On Friday nights, IndieWire After Darkish honors fringe cinema within the streaming age with midnight films from any second in movie historical past.
First, the BAIT: a bizarre style decide and why we’re exploring its particular area of interest proper now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled reply to the all-important query, “Is that this previous cult basic truly value recommending?”
The Bait: No Meals? No Females? No Shit.
There’s a feminist interpretation of “A Boy and His Canine” lurking someplace inside this divisive black comedy from 1975. However I could be only a little too depressed to search out it.
No worries! We will nonetheless flop on the sofa, stream it totally free, and let the maybe-misunderstood, anti-fascist cult basic — a few brutish scavenger named Vic (Don Johnson) and his psychic canine named Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire) — smother us each like a hug in a heatwave.
This summer time within the U.S. has been laborious. Not “roam a post-apocalyptic wasteland looking for humanity” laborious, however difficult all the identical. 50 years in the past, actor L.Q. Jones raised $400,000 to direct an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s “A Boy and His Canine.” It’s a twisted assortment of tales about an authoritarian regime combining components of the buddy journey with a fiercely perverse and but staunchly anti-sex nightmare. Jones had hassle getting help from studios again then, however the mission’s themes really feel recent now.
“Eisenhower… Truman… Kennedy…”
We meet Vic and Blood ambling by means of the desert. It’s 2024 A.D. however Brat Summer time is nowhere in sight. The companions depend on one another in a world consumed by conspiracy, corruption, and nuclear panic. Bandits, raiders, and extra monsters crawl the barren panorama. Charismatic psychos on chariots immediately give away “A Boy and His Canine” as inspiration for “Mad Max” (George Miller has mentioned as a lot) — however the position it performed in shaping the backwards Americana of “Fallout” shines even brighter.
“Johnson… Nixon… Ford… Kennedy… Kennedy… Kennedy…”
Quizzed by his canine companion, Vic recites former U.S. presidents to recall their nation’s sordid historical past. From 1950 to 1983, World Struggle III lasted many years, however World Struggle IV resulted in a matter of days? Yikes. Born in the true 2006, Vic would’ve entered an America launching Twitter, discovering Taylor Swift, transporting Saddam Hussein, and reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.
However right here? Right here, he’s an evil 18-year-old going through a hopeless future in a cesspool previously generally known as Phoenix, Arizona. (He would have voted for Trump both manner — however one sounds higher than the opposite.)
The deal between canine and deadbeat? Vic feeds Blood and Blood sniffs out ladies for Vic to rape. “No Meals. No Females.” That’s the association. It’s a sickening setup however the filmmaker isn’t shy. Jangly keys play underneath the title card organising a weird collision that looks like a sort of complicit intimacy.
“You’re not a pleasant particular person, Albert,” Blood chides. He’s sardonic amid the sexual violence. “You’re not a pleasant particular person in any respect.”
He’s mocking Vic with a literary reference, though that isn’t clear within the film. As Ellison explains within the novella, Albert Payson Terhune was well-known for writing feel-good books about his beloved collies. “A Boy and His Canine” sees Blood repeatedly punish Vic for his friendship in a semi-antagonistic relationship that feels toxically male and codependent in a “Wilfred” manner. Blood is smarter than his human, however their energy wrestle is punctuated with frat boy insults, like “fuzzy butt” and “canine meat,” on either side.
Enter Quilla June (Susanne Benton). She’s an exquisite lady who wins Vic’s coronary heart in the course of a would-be assault. He beams, “I’m the one who’s presupposed to need to do it!” — a political parallel so on the nostril of the present tradition wars it’d as nicely be the face masks on a science denier’s chin.
Will Quilla lastly drive Blood and Vic aside? Or will “A Boy and His Canine” escape the tyranny of a [gasp] attractive human lady alive?! Sink into the unhealthy summer time vibes and discover out on Tubi. (Yeah, yeah, it’s owned by Fox, however the service free. So, free move for everybody. I’m not coping with that both.)
“A Boy and His Canine” is now streaming on Tubi.
The Chew: Is That the Pernicious Normalization of Violence In opposition to Girls — or Are You Simply Completely satisfied to See Me?
Verify again in a characteristic size. Are you watching “A Boy and His Canine”?
IndieWire After Darkish publishes midnight film suggestions late-night on weekends. Learn extra of our deranged suggestions and filmmaker interviews…