Dog Food (2014)

That was an excellent one.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Really Surprised!

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

"Dog Food" is an 18-minute short film from last year. Amanda Seyfried plays the female lead and people who watch "Gotham" will also be familiar with the male lead Cory Michael Smith. Brian Crano, the writer director, and the actor who plays the roommate are not really known. The story is about a butcher who loves his dog. Sadly, the animal gets lost at the very same time the butcher receives threats via mail. A coincidence? One day he meets a beautiful blonde girl who invites him for dinner. Of course, it felt always obvious that he was eating his own dog that day, but I guess Crano felt that would be too easy, so he had to include a handful of final twists, so that people cannot call this predictable. Unfortunately, these twists hurt the film more than they helped it. I would have preferred a different, less subtle ending, and as I already wrote in the title: Predictability does not have to be a bad thing. It really would have been fine if it had all turned out the way we thought it would and the main character realized who these people were. Instead he got turned into a murdering psychopath. The ending hurts the movie, but it does not destroy it. All in all, recommended.

Declan is a butcher who runs his own small shop which is named after his one true love – his dog. He is an upbeat guy and despite threatening letters addressed to him, he is cheerful and friendly – even taking the chance to flirt a little with a pretty customer who comes in to buy something for a dinner party.I had to be careful writing that little plot two line summary, because saying too much will tell you much and this is a short film that is mostly driven by facts and events – and naturally one puts them together a little faster than the film would ideally have liked I guess. This is a slight problem in terms of the pacing (since this short runs over 15 minutes long), but it mostly manages it because it builds a tone of dread and a real sense of tension as it goes. All through the short there is the sense of something happening, and towards the end the film does in fairness know that we will all be a step ahead of it, so instead it cleverly plays it out to use, letting us think whatever we want but still refusing to tell us anything for sure – which makes it nicely tense in the final third.The characters also help because we do feel for Declan throughout, which helps the tension because of whom we are invested in. Smith is really strong in the lead, making his character likable and hurt; Seyfried is a surprise find and despite her sticking out a bit at first, she is also good. Craig is a bit creepy and does sort of help the tension at the end, even if he is a bit overplayed as a character. The film has a very low-key look, with darker colors, open sets, quite a natural feel to it, which all suits the nicely patient pace to it.It isn't amazing, but it is well made, with a strong cast, a good structure and pace, and produces a nice tension all the way to the end.