Fluke

Fluke

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DVD Cover Information

• A goo film to see with your kids!
• Original Theatrical Trailer

Movie Reviews of Fluke

Movie Review: fluke, again
Summary: 5 Stars

(written by Richard Scheib)

Fluke (1977) is the most atypical of James Herbert's novels. It's a fantasy about a dog that thinks he is a man, quite different to Herbert's usual run of horror novels, which revel in extreme gore-letting. And a story where the central characters are canines, not humans, it is certainly an unusual choice for a film property. There is the sense that the film has been packaged as a high concept film - sort of Ghost (1990) meets Benji (1974), or a straight version of Oh Heavenly Dog (1980). And such a choice may well have been born out by Fluke's commercial reception - it doing no business at all in theatres and being released straight onto video in most countries.

Which is a shame as Fluke is quite a beautiful film and undeservous of such a poor reception. It evokes that same sense of fairy-tale caught between warmth and heartfelt tragedy that E.T.- The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and all the great Disney films do. Every shot is beautifully photographed. (Considering the difficulty of shooting with animals, the amount of effort required to get such exquisite shots must have been incredibly effort intensive). Director Carlo Carlei invests real warmth in the scenes between Fluke and Rumbo and Fluke frolicking with the young Max Pomeranc. The opening scenes with Fluke being born, the capture of he and his family by the dog pound, the escape from the pound, all shot down at floor level, are conducted completely wordlessly and do a wonderful job in showing things from a dog's point-of-view. And of course the ending is genuinely touching. The only scene that does not work is the breakout from the laboratory which involves animals conducting very un-animal-like behaviour - Rumbo willfully smashing through a window, having the intelligence to hit a release button, and the rest of the laboratory animals conducting such collective behaviour as fleeing toward the window and carrying other animals out with them. Herbert's book has been changed somewhat - the location moved from the UK to the US, the names of the characters changed, and the hero's daughter in the book becoming the hero's son in the film. Nevertheless the film works quite beautifully.

Copyright Richard Scheib 1996

Summary of Fluke