Director: Adrian Panek
Year: 2020
Country: Poland/Netherlands/Germany
Alternate Titles: Wilkolak
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
After being liberated from a concentration camp, a group of children are left alone in an abandoned fortress in the middle of the woods to fend for themselves, and as they succumb to starvation and thirst they find themselves slowly picked off by the rabid guard dogs that used to patrol the camp.
Review:
There was a lot to like with this one. Among its more enjoyable aspects is the impressive build-up to everything where the actions of the kids at the house makes for a solid time here. Working together to try to get by for what seems like the first time in their lives with no adult supervision alone in the middle of the woods inside a huge house by themselves offers a wholly engaging premise to work with before incorporating the events taking place around them. The period setting with the film set during the Second World War and being aware of the real-world dangers they face at the same time as the killer dogs surrounding them and makes for an engaging time as the scenes of them trying to forage for food in the woods, collect supplies and perform regular duties around the house offer enough to get going in the first half.
Likewise, once the dogs enter the fray there's quite a lot to enjoy. Not only are the attack scenes incredibly brutal but their general involvement is quite entertaining. The first attacks are highly enjoyable, from seeing the opening shots of the dogs tearing the prisoners to pieces to them stumbling upon the mangled bodies in the woods which get this going on a fine note. The actual encounter with the guard stationed to protect them which is quite brutal and dark in its own right and is followed nicely with the chase through the house trying to keep it under control while everyone frantically flees in cover. Keeping the dogs to a more realistic pattern of attacks with them mostly restricted to sniffing around, pacing and barking frantically might be a detriment since there's not much more in the way of brutality or a body-count the fact that they remain a presence to overcome and keep them there is a fine sight, and the uplifting finale is a positive to enjoy as well which gives this a lot to like.
This one does have a few minor quibbles about it. The main issue is the use of an annoying and utterly unrealistic trope where the dogs are able to follow the commands of the kids and not attack them. In a realistic sense, the dogs would be unresponsive to anything said by them just because the kids are speaking in their native language and would be unfamiliar with who or what was talking to it, making the scenes of them controlling the dogs highly illogical and far-fetched. Moreover, since they have that upper hand and realize that the dogs can be controlled why they don't press that to their advantage and escape keeping the dogs at bay which seems quite odd that this wouldn't be at least attempted earlier as they stay there for several days aware of this before anything is attempted. Otherwise, this one doesn't have many flaws.
Overview: ****/5
A highly enjoyable and generally likable effort that doesn’t have too much really wrong with it, there's so much to like on display here that it's one of the better genre features of its type. Give it a look if you're intrigued by it, a fan of these more realistic killer animal films or just a general genre fan while those who aren't into this style will be the only ones who don't enjoy this one.
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