Not to be confused with the almost identically titled masterpiece directed by Mario Bava, "Like Rabid Dogs" is one of the obscurest Euro-crime cult thrillers to come out of 70s Italy, but nevertheless a very worthwhile one for fans to check out. It's not highly original, it's not exceptionally well-made, it doesn't have a stellar cast and it wasn't directed by a famous name in the industry. And yet, just because of all these reasons "Like Rabid Dogs" is so darn entertaining! How's that? Well, it's the type of film that benefices from its bare-boned production values, because it generates a raw-edged and nihilistic atmosphere, while the characters (both heroes and villains) are genuinely insane and the violence is extremely brutal and uncompromising. The film is a modest entry in the also overall modest Euro-crime sub genre of "delinquent rich teenagers on a rampage". Other noteworthy, but almost equally obscure, titles in this category are "Young, Violent, Dangerous", "Terror in Rome" and "The Children of Violent Rome". As you may guess, the protagonists are spoiled kids from rich & influential families that, for reasons none other reason than boredom and the quest for kicks, commit vile crimes like robbery, rape and murder. The trio in "Like Rabid Dogs", two boys and a girl, particularly fancy terrorizing and slaughtering the prostitutes that the father of one of them frequently visits. This gives the investigating police inspector Muzi the unorthodox and rather stupid idea to disguise a female colleague as an undercover prostitute and send out her out on the street unprepared & unprotected. The tone of "Like Rabid Dogs" is very grim and primitive straight from the opening sequence, set at a football stadium where the two bad boys pull off a heist and unhesitatingly shoot a security guard in the face. Immediately after this scene, there's shockingly realistic footage of a woman committing suicide by jumping out of a window from the sixth/seventh floor. We then hear in the police debrief that the victim was the security guard's fiancee, so the first five minutes are already quite sour-tasting and confronting. The film is full of unrelenting rawness like this, including extreme misogyny, merciless executions and homophobia. With his background as director of lewd sex-comedies ("Blue Jeans", "La Ragazzina"), Mario Imperoli naturally doesn't cut back on nudity and sleaze. The gangster trio, for example, has a very open triangular relationship and even the policewoman willingly submits to sleeping with inspector Muzi moments after nearly being raped by hoodlums. Imperoli also tries hard to reflect the contemporary Italian political & social tensions in his film, and he even adds an artsy footnote in the form of an Othello reference, but "Like Rabid Dogs" mainly and primarily just remains bold and nasty exploitation entertainment. Especially the climax will fill you up with that good old-fashioned feeling: "Ha, they got what they deserved!"
5 Reviews
Like Spoiled Rich Kids
Bezenby17 October 2018
This is yet another Rich Kids Thrill Kill film, a sub-sub-sub-sub genre of Eurocrime that also includes The Kids Of Violent Rome, Young, Violent and Dangerous and The Savage Three. Three kids who all belong to rich families have taken to robbing places and killing people for kicks, starting off with a robbery at a football stadium where a cop takes a gunshot to the face. Shortly afterwards, his pregnant wife takes a very realistic dive out of a window.
This doesn't go down well with Inspector Muzi, a downtrodden police officer who thinks he knows whose behind the killings - A young, rich, thin, sporty, arrogant, high-cheek boned, self-confident jerk by the name of Tony, son of a rich businessman and probably heavily influenced by his father's ruthless approach to life. Other than being a part-time armed robber, he also likes to kill women, and so does his girlfriend Sylvia, and her other boyfriend, as the three of them share everything. In fact, as we'll find out, Sylvia shares everything with everyone and spends a lot of this film starkers!
Muzi can't find any real proof that Tony is behind the killings, but when Tony takes to killing his father's favourite prostitutes, Muzi gets a brain damaged idea to have his female associate go undercover as a hooker that almost gets her raped, which she recovers from fairly quickly in time to get it on with Muzi.
There's not much plot in this one but there sure is a lot of violence and nudity, somehow seemingly justified by Tony and Muzi having discussions about the political climate of mid-seventies Italy and how Tony things they are similar in nature. As these murderous rich kid theme goes, at least this one attempts to give us some background on the kids and show things from their end, as they discuss their hate for everything and their wish to live in a world devoid of other people. Plus, one of them blacks up as Othello. Ah, the seventies.
The gore level is higher than usual too as people are blasted with shotguns, hit in the face with spiked planks or shot through the head. What was going through the heads of people in Italy to produce so many of these nihilistic films? Where they genuinely troubled by the youngsters? Maybe they should have invented facebook faster, because the kids in my work have no interest in anything!
This doesn't go down well with Inspector Muzi, a downtrodden police officer who thinks he knows whose behind the killings - A young, rich, thin, sporty, arrogant, high-cheek boned, self-confident jerk by the name of Tony, son of a rich businessman and probably heavily influenced by his father's ruthless approach to life. Other than being a part-time armed robber, he also likes to kill women, and so does his girlfriend Sylvia, and her other boyfriend, as the three of them share everything. In fact, as we'll find out, Sylvia shares everything with everyone and spends a lot of this film starkers!
Muzi can't find any real proof that Tony is behind the killings, but when Tony takes to killing his father's favourite prostitutes, Muzi gets a brain damaged idea to have his female associate go undercover as a hooker that almost gets her raped, which she recovers from fairly quickly in time to get it on with Muzi.
There's not much plot in this one but there sure is a lot of violence and nudity, somehow seemingly justified by Tony and Muzi having discussions about the political climate of mid-seventies Italy and how Tony things they are similar in nature. As these murderous rich kid theme goes, at least this one attempts to give us some background on the kids and show things from their end, as they discuss their hate for everything and their wish to live in a world devoid of other people. Plus, one of them blacks up as Othello. Ah, the seventies.
The gore level is higher than usual too as people are blasted with shotguns, hit in the face with spiked planks or shot through the head. What was going through the heads of people in Italy to produce so many of these nihilistic films? Where they genuinely troubled by the youngsters? Maybe they should have invented facebook faster, because the kids in my work have no interest in anything!
Based on real life
BandSAboutMovies15 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
In two days in September 1975, three men - architecture student Gianni Guido, medical student Angelo Izzo and Andrea Ghira, the son of the building contractor and former Olympic water polo champion Aldo Ghira - invited Donatella Colasanti and Rosaria Lopez to a party at Ghirain's family home. The trio had been in trouble before, as Ghira and Izzo had served twenty months for an armed robbery charge and Izzo and two other friends had assaulted two women, a crime he never served time for. He also proclaimed that he admired the Clan of Marseillais, which used drug trafficking and kidnappings, making crime into an actual industry.
The three men and two women spent some time together and there was no incident or warning of what would happen next until Guido and Izzo made sexual advances. When turned down, they pulled guns and claimed they were kidnapping the women for the boss of the Clan, Jacques Berenguer.
For the next day and a night, the two girls were taken on a tour of hell that only ended when Lopez was drowned in a bathtub and Colasanti was strangled with a belt and hit with an iron bar. Pretending to be dead, she laid in the trunk of Guido's father's FIAT 127 while the trio drove to Rome to dispose of the bodies, laughing and listening to music.
Instead, the three men decided to have dinner, during which they got in a brawl with some young communists. That meant that they left the car unattended, during which Colasanti began screaming and striking the walls of the trunk. A security guard actually thought it was the sound of a cat trapped inside the car.
The media was there as she was removed from the car. Colasanti never truly recovered from the mental trauma of the evening. Izzo and Guido were arrested several hours later while Ghira was tipped off and ran, even sending a letter to his friends where he told them they'd soon be released, as well as threatening to kill Colasanti if she testified.
Izzo and Guido had hung a large stadium-sized banner that said "Corso Trieste 1972 - La Vecchia Guardia" in their cell. They also tried to escape in 1977, but by 1980, Guido had his sentence reduced by declaring that he was sorry, which was accepted by Lopez's family. That really wasn't true, as he escaped in 1981 and fled to Buenos Aires before he was caught. He escaped again in 1985 and spent nearly a decade before he was caught in Panama, where he was working as a car dealer. He was finally released from prison in 2008. When Izzo was released from jail in 2004, he was already back to assault and murder within a year. He remains imprisoned.
As for Ghira, he fled to Spain and adopted the name of Massimo Testa de Andres and enlisted in the Spanish foreign legion. He was expelled for drug abuse in 1994 and supposedly died of a drug overdose that year, a fact that was only learned in 2005 when a body was exhumed and identified with DNA. However, many did not believe that report, as Ghira had been seen in Rome, Brazil, Kenya and South Africa in the years since he was supposedly dead.
Written and directed by Mario Imperoli, Come Cani Arrabbiati tells the story of rich kid Tony Ardenghi. His double life consists of being a student by day and by night, acting as the killer of prostitutes. Along with his friends Rico and Sylvia, they go from simple violence at soccer matches - a theme of these youth gone wild films - to drowning women in bathtubs in an echo of the real-life murder discussed above.
Inspector Paolo Muzi then gets an idea, assigning his lover Germana (Paola Senatore, Eaten Alive!, Emanuelle in America) undercover, but he soon learns that the rich kids station in life prevents him from getting the justice that only a group of socialist protestors can.
Sadly, Imperoli - who was mainly known for sex comedies like Blue Jeans and Monika - died a year after this movie at the way too young age of 46. I would have loved to have seen where else his career would have gone.
This is a brutal and dark movie made about brutal and dark times. And it's one I recommend that you see.
The three men and two women spent some time together and there was no incident or warning of what would happen next until Guido and Izzo made sexual advances. When turned down, they pulled guns and claimed they were kidnapping the women for the boss of the Clan, Jacques Berenguer.
For the next day and a night, the two girls were taken on a tour of hell that only ended when Lopez was drowned in a bathtub and Colasanti was strangled with a belt and hit with an iron bar. Pretending to be dead, she laid in the trunk of Guido's father's FIAT 127 while the trio drove to Rome to dispose of the bodies, laughing and listening to music.
Instead, the three men decided to have dinner, during which they got in a brawl with some young communists. That meant that they left the car unattended, during which Colasanti began screaming and striking the walls of the trunk. A security guard actually thought it was the sound of a cat trapped inside the car.
The media was there as she was removed from the car. Colasanti never truly recovered from the mental trauma of the evening. Izzo and Guido were arrested several hours later while Ghira was tipped off and ran, even sending a letter to his friends where he told them they'd soon be released, as well as threatening to kill Colasanti if she testified.
Izzo and Guido had hung a large stadium-sized banner that said "Corso Trieste 1972 - La Vecchia Guardia" in their cell. They also tried to escape in 1977, but by 1980, Guido had his sentence reduced by declaring that he was sorry, which was accepted by Lopez's family. That really wasn't true, as he escaped in 1981 and fled to Buenos Aires before he was caught. He escaped again in 1985 and spent nearly a decade before he was caught in Panama, where he was working as a car dealer. He was finally released from prison in 2008. When Izzo was released from jail in 2004, he was already back to assault and murder within a year. He remains imprisoned.
As for Ghira, he fled to Spain and adopted the name of Massimo Testa de Andres and enlisted in the Spanish foreign legion. He was expelled for drug abuse in 1994 and supposedly died of a drug overdose that year, a fact that was only learned in 2005 when a body was exhumed and identified with DNA. However, many did not believe that report, as Ghira had been seen in Rome, Brazil, Kenya and South Africa in the years since he was supposedly dead.
Written and directed by Mario Imperoli, Come Cani Arrabbiati tells the story of rich kid Tony Ardenghi. His double life consists of being a student by day and by night, acting as the killer of prostitutes. Along with his friends Rico and Sylvia, they go from simple violence at soccer matches - a theme of these youth gone wild films - to drowning women in bathtubs in an echo of the real-life murder discussed above.
Inspector Paolo Muzi then gets an idea, assigning his lover Germana (Paola Senatore, Eaten Alive!, Emanuelle in America) undercover, but he soon learns that the rich kids station in life prevents him from getting the justice that only a group of socialist protestors can.
Sadly, Imperoli - who was mainly known for sex comedies like Blue Jeans and Monika - died a year after this movie at the way too young age of 46. I would have loved to have seen where else his career would have gone.
This is a brutal and dark movie made about brutal and dark times. And it's one I recommend that you see.
Brutal
derek-duerden13 July 2023
Despite having recently watched "Highway Racer", "The Savage Three" and other poliziottesci, I wasn't really prepared for the bleakness and brutality of this one.
There is the familiar anti-capitalist background and boredom of the young rich, and a reasonable plot, but the way that this one lingers on the (often sexual) violence was a bit of a surprise to me, and it comes across as an extreme example depicting a deeply corrupt and misogynistic society - even the "good guys" treat the women very badly. Just because they're not raping and murdering them (as the bad guys do) it doesn't make for easy viewing. I wonder what contemporary Italians think of this stuff?
Not for the faint-hearted.
There is the familiar anti-capitalist background and boredom of the young rich, and a reasonable plot, but the way that this one lingers on the (often sexual) violence was a bit of a surprise to me, and it comes across as an extreme example depicting a deeply corrupt and misogynistic society - even the "good guys" treat the women very badly. Just because they're not raping and murdering them (as the bad guys do) it doesn't make for easy viewing. I wonder what contemporary Italians think of this stuff?
Not for the faint-hearted.
'Like Rabid Dogs' is a viciously distempered, tarmac-shredding, balaclava-blasting beast!
Weirdling_Wolf5 December 2021
'Like Rabid Dogs' (1976) - Mario Imperoli.
Forcefully endowed with no less of a feral bite than Sergio Grieco's maniacal 'Mad Dog Killer', and maestro Umberto Lenzi's sociopathic Poliziotteschi 'Almost Human', supremely versatile film-maker Mario Imperoli's frequently ferocious, politically enraged 70s crime thriller remains a dazzling example of a much-maligned genre. Opening with a thrilling, especially bravura heist at a packed football stadium, the unrepentantly brutal Euro-crime classic 'Like Rabid Dogs' relentlessly plunges the increasingly hypertensive viewer into the arbitrarily cruel murder machinations of three middle-class thrill killers, callously led by pretty stone-faced psychopath Tony (Cesare Barro), the terminally twisted trio's orgiastic murder spree very soon becoming the greatly tormenting obsession of stolid cop Commissario Muzi(Jean-Pierre Sabagh), and courageously aided by the breathtakingly beauteous Policewoman Germana (Paola Senatore), the talented director Imperoli grittily orchestrates a violent, bullet-casing tight agitprop crime thriller that succeeds not only as an unflinchingly visceral Poliziotteschi, but makes for a fascinating document exposing the turbulent socio-political unrest of Italy in the 1970s. A meticulously constructed film that certainly rewards repeat viewing, and the resolutely cool, objective way Imperoli documents the gang's wanton sadism recalls Michael Haneke at his glacial best. For those cult film fans only familiar with Mario Imperoli's playful, Gloria Guido-starring, snugly denim-clad sensation 'Blue Jeans' (1975) are in for a shock, since 'Like Rabid Dogs' is clearly an entirely more viciously distempered, tarmac-shredding, balaclava-blasting beast, and the inspired, rump-humpingly groovy score by maestro Mario Molino is an extraordinarily strident, skin-pricklingly perky delight!
Forcefully endowed with no less of a feral bite than Sergio Grieco's maniacal 'Mad Dog Killer', and maestro Umberto Lenzi's sociopathic Poliziotteschi 'Almost Human', supremely versatile film-maker Mario Imperoli's frequently ferocious, politically enraged 70s crime thriller remains a dazzling example of a much-maligned genre. Opening with a thrilling, especially bravura heist at a packed football stadium, the unrepentantly brutal Euro-crime classic 'Like Rabid Dogs' relentlessly plunges the increasingly hypertensive viewer into the arbitrarily cruel murder machinations of three middle-class thrill killers, callously led by pretty stone-faced psychopath Tony (Cesare Barro), the terminally twisted trio's orgiastic murder spree very soon becoming the greatly tormenting obsession of stolid cop Commissario Muzi(Jean-Pierre Sabagh), and courageously aided by the breathtakingly beauteous Policewoman Germana (Paola Senatore), the talented director Imperoli grittily orchestrates a violent, bullet-casing tight agitprop crime thriller that succeeds not only as an unflinchingly visceral Poliziotteschi, but makes for a fascinating document exposing the turbulent socio-political unrest of Italy in the 1970s. A meticulously constructed film that certainly rewards repeat viewing, and the resolutely cool, objective way Imperoli documents the gang's wanton sadism recalls Michael Haneke at his glacial best. For those cult film fans only familiar with Mario Imperoli's playful, Gloria Guido-starring, snugly denim-clad sensation 'Blue Jeans' (1975) are in for a shock, since 'Like Rabid Dogs' is clearly an entirely more viciously distempered, tarmac-shredding, balaclava-blasting beast, and the inspired, rump-humpingly groovy score by maestro Mario Molino is an extraordinarily strident, skin-pricklingly perky delight!
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
