A Boy and His Dog

[TJ]

This is actually a world-class movie made on a budget. Harlan is certifiable ... and in many respects puts Phil Dick to shame ... but too prickly for Hollywood, so they'll ignore him until they can safely make a buck off him without paying him anything.

And the movies will completely shred his ideas. Wait for it.

[JMR3000]

I saw this in college in 1988 at the campus theater's Cult Classic series.  Having lived all my life in the American Southwest (which brings so much more presence to Night of the Lepus, Tarantula, and The Island), I was very pleased to see Don Johnson and mutt wandering around my neck of the post-apocalyptic woods.  (Well, desert.)

The underground society was creepy, and I kept wondering how they made such vast open spaces beneath the surface.  You'd think that, after nuclear devastation, such massive excavations would be impossible.  What keeps it all from caving in?

At the college theater they would give away cheap prizes before the cult classic movies.  In this case the prize was a can of Alpo.  I didn't win.

[HarlotBug3]

How can you not like this film?  Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy recovers girl, AND FEEDS HER TO HIS DOG!  YES!  
I recorded this movie off of PBS and I'm glad I did.  No advertisements and no editing(suprising enough).  First and only time I ever saw nudity on PBS(it was 2:00 in the morning may be they figured no one would notice).

That PBS would show this unedited at anytime is so great I'm going to demand they do it agian at the next pledge drive.

This movie is a classic. That means essential for people who watch films consciously, whatever that amounts to. Many classic films are actually all kinds of bad, but a little contextual rearranging can make them utterly engaging.

Thanks for the chuckling (if short) review.

[William in DC]

The absolute worst ending of all time, to a movie that was otherwise pretty good for its genre was Don Johnson’s debut in, “A Boy and His Dog.” 

 

Great plot, especially for the teenager.  (Hey, I was newly married with a lovely wife at my side!)  The end of the world scenario was great, last woman on earth, found by a telepathic dog, the parents “didn’t understand” etc.  Girl rescues guy from certain death because he was stupid enough to follow her into paradise in lust! Great movie!

 

Okay, until THEY EAT THE LAST GIRL ON EARTH????  Who thought that up?  I don’t care if it was in the original!?!!  They FIXED the stupidity of Dumas in The Count of Monte Christo!!!!!   

 

I guess that is why St. George is one of my heroes.  First he did something about the problem, and second, I’ve always believed there were better things to do with girls and than feed them to dragons.  Today, 2 failed marriages later, I still wouldn’t feed any of them to the dog!  Not when a simple pint of blood from either of us would certainly do!!

[lily]

I juat saw this movie and loved it. On a superficial level it was misogynistic, but not really. The leading female character was far from a bimbo and she certainly deserved what she got at the end, which was very satisfying. A very well done, timeless, hilarious satire. The warped WASP underground society was spot on, especially with the "committee" headquarters being in a creepy (but very authentic) Protestant church basement. 

As a woman I find a movie like Medicine Man (the one with Sean Connery) or the second Indiana Jones (a Kim Basinger clone plays the lead) to be offensive.  This movie was realistic.

[Dave M]

I don't think she was the last woman on Earth, just maybe the last hot fertile one in that area.

I kind of got the impression that most of the excavation was supposed to have been done before the war, like these people took over an old secret government instalation or something.

[steve]

So many people have decided this is a cult movie. I suffered through 2/3rds of it before becoming bored and disgusted and finally turned it off. I am no prude, and consider John Waters Pink Flamingos a work of art, but this movie sucked. As others have pointed out, bad acting, dark cinematography (as in you can't see a thing), a stupid premise, and senseless violence do not a cult movie make. True, some of the scenes here and there were good, but what are we talking about here? Maybe 10 minutes out of the whole movie? Maybe. Later, when I read a review and found out how it ended, I was very happy I bailed out before then. What a stupidly dumb ending! Shock just for the sake of shock I guess. Harlen Ellison is a good writer, but not every story of his works. This one would have been better buried instead of being turned into a very bad film.

[Psycho Circus]

The absolute worst ending of all time, to a movie that was otherwise pretty good for its genre was Don Johnson's debut in, A Boy and His Dog.

This wasn't Don Johnson's first movie, his first role was in "The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart" and he did about 4-5 movies after that before ABAHD, but they didn't go anywhere.

I am a HUGE Don Johnson fan and I was really freaked out by this movie, it has it's moments and parts of the story are genius but I really don't like it at all. I can understand its cult appeal though.

[Maddog]

Shortly after it was released, I saw this movie in a drive-in in Florida. Perfect!

[john]

I think it's a great movie. If it isn't considered a cult classic, it shoud be. I tried watching V for Vendetta, now that movie just plain sucked.

[vaultboy]

I am surprised at the lack of "Fallout" references. I mean, there were raiders, mutants (not exactly like the ones in Fallout but still), a crazed underground society, all that was missing was genocidal government agents.

[Rev. Powell]

I am surprised at the lack of "Fallout" references. I mean, there were raiders, mutants (not exactly like the ones in Fallout but still), a crazed underground society, all that was missing was genocidal government agents.

If you mean the Fallout video game series, there are no references because this movie was made 20 or so years before the series existed (and the original story came out years before the movie).  A BOY AND HIS DOG may have been one of the films that inspired the game, though, along with MAD MAX and the other post-apocalyptic movies.

[Jim H]

I am surprised at the lack of "Fallout" references. I mean, there were raiders, mutants (not exactly like the ones in Fallout but still), a crazed underground society, all that was missing was genocidal government agents.

If you mean the Fallout video game series, there are no references because this movie was made 20 or so years before the series existed (and the original story came out years before the movie).  A BOY AND HIS DOG may have been one of the films that inspired the game, though, along with MAD MAX and the other post-apocalyptic movies.

I'm trying to remember any explicit references to A Boy and His Dog in any of the Fallout games, and I can't place any.  Regardless though, the influence A Boy And His Dog had on the late 70s and 80s post-apocalyptic sub-genre is very noticeable, particularly in Mad Max and the Road Warrior.  And those two, of course, were quite significantly influential on the Fallout games.

[farmer]

I enjoyed it and the ending is really great

@references in fallout 3
it's probably hard to tell if its a reference or just coincidence...
- in the trailer for fallout 3 you see a "lone wanderer and his dog"
- the "glowing ones", feral ghouls glowing green
- you start in a vault where a totalitary overseer rules, and when you come back revolution of the younger ones is going on

[farmer]

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog
in fallout 1 there is a vault city, ruled by a council which controls every aspect of life, pregnancies are strictly scheduled