"Great Pets", which is abbreviated as just "Pets" on the DVD liner, is one of those bright ideas in search of development. Many films are made with their central ideas only half-baked, especially in these days of a profusion of indie projects. But here we have a good notion gone bad.
Racking my brain (what's left of its grey cells after a lifetime misspent watching far too many movies) the closest precedent to this feature is an extremely obscure film I watched many decades ago, Robert Downey Senior's "Pound". That experimental feature concerned dogs in a dog pound waiting to be adopted, played dramatically by actors not animated characters and without hokey makeup.
"Great Pets" is science fiction/fantasy, putting us into a parallel world where the pets in effect own the owners. It's not Rod Serling or "Planet of the Apes" but rather a seemingly genius porn concept with the pets being nude actors and actresses frolicking around outside but talking in quite sinister terms about their masters and what they plan to do to them.
Sounds surefire, almost qualifying for the "why didn't I think of that?" file. But director Jim Enright and writer-producer Michael Raven (latter sort of hogging the credit) get it wrong, failing to make the most of the gimmick and settling for mechanical sex instead. Perhaps it would take an intellect and artist at the level of Jonathan Swift or Rabelais to pull off such a concept to perfection, but these pornographers miss by a mile, using up most of their brownie points earned for having a good notion in the first place.
I won't spoil the brief mythos presented in the story, which some viewers may find clever. The cast, led rather confusingly by Charlie and Jassie, two actresses whose resemblance to each other stopped me in my tracks as to who was in which scene and why, are far better at humping than achieving the Living Theater type of movement and performance to make one believe they are portraying pet dogs rather than just good-looking nude porn stars. Always lovely TJ Hart plus Monique De Moan are more successful at commanding one's attention.
So file "Great Pets" aka "Pets" in the coulda been a contender file, a sublime concept waiting for a more talented Adult filmmaker to develop and tackle.
Racking my brain (what's left of its grey cells after a lifetime misspent watching far too many movies) the closest precedent to this feature is an extremely obscure film I watched many decades ago, Robert Downey Senior's "Pound". That experimental feature concerned dogs in a dog pound waiting to be adopted, played dramatically by actors not animated characters and without hokey makeup.
"Great Pets" is science fiction/fantasy, putting us into a parallel world where the pets in effect own the owners. It's not Rod Serling or "Planet of the Apes" but rather a seemingly genius porn concept with the pets being nude actors and actresses frolicking around outside but talking in quite sinister terms about their masters and what they plan to do to them.
Sounds surefire, almost qualifying for the "why didn't I think of that?" file. But director Jim Enright and writer-producer Michael Raven (latter sort of hogging the credit) get it wrong, failing to make the most of the gimmick and settling for mechanical sex instead. Perhaps it would take an intellect and artist at the level of Jonathan Swift or Rabelais to pull off such a concept to perfection, but these pornographers miss by a mile, using up most of their brownie points earned for having a good notion in the first place.
I won't spoil the brief mythos presented in the story, which some viewers may find clever. The cast, led rather confusingly by Charlie and Jassie, two actresses whose resemblance to each other stopped me in my tracks as to who was in which scene and why, are far better at humping than achieving the Living Theater type of movement and performance to make one believe they are portraying pet dogs rather than just good-looking nude porn stars. Always lovely TJ Hart plus Monique De Moan are more successful at commanding one's attention.
So file "Great Pets" aka "Pets" in the coulda been a contender file, a sublime concept waiting for a more talented Adult filmmaker to develop and tackle.