Directed by Curtis Harrington
Written by Elinor Karpf and Steven Karpf
Starring:
- Richard Crenna as Mike Barry
- Yvette Mimieux as Betty Barry
- Kim Richards as Bonnie Barry
- Ike Eisenmann as Charlie Barry
- Tina Menard as Maria
Rating: 
Call it the dog-from-hell version of The Omen. Instead of a creepy Antichrist kid, the menace comes with paws, teeth, and the snarling soul of a German Shepherd straight out of the inferno. Once again the picture-perfect American household gets torn apart by a demonic intruder. Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann—the kids from Escape to Witch Mountain—play siblings for a third round, now the offspring of Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux. After their old dog dies in an accident, the family brings home an adorable little puppy. Big mistake. The cute ball of fur turns out to be a four-legged envoy from the pit of hell. The harmless turns lethal and sunny suburbia slides straight into satanic panic. It’s silly, cheap-looking, and stuffed with every B-movie trope in the book, but within the tight limits of its TV origins, Curtis Harrington—a collaborator of underground provocateur Kenneth Anger—still squeezes plenty of fun out of the premise. The cramped framing, the eerie close-ups of the demonic hound, and the slow psychological unraveling of the characters give the whole thing just enough bite. It might be one more oddball entry in the towering stack of ’70s genre junk, but there’s always something perversely entertaining about watching the devil trash the peace of a middle-class American home—especially when the prince of darkness shows up wagging his tail.
