own tent so why would two people bring such a huge tent into the woods?

Oh, and this is what the tent looks like from the outside:


















Look at how high those straps go. That thing has to be 15 feet tall. There is no logical reason to bring a tent that big unless you were making a movie. But the characters aren't making a movie, so why would they pack it? The first time I saw the inside of Monstro-Tent I thought "That's a huge tent. Oh yeah, it has to be for the camera man to fit inside." And that takes the viewer out of the movie. Every time they were in the tent it was just a reminder that I'm watching something, I'm not experiencing something. Countless other movies have used small tents so why did this director get the only tent in the world infected with Gamma radiation?

So these three characters are in the woods. They get their tents set up when they discover *gasp* a dead body buried feet away!

"We need to go back!" Character 1 (Sarah) exclaims.

"It almost dark, we can't make it through the forest now!" screeches Character 2 (Martin and/or Jake. I don't remember their names, it was just the guy with the big teeth)

"But I don't want to be here! There's a dead body here!" Sarah shouts.

"We'll just stay the night and leave in the morning!" Someone screams.

So two things have been established in this scene: 1) For the rest of the movie everyone will be yelling even though they are inches away from each other and 2) these characters can only think of two choices such as hiking in the dark back to their car or sleeping five feet from a decaying corpse. No one ever brings up the "Hey, why don't we pack our stuff up, walk as far as we can back and if it gets too dark, we'll set-up camp there. I mean, it may not be an ideal flat piece of land but at least there isn't a freshly buried corpse nearby, right?"

So not only do these three brain surgeons decide to stay the night next to the body they actually FALL ASLEEP! And it's not a skeleton, mind you. This guy was buried less than a few days ago. I'm afraid to fall asleep on a bus and these idiots fall asleep knowing that any time some crazy serial killer could come stumbling back to masturbate on the corpse.

And it's not like they just "thought" he could have been murdered. He's buried in the woods! I might, MIGHT, be able to sleep next to some dead guy who just fell off a ladder. But if I thought for one second that while I was sleeping a murderer may or may not show up, you know, 50/50 . . .I'm not sleeping.

Anyways, turns out the body might be a ghost because it disappears and runs around for a bit. Everyone yells. Sarah goes into the tent and the dead body rips out her kidney like he's plucking an apple from a tree. He just grabs her side and then BAM no kidney.

Luckily, one of her friends is a doctor so he able to "cauterize" the wound. Of course, he doesn't sanitize the wound even though she was just rolling around in the dirt, so all those chiggers and ticks got sealed in. So good job, Doc!

Then the big teeth guy gets his eye balls ripped out. 

"I can't see! Oh my God, how am I going to brush my teeth?!"

If you remember, I mentioned that the three friends went drinking with a fourth friend. You don't remember? Well, neither did I and I watched the film. This fourth friend figures something is up when he hears Sarah screaming over the phone. But then again, these characters are constantly using their outside voice so maybe he wasn't too concerned. He finds their parked car and hoofs it through the forest to their campsite, the one that was so far away from the road they had to sleep next to a murder victim.

Hey. You know how in horror movies they'll have that scene where someone opens a door, then turns around and we the audience sees the creature behind the door but it is blocked from the character's point of view?

BAM!

I can just imagine the ghost thinking "Oh dude, this is gonna be so awesome! I'm just going to stand here while he's kneeling at the awkward angle then BAM! I'm gonna run up  and scare the hell out of the absolute no one in front of him because I don't know this is a movie!"

The ghost doesn't kill that guy though. A doppelganger of Sarah shows up and starts acting all demonic. She gets tied up to a tree.

"Like, ohmigawd I'm so demonic! This is sooo evil looking!"

So Sarah has no kidney, Big Teeth has no eyes. Martin, the friend who likes to kneel, gets his heart ripped out, and the last remaining guy whatever his name Joe Whitey we'll call him, gets some organ ripped out by the ghost and dies.

Or does he?

Yes, he does die but SURPRISE there were no ghosts! "Ha ha fooled you!" I can imagine the filmmakers screaming in my ear as I reach for the volume control "Why, they weren't even in the woods! It was all a dream!!! Man, we sure our clever for coming up with such a great ending!

"In fact, the four characters were actually having their organs harvested after being drugged at a night club! That's why they were each having their organs ripped out . . .get it? It . . .it was a dream but it was real . . .get it?"

"Uhm, ok," I respond with my inside voice. "But who's dream was it? We're they all dreaming the same thing? Or was it Sarah's dream since she was the first to wake up? If it was her dream, I guess I could see why she dreamt Big Teeth had his eyes ripped out. I'm sure in the real world he was screaming out "Oh God, my eyes!"

But was Martin yelling "Jesus Christ, they're ripping my heart out! Ouch! They ripped it out I'm dead!" How would the dream contain the exact organs ripped out of the people in the real world? If it was all a dream why did Martin show up late? He would have been abducted at the same time. Why was their a body at the campsite in the first place and why did it act like a ghost by disappearing? What are the chances of a organ harvesting ring finding four buyers for four different people who are friends AND share blood type compatibility with the buyers? And why did they just take one organ from each person? Surely if they take Sarah's Kidney and Martin's heart they could also take Martin's kidney and Sarah's heart.

And this guy's teeth.

"The Hounds" is a definite pass. It's a movie in search of a reason for being. The initial premise, campers discover a fresh body in the woods, is intriguing. But the movie would keep jumping to the slob driving around, Sarah having "flashbacks/flashforwards/flashsomething" to being at a rave, and other nonsense. It may be that those parts are necessary to the "organ harvesting" gimmick but it completely nullifies any sense of isolation in the woods if every other scene is cutaway to a different time and place. And the dream was just a gimmick. This could have been a straight up ghost in the woods movie or a "Hostel" type movie. Combining the two simply doesn't work.

"The Hounds" spends the first half hour introducing a lot of elements to create a sense of mystery. Then for the next hour it becomes "Blair Witch Lite" and in the end both parts smash together to create something less than it's halves. The movie doesn't even end when it should have: A final shot of the friends at the bar the night before, making plans to go to the club where they will be drugged.

No, it ends with this:

That's the cop/slob who spends the most of the movie talking to his wife on the phone, driving around, and "saving" the characters even though one is blind, two are dead, and one is never going to a pub again. He looks back at his wife (I don't care) gets in his car and looks at a bottle of whiskey before pushing the urge aside (I don't care) and driving away, presumably into a better movie.

*Before we wrap this up, as a ying to "The Losers" yang, I must introduce you to the best/bad music video for any movie ever. "Reanimate Your Feet" from "Beyond Reanimator." The movie is a Hard-R horror film about zombies taking over a prison. The video, well . . .