The Plague Dogs

The 1982 animated film, “The Plague Dogs” begins with the opening credits over a black screen and the ominous sounds of lapping water. It fades into a large tank filled with water. Bubbles float past the screen as Alan Price (of The Animals) sings ‘Time and Tide’, a slow, bluesy croon that begins with the lines: “Oh, I don’t feel no pain no more…I left this cruel world behind and I’ve found my peace of mind…I don’t feel no pain no more.” The camera pans up, revealing the blurry visage of two researchers looking into the tank, suddenly the music cuts out, a large dog surfaces, barking in distress, drowning, the scientists begin yelling and the viewer is thrust into the nightmarish world of “The Plague Dogs”

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams, author of “Watership Down”, and is directed by Martin Rosen, who also directed the animated adaptation of “Watership Down”. Like Adams’ rabbit opus, “Plague Dogs” is a no-holds-barred existential dissection of the life of a compromised animal. The film follows two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who are escaped test subjects of a dubious medical facility in the farmlands of North-West England. When news of their escape gets out, the nameless and faceless scientists of the facility fear that the dogs have become contaminated with the bubonic plague, a virus that was being housed at the lab. The Lab takes increasingly sever measures to stop the dogs before they reach civilization, culminating with the National Guard transforming the English country side into a state of siege.

“Plague Dogs” is the “Call of the Wild” for the Twentieth Century. Rowf and Snitter are forced to embrace their feral instincts if they are to make it in the harsh country side, slaughtering sheep farms and avoiding human hunters. The film explores the biblical question of “Why do Bad things happen to Good people” (Or, in this case, Good Dogs). Rowf and Snitter are not aware of their role as plague bearers, and only want to make it back to the Big City where they presume they have a ‘Master’ waiting to take care of them, but their odyssey is filled with perils and death.

The animation is this film is grounded in realism. The English country side is beautifully painted, rendering it almost photo realistic. The dogs themselves may or may not be rotoscoped; every aspect of their stride and demeanor is so spot on, every canine nuance nailed perfectly, that there are times I forget that I’m watching talking dogs on the screen, and I allow myself to feel complete compassion towards these poor suffering creatures.

The film culminates in a mirror image of the first shot, with the dogs finding themselves in a body of water much larger than the research tank; they paddle into the ocean as soldiers fire at them from the banks. Through the sound and the fury the dogs question if they’ll ever be happy, if things will ever go back to normal, and it is in this instant that the viewer understands the imminent fate of these poor dogs; Time and Tide wait for no man, and to cement these words into the final scene, Alan Price begins to sing again, only this time, the lyrics “I don’t feel no pain no more” are backed by a foot-stomping gospel choir, transcending pain and death, as if to promise that whatever place these dogs end up in, it will certainly be better than this world.