Blog 11 - Plague Dogs Film Response

Plague Dogs is a film that follows two cartooned dogs in their escape from an animal experimentation laboratory. It seeks to raise awareness of the needless cruelty that takes place unknowingly in many experimental facilities. It is an interesting film that is animated like a child’s movie, but it portrays adult themes. It is a movie that is uncomfortable to watch and yet it gets across a strong message to those who view it. Plague Dogs is able to evoke such feelings due to it anthropomorphizing all the main animals that appear throughout its duration.

The directors anthropomorphized the main dogs who escape in the movie to allow us to connect and relate to these animals. We are able to understand the pain and horrible lifestyle they live when they are continually forced to swim until they drown, then they are revived and placed back in a cage. They are not cared for in anyway, besides the necessities of food and water. One dog chronically suffers with head problems due to the experimental vivisection performed on his brain. We are able to see the pain he suffers from and are taken aback by the big scar he carries on his head from the surgery. And yet even though the “white coats” did this to him, he continually tells his companion that he wants a master. Despite the horrific treatment, he yearns for a human companion. This is exemplified by the naivety of him walking up to the man with a gun who was searching for him. This longing to be accepted and loved by someone is another thing that we, as humans, can relate too. It would be hard to evoke these feelings in us if the dogs were not given human characteristics, such as the ability to talk in our language or the yearning to be loved. These feelings that were evoked in me have led to a more negative outlook on animal experimentation. I still believe that some animal experimentation is needed, but I think that tests which will provide information of trivial consequence should be stopped.

Plague Dogs also is very depressing. The dogs are continually hunted and treated as outcasts. It seems very unlikely that something good will happen to them by the end of the movie. This feeling though is a powerful tool in raising opinions that oppose such practices. Animals experimentation is not a pleasant subject, so it makes sense that the movie itself provokes an uncomfortable feeling within us, in the hopes that people will start to speak out against such happenings. Dogs are animals that have a special place in the hearts of humans. Their place as “man’s best friend” also serves to make this movie more influential. It is easy to think of all the dogs we love and imagine that they were treated in such a way. When thinking of this I know I become appalled. The director did a great job in adding all these aspects to the film, making it much more effective at changing opinions on this subject. Plague Dogs is an animated movie with a serious theme that speaks out effectively against the cruelty of needless animal experimentation.