Michelle Rodriguez, Taryn Manning, Oliver Hudson, Hill Harper and Eric Lively star as five friends who retreat to a deserted island for a weekend break, only to come under attack from a pack of genetically mutated dogs.
The film’s creepy opening sequence is unfortunately ruined by some dreadful acting and atrocious dialogue, but Nick Mastandrea’s assured direction and a genuinely atmospheric score help make it better. This is more or less how things play out for the rest of the film.
The core cast do good jobs with the material, but none of the characters stands out enough for us to root for. There is a decent attempt at conflict as Hudson and Lively play brothers who fell out in a battle of the heart, and also an interesting but underdeveloped side plot involving the spread of the genetic mutation to humans, which is sadly more or less forgotten about before the finale.
The two main things which ruined the film for me were the script and the editing. The dialogue is atrocious at times with characters who are supposed to be in their mid-twenties spouting things commonly found in whiny chick-flick dramas e.g. ‘I waited ten years for him to notice me’ and the exposition is on the nose. The script also has a tendency to try and be like Scream, by pointing out its own flaws such as Hill Harper’s line where he wonders why they ‘always have to put the fuse box in the basement’. The editing also highlights flaws where you can clearly tell they were stuck for footage and inserted snippets of stuff from earlier scenes and tried to make it look like it happened later in the day. I also wondered what had been cut out.
Apart from these two main issues the film features some unexpected surprises, a couple of nifty reveals, one of which is coupled with an awesome death scene and lots of cool violence towards dogs (which I felt guilty for enjoying, but did nonetheless).
OVERALL SUMMARY
The Breed isn’t the strongest horror film I’ve seen in recent years (which is most likely the reason for its long delayed release), but it’s a fun flick to catch at the end of spring break nonetheless.
