Crew
Directors/Screenplay – The Furst Brothers, Inspired by the Film The Breed (2006) Written by Robert Conte & Peter Wortmann, Producers – Adam Champ, Griff Furst & Ray Moheet, Photography – Jon Keng, Music – Britlin Lee Furst, Visual Effects Supervisor – Adam Clark, Visual Effects – Track Digital, Special Effects Supervisor – Fernando Galvez, Production Design – Roberto Ayala. Production Company – Curmudgeon Films/Dario Film Distribution.
Cast
Grace Caroline Currey (Violet Femme), Zak Steiner (Collins Cleverly), Page Kennedy (Big Farmer Jay), Troy Gentile (Mason Kelly), Virginia Gardner (Thalia), Joey Bragg (Vince Ventura), Riele Downs (Killer Queen), Hayden Panettiere (Hayden Hearst), Lourdes Chavez (Maria), Isaac Flores (Marco)
Plot
The high-profile social media influencer Vince Ventura issues a challenge to five fellow influencers – to come to the resort he is building on an island. The five fly to the island and settle into the palatial home that Vince has built. He explains how thirteen years earlier there was a film shoot on the island, which had to be abandoned after the dog handlers disappeared, leaving the dogs to roam loose. He wants to make a show about the influencers gathering up the dogs that now roam wild. The others agree but as soon as Vince releases one of the dogs to demonstrate how harmless they are, it attacks and kills him. The others realise that the dogs on the island have been turned rabid by the bites of vampire bats. It becomes a harrowing chase for survival as they try to make it to safety.
Griff Furst is an actor who has appeared in everything from Boa vs Python (2004), a number of films for The Asylum, as well as parts in big studio films like Green Lantern (2011), Battleship (2012), Self/less (2015), Terminator Genisys (2015), The Founder (2016) and The Magnificent Seven (2016). He has also directed several low-budget films, including I Am Omega (2007), Universal Soldiers (2007) and 100 Million BC (2008) for The Asylum, and 30 Days to Die (2009), Lake Placid 3 (2010), Maskerade (2011), Swamp Shark (2011), Arachnoquake (2012), Ghost Shark (2013), Ragin Cajun Redneck Gators (2013), Starve (2014), Cold Moon (2016) and Trailer Park Shark (2017) for other companies. Nathan Furst is Griff’s older brother and has a string of credits for music on assorted B-budget films stretching back to the late 1990s. Both are the sons of actor Stephen Furst, probably best known here for The Unseen (1981) or as the nervous diplomatic aide Vir on tv’s Babylon 5 (1993-8). The Furst Brothers previously co-directed Nightmare Shark (2018)
There have been several killer dog films before with the likes of Dogs (1977), The Pack (1977), Rottweiler/Dogs of Hell (1983), White Dog (1982), Cujo (1983), Man’s Best Friend (1993), Rottweiler (2004), The Pack (2015) and Bullet Head (2017). In fact, the credits here announce that A Breed Apart was inspired by The Breed (2006), a Wes Craven written film with Michelle Rodriguez and others stranded on island of rabid killer dogs.
Griff Furst’s films as director have been no more than standard B movies with little to distinguish them, so I had no great expectations of A Breed Apart. In short time, I ended up being quite surprised by. There have been a number of horror films about and occasionally featuring social media influencers – a scourge of modern society if there ever was one. As the film starts, it is hard to tell if the portrayals of the influencers are meant to be parody or not. And you really want to hate the film at the point that Joey Bragg starts celebrating Timothee Chalamet’s Willy Wonka over “the creepy one” (where it is unclear if this is referring to Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp).
It is not too long before A Breed Apart comes down on the side of definitely satirising the influencers. They are all painted as ludicrous in their own ways. Grace Caroline Currey has a rather hilarious monologue standing in the middle of the woods eviscerating how awful all of the influencers are that hits the nail right on the nose. And okay, some of the sarcastic one-liners in the film feel more like a scriptwriter showing off than the way real people talk, but is amusing.
And once the dog attacks begin, the Furst Brothers mount these with a real viciousness and savagery. Although even then, it is quite clear they are not entirely taking the film seriously as witness one dog who goes the whole way through with a wine bottle stuck on its snout or a scene where the group employ squeaky toys as weapons, only for them to end up being swallowed by the dog. The film gets some great dynamic shots of the dogs running in slow-motion and to the attack. (The only complaint about this might be that these look suspiciously like they are A.I.-generated scenes). Nevertheless, the film’s blend of ferocious action, energy and tongue-in-cheek ends up making A Breed Apart a work that far exceeds expectation.
Trailer here