Man's Best Friend

Mad scientist Henriksen transforms a cuddly Tibetan mastiff into MAX 3000, a genetically engineered 'psycho mutt' that can only be controlled with stabilising drugs. When scoop-seeking TV reporter Sheedy and her camerawomen break into the EMAX lab and escape with the pooch, the time bomb starts ticking. The police have no leads (ho ho), MAX is headed for a 'psychotic episode', and paperboys, mailmen and neighbourhood moggies are on the menu. Swerving arbitrarily from cute dog stuff that should carry an adult health warning to toned-down gore scenes that fail to deliver the necessary slavering savagery, this mongrel project lacks a pure horror pedigree. So by the time the genetically hybrid MAX starts camouflaging himself as a pile of garage junk, or scaling buildings with the agility of a gravity-defying leopard, you too may be climbing the walls. Hard to credit.