Barking Dogs Never Bite is a dark comedy with elements of horror, that starts out strong, but finishes in a lackluster manner. The earlier scenes of the movie are quite scary, as we here the constant barking of a dog, which brings to mind the possibility of a Cujo-style horror movie, with a ravenous dog on the attack. Yun-ju, constantly annoyed by the barking dog, is driven to kill it, at first trying to hang the dog. However, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror while attempting to hang the dog, and it seems that he is so disgusted with the act that he cannot continue. He ends up locking the dog in a closet and letting it starve to death. The two dog-murder scenes in the film are good examples of Wells’ ideas about horror, in that horror relates to a preoccupation with the innocence of childhood. We associate pet dogs with kids, amongst other things, and as children we are taught never to do such things to our pets.
The Wells theory on horror works especially well with this movie, because Wells believes that comedies share the same aspects mentioned above. Later on in the movie, Sun-Ju’s wife buys a dog, and Sun-Ju loses the dog while walking it. He is forced by his wife to essentially search night-and-day for it, if he wants his wife to pay a bribe for him. So Sun-Ju, in a darkly comedic turn of events, is forced to search for the very thing he hates, the thing he spent the first half of the movie killing in various ways.
The idea behind the movie is very interesting, and it is fairly entertaining at first, but as the plot goes on, the dialogue and events get a bit flat, and the audience simply loses interest. It would have been great as an hour-long short film, but two hours was simply too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment