The Plague Dogs (film)

The dogs are on the loose is a British animated film made in 1982 by director Martin Rosen, after the 1977 novel, The Dogs of the Black Death by Richard Adams. It is about two dogs who escape from an animal testing lab and try to find a new home. The film came in the ( West) German cinemas on 21 October 1982.

Action

The Labrador Woof and the terrier Snitter live in a research institute in the English Lake District, where both are abused and tortured cruelly for research purposes. One night Snitter noticed that the door to Wuffs cage was not completely closed up, and he makes his attention. In this way, both dogs can escape from the laboratory. In freedom Snitter dreams of a new masters, while Woof is the firm belief that all people are cruel. You try to survive in the wilderness, but must soon find that they have been weaned by the experiments in the laboratory of freedom. Fortunately, the two learn shortly afterwards know a fox who teaches them to survive in the wild. Meanwhile, a reporter spread the news that the two dogs carrying the causative agent of bubonic plague in itself. Through this hoax being a race begins on the dogs. At the end of the film they swim, the constant escape weary of an imaginary island in the sea.

Voice Actors

Effect

The film is indeed a cartoon, but suited to an even greater extent than Watership Down (film ) for children. The atmosphere of the film is consistently sad and gloomy. Just like the novel The Dogs of the Black Death criticized the film meaning and purpose of animal testing and calls on to treat animals respectfully.

Criticism

" Martin Rosen ( " Watership Down " ) confirms his class as a director. "

"With melancholy images, subtle, without shock effects of the remarkable animated film tells the story of a great failure and hopeless struggle for survival against the power of the people and their violence against nature. The behavior of the tortured dogs is as realistic as their subscribed environment wherein people characteristically appear only as shadows. "

Publication

In retail, the film was released on DVD. For the German market, however, in a highly abridged version of 82 minutes. The full version was sold only on VHS.