A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 30, 2024

Jason Miller's name may be most familiar to many filmgoers courtesy of his Academy Award nominated performance in The Exorcist, but he could almost be a standalone Trivial Pursuit game in terms of some of his other so-called claims to fame. In the family department, Miller was the son-in-law of "the great one", Jackie Gleason, fathering son Jason Patric with his first wife, Gleason's daughter Linda. Probably more saliently, though, in terms of personal career accomplishments, and kind of incredibly considering the often questionable use of "multi- hyphenate" to describe show business folks, Miller also won both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for having written That Championship Season, one of the most acclaimed plays of its era (he directed the linked to film version as well). You might think with all of that going for him, he wouldn't need to consign himself to arguably "lesser" foreign fare, but just a handful of years after his triumph in the William Peter Blatty scare-fest, Miller was in Spain working in this somewhat odd but at times rather visceral film which was evidently released under a number of different titles (the trailer included on this disc offers The Dog as the film's moniker).

In an unnamed Central American country, a dictatorial regime is imprisoning political prisoners, and the film begins with signs of unrest at the prison, as well as a guard and his German Shepherd chasing after an ostensible escapee. Suffice it to say if that convict isn't able to escape the, um, Jaws of the predator, there's soon enough another escape the film focuses on, this time featuring central character Aristides Ungria (Jason Miller). And in fact the rest of the film might be termed a cat and mouse or perhaps more appropriately dog and prisoner tale wherein Ungria repeatedly attempts to outwit, outrun and outlast his perhaps supernaturally powered canine predator through both rural and urban settings.

If the "plot" of A Dog Called. . .Vengeance is unabashedly minimalist, the film is really rather interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, as is gotten into in some of the supplementary material, the first part of the film in particular is virtually without dialogue, simply letting the imagery of a feral beast and hapless running humans tell the bulk of the story. That aspect changes partway through, at which point several quasi-info dumps are offered as it becomes clear that Ungria is some kind of counterrevolutionary.

And it's in that aspect that A Dog Called. . .Vengeance manages to escape itself, namely from any putative comparisons to other "killer dog" outings like Cujo. The whole sociopolitical element of the film is one of its most distinctive features, especially considering the context of a Spain just barely having emerged from the throes of the Franco Era as this film went into production. While giving this film its (rabid?) "flavor", the obviously metaphorical use of an attack dog in place of a fascistic government may initially strike some as kind of silly. Somewhat hilariously, the film begins with a prefatory text card assuring viewers that no animals were harmed during the production, but seeing some of the violent attacks the dog makes, one might jokingly wonder if any humans were harmed.

A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Dog Called. . .Vengeance is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.60:1. The back cover of this release touts that this is "the first official North American disc release" while also offering the transfer was "scanned in 2K from the original camera negative". If Severin's day and date "sibling" The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals offered pretty widely disparate grain fields, this biggest issue some may notice with this particular transfer is somewhat variable color timing. Quite a few of the outdoor scenes featuring the marauding dog have a somewhat yellowish undertone that can make skies and waters slightly green. Other briefer moments skew a bit more toward blues. There are some brief but quite noticeable moments of image degradation, notably an "intimate" scene between the (anti?) hero and a woman who takes him in. Otherwise, though, a lot of this transfer pops quite agreeably and offers very good and even occasionally excellent detail levels.

A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Dog Called. . .Vengeance features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks in either Spanish or English. Unfortunately, there are some deficits no matter which track you choose, though I'd actually probably advise sticking with the Spanish, despite the fact that the lead is obviously a native English speaker. That's because the English track, while noticeably louder and more full bodied than its Spanish counterpart, also has a recurrent low frequency hum that afflicts it (it's especially noticeable in some of the "swampy" outdoor material that otherwise tends to only feature ambient environmental effects). While the Spanish language track can admittedly sound a tad anemic when stacked up against the English track, it doesn't have the same bothersome hum. Optional English subtitles are available for both tracks.

A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Film Ahead of Its Time (HD; 14:18) is an appreciation by Angel Sala, head of programming at the Sitges Film Festival. Subtitled in English.


• Memories of a Guerilla Woman (HD; 20:57) is an interview with Marisa Paredes. Subtitled in English.


• Daughter of Titans (HD; 13:19) is an intereview with Maria Isasi, daughter of director Antonio Isasi and actress Marisa Paredes. Subtitled in English.


• Trailer (HD; 2:36) features the alternate title The Dog.

A Dog Called... Vengeance Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are some rather interesting if at times jarring interstitial posters/placards scattered intermittently throughout this presentation that Angel Sala likens to something in They Live (see screenshots 4 and 8 for two examples), but one way or the other, those elements are simply more evidence that this is one film which tends to defy easy categorization or even summarizing. Miller is excellent in a role that pretty much requires him to be on screen for the duration of the running time. The scenes featuring the dog attacks are viscerally disturbing. Technical merits are decent, if improvable, but as usual Severin offers some nice supplements. With caveats noted, Recommended.