the_prince_of_frogs The first time I watched Cujo, I expected just a horror show. Well, I think this movie is a lot more. I will admit that I think Dee Wallace is a Super Star. In Cujo Dee Wallace portrays the most powerful force in the universe = a mother protecting her offspring. She faces down the monster with only the thought to save her child. This part of the plot is powerful enough to carry a horror movie. Interwoven in the movie is another plot of a woman married and with a child who explores an extramarital relationship. And of course this "lover" turns out to be a scoundrel supreme. Christopher Stone gives an outstanding performance as the spurned lover. Dee Wallace makes this movie.

Irishchatter This movie can put you off with having a St Bernard dog for a while lemme tell ya! However, I found that the ending wasn't completely finished like I would've liked to have seen both the mother and the son go to the hospital. As well, I would've rather the father killed the dog like he could've deserved to be a hero if they didn't make the father's character look like on and off again father. Tbh it might've better if the parents weren't to be separated or if the mother didn't cheat on their next door number. It was rather pointless tbh...The only advantage I can tell ya about this movie was the fact, they did a good makeup session with the dog and like it just looks surreal that the dog does have rabies so you would get definitely a lot of nightmares to experience with the dog in your face! Rabies is a horrible disease that can affect humans and animals alike. I suppose its giving the message that you should always make sure to check your dog regardless if they are working dogs or not. The character Brett Chamber was such a good example of a neglectful owner who just didn't give a toss in looking after the dogs health! Seriously, hes the character I hated the most, he was such an idiot like.Good movie but it needed a proper ending tbh...............

classicsoncall As a Stephen King adaptation, this movie's horror doesn't rely on evil demons, wicked clowns or fairy dust - it's something that could actually happen, and that's what's so powerful about it. I recall reading the novel many years ago and the film managed to stay relatively close to the narrative as far as I can tell since it's been so long.With the backdrop of young Tad Trenton's (Danny Pintauro) fear of going to sleep at night because of the monster in his closet or under the bed, his nightmare is realized when the family car stalls out in a back-woods mechanic's repair yard, abandoned by the owner and his family for extracurricular activities of their own.What follows is a harrowing ordeal that tests the limits of one woman's (Dee Wallace) endurance to keep her young son and herself safe from annihilation. The terror doesn't let up after 'Cujo' makes his first Jaws-like appearance until Donna Trenton takes her broken bat swing in the top of the ninth with no survivors left on base. Even then, there's one final surprise left before Cujo finally goes down for the count.I'd have to say that the make-up folks working on the assortment of St. Bernard's used in the filming did a stand-out job. As the animal became more and more vicious, the caked on blood and gore turned Cujo into one hideous beast. When he rammed the Trenton's car with his head, it's a wonder he didn't knock himself out, one of the more brutal occurrences in this tale of a rabid dog on a rampage.

Leofwine_draca Forget BEETHOVEN and any other shaggy dog story you may have watched or read - CUJO is the real deal. Based on one of Stephen King's lesser-known, earlier books, this is a non-supernatural horror-cum-thriller which centres around a large, lovable, dopey St. Bernard which gets bitten (right on the nose - ouch!) by a rabid bat and eventually goes on a savage spree of slaughter. Now, this is one scary dog. Getting progressively more evil-looking as the film progresses, it ends up as a huge, unstoppable monster with a little instinct and one covered in gore. Not a bad leap from the initially cuddly family pet it started off as. Definitely the scariest dog I've seen in a film, except maybe for that one in THE OMEN which was pretty damn frightening too.Unfortunately the dog Cujo doesn't figure too much in the first hour of this film, which is so caught up in boring character exposition that it almost forgets about the title character entirely, instead popping him up brief scenes throughout of him gradually getting dirtier and messier and more feral as the effects of the rabies virus take hold. Until the last half hour, which is one long set piece, we have to make do with everyday characters going about their not-very-interesting lives. Dee Wallace-Stone (THE HOWLING) is a cheating wife and mother, married to the boring Daniel Hugh Kelly. The pair have a bratty, whining little kid (another obnoxious child, here played by Danny Pintauro) who has asthma attacks at the most inappropriate times and keeps threatening to die (and by god, I wish he would). The rest of the small town hicks are fairly predictable folks, despite heavy attempts at characterisation to make them more interesting.The last half hour of this film is great stuff and contains numerous frightening scenes to make up for the lack of them in the first hour. Basically, Wallace and Pintauro are trapped in a car in the middle of nowhere whilst Cujo lays siege to them, smashing the car to pieces in some ferocious attacks that play on everyone's fear of dogs as unpredictable, snarling beasts. Very taut and suspenseful, this is a text book example of setting a movie in just one location and having lots of fun with it. The ending may be predictable but at least its clean and there's an (un)surprising twist to come at the warm-hearted family reunion in the kitchen.The acting is passable, yet nobody here shines much. Dee Wallace-Stone comes off the best and is given the most emoting as the housewife caught in the middle of a nightmarish situation and she puts in another strong turn. Danny Pintauro is saddled with a hateful character so it's not really fair to judge his acting (and can it be said that child actors truly act anyways?). Daniel Hugh Kelly is okay but has a boring character whilst Christopher Stone is badly miscast as the town stud (instead he resembles a neanderthal). Two familiar faces, lower down in the cast, are Ed Lauter and Jerry Hardin who would both go on to appear in THE X-FILES television series.Director Lewis Teague (ALLIGATOR ) handles the proceedings with some level of skill and he's assisted by the superior camera-work skills of Jan De Bont, who adds a glossy sheen to the look of the film. It's just a shame that, until the end, they don't have more interesting material to work with. The dog attacks are fairly brutal without being gory and, with the use of a few real dogs, a mechanical head (and even a guy in a dog suit at one point!) the film-makers create a convincing menace that becomes scary due to the realism. In the end, CUJO is a good attempt at a horror movie, albeit a rather dull one saved by the superior climax.