The Pack
I love Joe Don Baker and a good seventies revenge of nature flick , so it's no wonder I like Robert Clouse's 1977 THE PACK. Joe Don plays Jerry, a manly marine biologist who lives on isolated Seal Island off the northwest coast. Yeah I know JDB doesn't seem like the scientist type, but he's big and rugged, kind of like the anti Richard Dreyfuss. Seal Island is mainly a seasonal tourist fishing spot with only a few regular inhabitants, including Joe Bob's ladyfriend and her son. As the film begins, we see a thoughtless tourist family abandoning a dog they adopted earlier in the summer and we know where that's going. A group of bankers and some of their family are staying after the season has ended to do a little fishing and bonding. One of the group is a rich guy who has brought along his nerdy, overweight son and a hooker, whom the dad hopes will take junior's virginity and man him up a bit. The hooker is one of those nice heart of gold hookers, not a street whore but the understanding, sweet kind.But still willing to suck cock for money of course. At this point I thought the guy playing the son looked real familiar and it turns out he was a semi regular on "Cheers". He was the fat guy who wasn't Norm. So trouble starts quick when Jerry's faithful german shepherd is attacked by a stray dog at the dump. Jerry doesn't want to but knows he's gotta shoot the stray, leading us to an acting stand off between Joe Don and the dog playing the stray, both very good. There's mounting tension and inevitability as some attacks occur and the pack grows. The dog attacks are really quite well done and edited with some nice growly moments. The poor virgin and the hooker go for a non-sex walk, resulting in a very effective chase scene. Chunky virgin guy sure ain't no hero, he knows she's only a hooker and acts accordingly. For the last third it turns into a seige film as the survivors are trapped in a house, surrounded. The isolated island setting helps and they have several convenient plot elements such as a radio destroying storm and the loss of the only shotgun to ramp up the possibilty of death, so it works for the most part. Since Joe Bob is the only real man on the island, it's up to him to fight off the dogs and keep the idiots from doing stupid shit, like losing the only shotgun. One of the attacks in particular is pretty gruesome and gets even uglier when they have to dump the guy's corpse in the ocean to keep the starving dogs away. Other than the fact that they are starving and some possibly rabid, we aren't given a reason for the attacks and there's no vague meta-physical undercurrent like in THE BIRDS. It's a pretty lean flick but a very nice looking one, and definitely one of the better of it's type. Joe Bob saves the day and even reminds us that's it's really our fault, extending a hand in hopeful friendship for the final shot. As Joe Bob would probably say "don't go abandoning your dogs now. You hear me?".