Cujo (1983)

* * 1/2

This film was disappointing as it is meant to be a horror but it falls flat. The premise of an overly aggressive dog is not scary enough and too many fortuitous events happen for this film to be taken seriously (such as a baseball bat and gun both lying around when the woman makes a run for it).

At first I thought a St Bernard is probably the wrong choice for this dog as they are so fluffy and breed to help (as they are rescue dogs) therefore as a villain it was not believable. Later they applied blood, etc. on the dog and he became a lot more threatening and this worked better.

The characters are somewhat unlikable; you are expected to route for a paranoid child and his adulterous mother - a mother who thought it would be a good idea to open the car door on several occasions and put the window down; a mother who also could fight off a dog better than three grown men, one with a gun and another with a table to protect himself.