TV Movie Time Tunnel: Ain't Nothin' But a "Hound" Dog!

Today's featured TV-movie gets things wrong right out of the gate, for reasons I will explain in a moment. But this doesn't mean that it isn't without its campy rewards. A 1978 offering, its generally well-handled by directer Curtis Harrington and provides a sort of cook's tour of every occult horror project of the day. At the time, movies like The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976) and many others were making religious thrillers the "in" thing. This may as well have been titled "Rosemary's Puppy!" Ha ha!  

 

For fatties like me, this is a Devil Dog! 

The inspiration for Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell sprang from a 1974 episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, in which Tom Skerritt played an ambitious politician who's made a deal with the devil and can transform into a savage dog in order to eliminate his enemies. A plan to continue the story with a TV-movie sequel was scuttled when rights became an issue and Skerritt found himself cast in an upcoming feature film. As the feature was Alien (1979), I doubt he mourned the situation at all...! 

Enter Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux and a whole different sort of storyline. 

Things kick off with staggeringly prolific character actor Bill Zuckert as a kennel owner with some mysterious buyers. They are looking for a particular type of dog for their purposes. 

The group's leader is played by a nefarious looking Martine Beswick, who some of you will recall from From Russia With Love (1963), Thunderball (1965) or a number of other things. The script refers to her as "Red Haired Lady," though she retains her usual raven locks. 

Soon enough, with the selected pooch retrieved, we find her at a Satanic hoedown. 

On site is instantly-quirky character actor R.G. Armstrong among the minions. Note the deluxe aluminum foil each Satanist has around his or her candle to avoid those pesky drippings...! 

I don't know many any in real life, but these folks are so often presented as not only singularly unappealing, but also not much fun to be around...!

Beswick has chosen a German Sheperd, a herding breed, not a hound, to mate with Satan (or something) and generate a litter of evil canines. (I'm not making this up.) 

Cut to Crenna, an aerodynamics expert...

...and his wife Mimieux, who volunteers as an art therapist at a local veteran's hospital. They are permitted about 45 seconds of happiness before they're hit with tragedy. 

As they near their suburban home, they discover their beloved family dog (which appears to be a true hound) dead in the street. 

As a distraught Mimieux clings to her husband, their next-door neighbor reveals that he saw it happen. A black station wagon hit the poor animal then drove off. 

Said neighbor is played by yet another very prolific character actor, Lou Frizzell. 

The couple's young daughter, dressed in the latest fashion from the "House of Wednesday Addams," is played by Kim Richards. It's her birthday (she's supposed to be 10, but was nearing 14 in real life!) The party is canceled after the death of her pet, Skipper.

Her brother is played by Ike Eisenmann. Yes, you read that right.

These two had played siblings in the Disney sci-fi movie Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and its sequel Return from Witch Mountain (1978.) They were cast in Devil Dog without the producers realizing they'd famously been siblings on screen twice before. The kids also didn't realize that they'd been placed in this TVM together until arriving on set.

About to take a spin on their bikes to get their minds off the loss of their dog, they are met at the end of the driveway by a peddler. 

It's Armstrong, one of Beswick's Satan worshipers! He offers them some apples at first. 

Then he shows them something else in the back. 

It's the dog that was bred with the devil and some of her litter (which was ten pups in all!) Off topic, would you buy produce - corn and lettuce(!) - from a vendor who had a dog and puppies riding amidst it?!

Feeling it's "too soon," Richards declines the pooch at first, but ultimately changes her mind and takes one. 

All four family members are happy enough to take in the little guy, now named Lucky, though no one ever asked him if he wanted to live in a house with such violently ugly wallpaper.

Friendly neighbor Frizzell shows up with his own canine Prince, along with a present for Richards. 

Right away his Great Dane takes a look at Lucky and there's trouble. 

Lucky makes his presence known in his own special way.

In a huff, Prince decides to exit stage right in a very Stanley Kowalski-like way, "clearing the table" in the process! 

Enter the family's housekeeper Tina Menard.

Richards shows off her new acquisition.

But the cross-wearing Menard is instantly uneasy. 

I don't rightly know if Mimieux's poodle perm hairdo is a deliberate in-joke or just a coincidence.

As the days continue, Menard continues to feel unhappy about the new arrival. 

She appeals to Crenna to get rid of it, and, while he hears her out, he's disbelieving of her concerns. 

The family heads out to see a play, leaving Menard on her own with the threatening beast.

Look out!!

She lights an array of candles and begins reciting prayers. This does not end well...

Months later, Crenna and Eisenmann are in the yard working on their faulty lawn mower. 

Crenna begins working on the blade. 

But he's not alone. The now-grown Lucky is watching!

Crenna becomes strangely mesmerized as the blade of the mower (which is not on!) begins whirring around. 

Against his will, in a rather petrifying scene, he can't seem to prevent himself from inserting his hand into the blade!

Somehow he manages to snap out of it just in time. 

Eisenmann and Richards are now acting weirdly, too. They get up in the middle of the night and traipse through the house by candlelight. 

And they are enraged when they find Mimieux in Eisenmann's room, with her just having discovered some drawings along with blood-like paint on his writing desk. He explains it away as an art project they wanted to surprise her with. 

Uneasy after another tiff with the children, Mimieaux settles into her living room with the latest copy of Redbook magazine. 

But she's not alone...!

Somehow two fires break out in the kitchen, which she's able to extinguish. But then she begins wending her way through the house to avoid the inaccurately-named Lucky. 

Crenna makes his way home from work after a very long day. 

He finds his wife out in the backyard...

...Smoking!

She's not only smoking, but she's also "in the mood." 

All this is being keenly observed by their household pet.

She's different now. Sultrier and edgier. She tells Crenna she wants to take a midnight swim in Frizzell's next-door pool. 

She drops her robe and hits the water, au naturel. 

Crenna is startled by such brazenness... 

...but soon drops trou and dives in for his own skinny dip! 

Crenna does his own dive. And while he may have been wearing some skimpy, sheer panties...

...they become transparent in the water and provide what would likely be the closest thing he ever did to nudity. 

There's even something dark going on in front. Quite a moment, albeit split-second, for late-1970s network television.

Prince, upset about Lucky, not the skinnydippers, will not stop barking! Mimieux suggests to Frizzell that he be put down. Needless to say, he's having none of that.

Later, Crenna is jogging and comes home to a squabble on the street. (Speaking of streets, check the name of theirs!)

Crenna's family and Frizzell are in a fight over Prince and Lucky. 

Frizzell is convinced that Lucky is responsible for the slaughter of his beloved Prince. But there's no proof. 

The next day, as Crenna tries to chat with Mimieaux about the situation, the kids are impishly laughing obnoxiously. 

This is why. It's Frizzell!

Crenna takes note of a huge campaign button on Eisenmann's shirt. It seems he's running for class president. 

A while later, the family is paid a visit. 

It's Dallas' Ken Kercheval, from Eisenmann's school. 

Over coffee, he explains that there's been a situation at school in which Eisenmann's chief rival for class president was disqualified over the suspected theft of a watch.

His parents, especially Mimieux, have trouble believing that their son engineered a setup. 

From the other room, the children - and Lucky - listen in. 

The next night, Crenna is stunned when Mimieux comes sauntering in late in a low-cut dress, having come from a meeting with Kercheval. (Is that perfume or bourbon on her vanity!? Ha ha!)

He derides her for employing such a tactic in order to rescue their son from disciplinary action at school until she informs him that "it worked!"

Or did it? Kercheval is awakened in the middle of the night by the appearance of...

...THIS!

Crenna is appalled at how utterly unconcerned his family is about the fate of his friend Kercheval. They blithely carry on as if he'd suffered a mere hangnail. 

One night, he's drawn to the home's attic. (Note the nativity scene lamp!)

Everyone else is suddenly there...! Including Lucky.

He unveils their artwork and, though it concerns him, he for some reason doesn't run out of the house and down the street screaming...!

Instead, he makes an appointment with his doctor to make sure that he doesn't have something wrong going on with himself.

His doctor (Jerry Fogel of The Mothers-in-Law) has trouble comprehending the sort of far-fetched instances Crenna is relaying and offers him some tranquilizers. 

At home, he tries to get through to the "new" Mimieux, who now would rather shop than give art lessons to the veterans at the hospital. But she's not having a bit of that. He decides that it's time to rid themselves of Lucky. 

When a woman being interviewed for a TV news story tells of her husband's violent behavior and how she blames their dog, Crenna feels he has no choice. 

Despite his family's protestations, he drives Lucky to a remote location and aims his handgun at the canine. 

The bullets end up having no effect!

Crenna, who I must say is all in and gives great face throughout this tale, cannot believe what he's seeing. He drives away, leaving Lucky there.

Yet when he finally gets home, the dog is already there waiting! 

Now at his wit's end, he visits an occult bookstore and spills his guts to the owner. She has information about what he's up against; a barghest. It's a beastly demon who can only be seen in his true form at night. She proves helpful when she finds a book with mention of a demon like the painting he has having been found on the wall of a cliff in Ecuador. 

The bookshop owner is played by Gertrude Flynn who, among other things, ...

...portrayed the ladies room attendant in 1967's Valley of the Dolls! It's tough to notice anything else besides Patty Duke and Susan Hayward during their catfight, but I always enjoyed Flynn's hooty line, "What an awful thing to do to a great star like you." 

One thing Flynn advises is holding a mirror up to someone who is feared to be possessed. That night, Crenna creeps into Richards' bedroom to give her a look. 

Nope. Nothing unusual here... Ha ha!

We next find him at that cliff wall in Ecuador. All he can do is stare at the painting until his taxi driver says he can get him to a local shaman. 

Crenna waits for the shaman to weave his way down from the mountain. 

At last has someone who understands what he's been enduring and also may be able to lend some assistance. 

The shaman is played by none other than Victor Jory, who you might recall as the despicable overseer Jonas Wilkerson in 1939's Gone with the Wind. 

Advising Crenna that such a thing may banish the beast for one-hundred years, he paints a religious symbol into the palm of his hand. 

Back home, Crenna has a final showdown with said beast. 

And there's no truth to the rumor that the animal's look was designed by Wayland Flowers and/or Madame...! You may view this "Halloween Howler" - as it was advertised - right here in a beautiful print. Till next time, li'l doggies!