Play Dead Review

MPAA Rating: NR
Released: 1985

Play Dead is the charming story about a rich elderly woman and her killer voodoo dog. It's a cinematic treasure. It's a celluloid masterpiece. It's a sharp slice of low-budget horror. It's… it's… okay, who am I kidding? It sucks. It's trash. It's lame. But if you're a B-movie fan that enjoys movies as amateurish and crappy as the introduction to this review, be sure to check out the Feature Attraction. You won't be disappointed.

Hester (Yvonne De Carlo) is an eccentric old coot whose sister recently passed into the Great Beyond. But don't feel bad for her – she's not grieving. In fact, she despised her sister, so she's happy enough to crack open a keg and party like it's 1999.

Actually, that's not entirely true. You see, she has a surviving niece named Audrey (Stephanie Dunnam) and a nephew named Stephen (David Ellzey) who she dislikes just as much as her now dead sister. Why, you might ask? If you did ask why then you're probably giving Play Dead more thought than it deserves, but what the heck… I'll tell you. Hester and her sister's expired husband were a couple before her ex-flame left her and married her sister instead. Yep, the old love triangle thing.

Anyhow, I suppose Audrey and Stephen are living reminders that the man she pined over bonked her sister instead of her, so she would like to snip a few branches from the remaining family tree. To help her do this she will employ the assistance of a burly Rottweiler and some black magic. Feigning a desire to bury past hatchets, Hester offers her dog Greta as a peace offering/gift to the naïve Audrey, who gladly accepts.

What Audrey doesn't know is that Greta is a voodoo doggie. From time to time throughout Play Dead Hester performs some black magic ceremonies that allow her to develop a psychic link with the dog and convince the dog to off her enemies.

The first victim is her nephew Stephen, who gets slammed by a speeding car thanks to the dog. We might expect the death of a beloved family member to be a depressing or emotional moment… but then we'd be expecting too much. Instead, Audrey uses the tragic event as an excuse to make whoopee with her boyfriend Jeff (David Cullinane). Well, psychologists do say that death affects everyone differently. Some cry, and apparently some get randy instead.

Anyhow, while the two lovers slowly strip each other of their garments, the dog watches the scene intently, drooling and licking its chops more furiously than the movie's male viewers. Inappropriate and gratuitous nudity at its best!

Detective Otis (Glenn Kezer), the fellow assigned to investigate Stephen's demise, is remarkable for two reasons. First, he's a pretty sharp cookie and suspects that Stephen's death may not have been an accident at all. Second, he's the only performer that can act worth a damn in this inept movie. But I digress…

After a couple minutes of investigative scenes we return to Audrey and Jeff, who are now playing doctor in the bathroom shower. Nudity fans start rejoicing once again. Hester starts some of her voodoo chanting in her home. The dog responds by turning off the power. The frolicking couple giggles and continue getting it on in the dark. The porn freaks watching Play Dead complain that they can't see anything anymore. The doorbell rings, and the nudity is cut short… but not for long!

The person ringing the doorbell is Audrey's neighbor, and the reason she is visiting is because she wants to use Audrey's bathroom to take a bath. So Audrey goes to bed while her neighbor disrobes and hops into the tub. Yet another shameless excuse for nudity, you say? No… not at all! The director had a perfectly legitimate excuse for why he would have a shapely neighbor stop by to take a bath: the neighbor's plumbing system was being worked on. Wink. Wink.

Anyhow, the dog gazes upon the sudsy nude gal in the bathtub for a bit before deciding to take her out by dropping a plugged-in hair curler into the water and electrifying her. Another one bites the dust.

A day or two later Audrey and her boyfriend Jeff are walking Greta in the park. Audrey needs to return to the car for a moment to get something she forgot, so Jeff sits himself against a tree and awaits her return along with Greta. Aha… the perfect opportunity for Greta to ice yet another victim! How does the dog do it? It chokes Jeff to death by circling the tree repeatedly and wrapping the chain lead line around Jeff's neck when he's nodding off to sleep.

If you think the aforementioned deaths are pretty lame, you haven't seen anything yet. Later on the dog kills someone by spiking a glass of water and Alka-Seltzer with some drain cleaner. What the heck kind of killer dog movie has a dog that plots intricate deaths instead of mauling its victims!?

Let's just fast-forward to the end of this movie so we can put this review out of its misery. More crap happens. Hester decides the dog is no longer needed, so she plays a game of Frisbee with the dog in the middle of the night. The catch, of course, is that she throws the Frisbee off the cliff so that the dog unknowingly scampers to its death. The dog falls, yelps in pain but doesn't die. The pissed off dog climbs up the cliff and rips Hester apart as savagely as I'm doing to Play Dead.

Don't let the fact that there is ample nudity and a killer dog fool you – Play Dead is a travesty. Whoever directed this mess should be smacked for ruining a virtually foolproof plot. Sure, a killer dog movie is probably never going to win an Oscar, but the very subject should score at least some guilty pleasure points. Not in this movie.

Folks, you know you're in trouble when the movie's protagonist involves a dove in a voodoo ritual… and the dove screeches like a hawk instead of coos! Clearly the person responsible for inserting sound effects was preoccupied with something else… like a bottle of Canadian whiskey, perhaps.

If you're a collector of baaaad movies then rejoice – you've just hit the jackpot! Otherwise, stay far, far away from this film for your sanity's sake.

Movie rating: 2 stars

If you enjoyed Play Dead you may also find the following films to be of interest:

• Night of the Demons
• Evil Clutch
• Slaughterhouse

Enjoy the Play Dead experience in the comfort of your own home with these products!

DVD

Other Resources:

• Play Dead IMDb Page

Movie Sitemap

• Action/Adventure
• Animation
• Comedy
• Drama
• Fantasy
• Horror
• Sci-Fi