Doghouse – A Laddish Zombie Movie

A group of mates with mid-life anxiety take a weekend trip to the countryside. But the village they head for is occupied by man-hating, cannibal zombie women. This hopelessly ill conceived laddish zombie comedy is a lot of fun.

Danny Dyer is as solid as always here and he’s helped by a very good cast. The film does have some serious niggles however, and some scenes that could have used more humour. The movie is definitely worth a watch though and it’s good to see British horror making a return.

The story itself is not very deep but there is a lot of characterisation in the film. Seeing the men try and cope with the situation is very interesting as it shows just how messed up some of these guys are. There are a few decent jokes in there too, the best being when the men name one of the zombies “Bridezilla” and then later on Mikey’s nan (referred to as a Snipper by the men) is killed with a garden gnome.

The main problem with the film is that it seems to revel in what is called ‘lad culture’ – which basically refers to an unrepentant male boorishness and sexism. While there was a previous British horror film that ventured into this territory with Lesbian Vampire Killers, Doghouse takes it further in a misogynistic way. The only reason this doesn’t completely derail the film is that there is a fair amount of working class grit in it too and this helps to give the film some credibility.