- Directed by Ward Hiney
- Written by Chad Christy
- Stars Chad Christy
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 19 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UphYZa6sag
Spoiler-free judgment zone
There isn’t a lot to spoil since it is a documentary with no plot. This outing wasn’t as strong as some of the other works by these same folks. There were fewer witnesses with their stories, less history and lore, and it seemed a little aimless. It was a little thin.
Synopsis
We open with a group of “monster hunters” getting set up with wildlife cameras and talking around a campfire as the credits roll. They talk about having a bunch of eyewitnesses to interview about the dogman/werewolf creature in the Ohio and Pennsylvania area.
The first couple talk about hearing the “Ohio Howl,” which is a well-known thing that you can hear on the Internet. They’re very “spiritual” people. They also talk about how haunted the area is, with a lake that flooded an old cemetery. They talk about a legendary “rivalry” between the dogman and the sasquatch. She then talks about dreams she had as a teenager. They talk about meditation and doing rituals and bring in some other ideas that go off-topic.
The next man describes, in detail, where he saw the inhuman creature. He describes it as a huge dog standing up on its hind legs, walking across the road.
The third witness is located near the previous man. We very soon cut back to the first couple, talking about twisted tree branches and other things that have nothing to do with werewolves.
We then cut to the producer calling a prospective interviewee, “We are struggling to find really pointed dogman sightings.” The caller says that most people don’t want to talk about Dogman because they’re afraid to discuss it. They talk about old stories and legends.
We then cut to an old woman who used to run a metaphysical store, “but I didn’t believe in vampires or werewolves then.” She had a man come into her store claiming to be a werewolf. He was from a pack of werewolves from California, and he was on the run from the pack.
We then cut to the film guys exploring an old rail tunnel that might have a dogman living inside. They do see dog footprints
After another interview, the filmmakers go hang out in a cemetery at night, and we get lots of shots of graves in night vision. They complain about it being cold and then go back to their campfire and pray.
Commentary
The first twenty minutes or so is almost exclusively a couple talking about mumbo-jumbo and magic, barely touching on werewolves, and the same couple is revisited several times.
There are two types of stories here: first, the dogman, who is an animal who lives in the woods like Bigfoot, and then werewolves, which are humans who turn into wolves at the full moon. The stories are similar, but a werewolf wouldn’t be living in a train tunnel or building nests in the woods.
The production values are good; the audio and video are really well done, as are all the documentaries from Small Town Monsters, but this one is really lacking in witnesses. Most of their recent releases have had reconstructions, animations, and other things that are interesting to watch as the stories unfold; this one has very little of that. None of the stories were particularly compelling or felt like anything more than tall tales. They feel like leftover, unused footage from their other, better films pasted together to release something for Halloween quickly.
We laughed out loud at some of the stories, not because they were meant to be funny. I’d recommend watching “The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State” instead.