“If you took the DNA from each and genetically spliced it into a breed of a dog, you would have a magnificent creature.”

Justin’s rating: Woofing to the max!

Justin’s review: Before the internet, you never quite knew what you were getting with a lot of movies at rental stores, especially the lesser-known ones. So it became a sort of deceptive tactic on the part of the movie studio to dress the lower profile films in attractive box art that would give the completely wrong impression. You’d rent it, have your expectations utterly dashed, and then have to decide whether the actual product was worth it on its own terms.

I think of this when I beheld the art to Man’s Best Friend, because if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume that Lance Henrickson was doing a Terminator spin-off where there was a cyborg dog called T-REX or something. I mean, c’mon, that’s totally what that box design and poster are projecting.

What Man’s Best Friend actually is is a decent mid-90s scifi-flavored creature feature with a few good thrills, stunts, and memorable scenes.

Ally Sheedy, light-years away from her John Hughes and Johnny Five days, is Lori, a TV reporter with questionable judgment who infiltrates an animal genetics lab for a story. While there, she decides to both release and then adopt an absolute unit of a dog called Max. I don’t know what it is about Ally Sheedy adopting weird freaks of science, but it seems to be a trend with her characters.

Her judgment is evaluated and found lacking when Max turns out to be some sort of super-killer with genetic traits from a wide variety of animals, including a jaguar, which — for the purpose of this movie — I am willing to accept is a type of “dog.” Also, Max is straight-up homicidal, which is bad news for the suburban neighborhood where this lackwit of a reporter lives. I know you think I’m being harsh here, but if I hauled a temperamental full-grown hippo into a subdivision and it started to rampage through a kid’s birthday party with multiple fatalities, I’d probably be held liable and called a few names myself.

After some deaths, scares, a cat swallowed like a vitamin supplement, buried bodies, and even animal-on-animal sexual assault (seriously), Lori tries to offload Max and get some help. She turns to the genetic lab owner and off-brand mad scientist, Jarrett (Henrickson in full-on beach blonde mode), who really wants the dog back before his entire company evaporates.

The most frustrating part of this movie was the fact that the cops never once try to arrest Jarrett, despite his company creating a killer dog that — to Jarrett’s own admission — killed a guy viciously.

Man’s Best Friend is the kind of movie that New Line loved to do in the ’90s: low-budget, genre-heavy, and focused more on cheap entertainment than quality storytelling. Suffice to say, a lot of these movies were savaged critically yet managed to cobble together a cult following of cinematic cheese gourmands.

And if you’re into the idea of a killer dog movie where the critter has some abilities above and beyond normal canines, you might find something to appreciate here. Sheedy gets to be cute, the dog gets to pee acid, and Henrickson gets to run around with big ol’ guns despite being the secondary antagonist.

Hey, I dug it. The mixture of comedy, horror, scifi, and doggy belly rubs ratchet up that fun factor even if there is nothing of quality here. Also, I would totally adopt Max. He eats cats.

Intermission!

• Kill count is seven (lab lady, mugger, mailman, junkyard owner, cop, another cop, scientist) plus a cat and parrot
• All good killer dog movies start with classical art that grows more and more disturbing
• I actually love this theme track
• Now we can learn Spanish as we watch the movie!
• I love all the early-90s short female haircuts on display here
• It’s no velociraptor attack, but it’ll do. It’s pretty brutal
• “Goodbye, adios.”
• A rabbit without an ear! A monkey without a skull! The effects artist was having a field day, here.
• Max is really cute, killing aside
• “You were probably a lawyer in another life, I bet.”
• Max is pretty good at unlocking and opening car doors
• Sigh… not every tattoo has to be compared to a concentration camp
• Lori’s boyfriend looks like he stepped right out of 1988
• Vivisection books are fun to look at before bed
• “We’re not talking about man’s best friend here.” He said the thing! He said the thing!
• Max terrorizing the paperboy is a great little moment
• Rollerblades! “Today’s word is ‘fart-face.'”
• Max can identify a brake line
• Voice-activated AI in 1993, sure
• He can CAMO now?
• “Max could save thousands of lives” okay I think you’re overselling it
• The famous cat-swallowing scene!
• Haha the dog cut the brake line
• And now some animal rape, why not. In their bed.
• Acidic pee? What animal did they cross-breed that from, the xenomorph?
• Slow motion running and grunting is never not funny
• Their porch crawl space is going to smell something unholy in a week or so
• That is one deceased parrot! (sorry)
• Max can flush a toilet. Of course he can.
• Dang, smacking him with a shovel seems a little excessive for a new dog owner
• And now getting his eye blowtorched
• Crotch bite, ouch
• Yes, teach the little dog to chase and chew electrical cords, that’ll end well
• Dude, what happened to your face? Oh you know, genetically enhanced dog peed acid on me. Typical.
• These cops have zero firearm control here
• About TIME we got to see Max’s chameleon abilities
• Random thought: Are there any other executives at Emax, or is this just one guy and some lackeys? Where’s his board of directors in all this?
• Ally Sheedy super-banged up looks kind of cool