O.C. MOVIE REVIEW : A Very Violent ‘Best Friend’

With “Man’s Best Friend� (countywide), as slick as it is repellent, the horror picture literally goes to the dogs. It’s one thing to depict humans behaving diabolically to each other in the name of thrills and chills, but to show us doing our worst to animals hits a new low. It’s also irresponsible, pandering to the worst fears of fanatic animal-rights activists.

Ally Sheedy stars as a TV reporter with far more ambition than brains. Breaking into a laboratory that contains a zoo’s worth of animals, all of which bear hideous gashes clearly suggesting some form of experimentation, she winds up at her home with one of the animals, a seemingly lovable Tibetan mastiff named Max.

Never does it occur to her that he might be in some way dangerous--even after discovering he bears a mysterious surgical scar and is taking an especially ferocious lunge at her live-in boyfriend (Fredric Lehne). The laboratory’s mad scientist (Lance Henriksen, typecast) is more than eager to get Max back swiftly, for the dog has been genetically engineered to be a super-intelligent, super-lethal weapon, and the drug administered to control him will wear off in only hours.

Meanwhile, Max is already turning into a serial killer, warming up by magically following a cat up a tree and killing it, swallowing it whole before our very eyes. Finally realizing that she has got to get rid of Max, Sheedy turns him over to a junkyard operator who promptly slugs Max with a shovel and turns an acetylene torch on him before the dog turns around and finishes him off.

What makes “Man’s Best Friend� (rated R for terror and violence involving household pets) all the more reprehensible is that technically it is not a crude piece of work, easily dismissed for its fakery. It’s polished in all aspects, and while the film is cynical and shallow, writer-director John Lafia, one of the creators of Chucky, the demonic doll of the “Child’s Play� movies, socks it over briskly with plenty of impact. Even though acting honors go to the various mastiffs playing Max, a canine Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, everybody involved on both sides of the camera displays enough talent to have justified attempting a film that set its sights considerably higher.

‘Man’s Best Friend’

Ally Sheedy: Lori Tanner

Lance Henriksen: Dr. Jarret

Fredric Lehne: Perry

Trula M. Marcus: Annie

A New Line Cinema presentation of a Roven-Cavallo Entertainment production. Writer-director John Lafia. Producer Bob Engleman. Executive producers Robert Kosberg, Daniel Grodnik. Cinematographer Mark Irwin. Editor Michael N. Knue. Costumes Beverly Hong. Music Joel Goldsmith. Production design Jaymes Hinkle. Art director Erik Olson. Set designer Sharon E. Alshams. Set decorator Ellen Totlebren. Sound Steve Nelson. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for terror and violence involving household pets.)