Dogtooth Review

Dogtooth is a 2009 Greek drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It is a critically acclaimed movie nominated for a bunch of awards whereas in reality it is a sick and even unwatchable garbage.

It is about a husband and wife who keep their children locked in the house and keep them unaware of the outside world. Now granted, the premise is great and such an original idea, but such a lost potential in execution. It is never smart whatsoever and if the themes were present and properly explored, it would have been a good film. But nothing is ever explained here, nothing! You don’t get the backstory of the characters, you don’t get the psychology of their actions and you don’t get the commentary about family life and the difference between animals and humans. You don’t get any of that.

But instead you get the creepiness factor. This is one of the most repulsive films I’ve watched recently, but because it doesn’t serve the plot and is never given a commentary, it is highly unnecessary and just gross for being gross. There are a couple of scenes here that I literally had to skip how despicable they were! The movie is simply put disgusting, repulsive and just a sick perversion.

The characters are of course underdeveloped and they are all the same, not one of them differentiates and all are sick, disgusting creatures and they made this movie unwatchable with their unthinkable, horrific actions.

Yes, the acting is fine and the direction is solid, but apart from that and a clever but misused premise, Dogtooth is just a bad film by all means, a bad and disgusting work that seems as though it was made in the seventies when these kinds of sickening movies were constantly being made.

It is sort of well filmed and made, but it doesn’t matter when the story is basically non-existent and when it is just a series of vomiting sequences that make no sense and that are never properly explored whatsoever and are just there to sicken the viewer. I strongly dislike the use of violence in movies for the sake of it and this film is a prime example of that.

It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and of course that was such an awful choice in a bad year for foreign films. It lost to another mediocre movie ‘The Secret in Their Eyes‘ which just goes to further show how weak that year was for foreign releases.

Dogtooth is a sickening, repulsive and just plain disgusting experience where violence is used for the sake of violence, it is never explained and it just becomes a series of gross sequences. Its premise had potential, but the execution is awful making it a bad film by all means and one of the most revolting and even unwatchable films I’ve seen recently.

My Rating – 1.5

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      Interior & Exterior Stills from Dogtooth

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