Rottweiler, Cyborg Canine

Almost 30 years after "The Omen" scared the pants off us, a film from Spain again throws a menacing Rottweiler at us. I know, all you dog lovers are yelling that these beasts are smart and gentle...maybe so...but they looks so mean. The Rottweiler community won't be happy at their depiction in this 2004 horror/sci-fi yarn, "Rottweiler." This is a good one that isn't necessarily saying that man is good, dog is bad.

Spain in the future (2018, actually) is a tyrannical dictatorship ruled by Kufard (Paul Naschy) the Sadist. After the coast guard seizes a boat carrying illegal refugees, Dante (William Miller) is arrested. Kufard shows up and rapes Dante's gal, Ula (Irene Montala). Dante isn't happy about this because...and get this...Ula seemed to enjoy the rape. Okay, never mind that...Dante will escape and Kufard will send his cyborg Rottweiler after him. As the monster dog rips through other prisoners, Dante runs. Dante's goal is to find his way back to the coast and collect Ula. As Dante runs through Spain, the rottweiler thing eats innocent Spaniard schmucks. Then the rape scene..

A naked Dante comes across an isolated farmhouse. A mom (Pauline Galvez) and her young daughter live there alone. Mom sees Dante and orders him into her bordello looking bedroom where she rapes him over and over at gunpoint and knife point. I repeat...she rapes him over and over again. The rottweiler thing arrives and the rapist/mom won't fare well. Dante is again on the run and the dog monster pursues. Uh oh...Kufard joins the search in his helicopter...but where is Ula. Dante, with the dog close behind, will look for Ula in Spain's red-light district. The monster dog will have so much fun here.

Should it matter that Ula enjoyed the rape...after all, didn't Queen Victoria advise, "Just lay back and think of Spain!"? Ah...England...same thing! Are cyborg rottweilers and their razor teeth the only relevant inventions that await us in 2018? Looking back two years, maybe so. Is Kufard's Spain an accurate vision of the Basque separatists? This is a loud and ambitious film and Paul Naschy is terrific in one of his last films (he died in 2019). For some neat dog horror that will surely offend the rottweiler owner community (who cares?), see "Rottweiler," directed by Brian Yuzna.