By Whenever I start doing research for what to cover for the Tribeca Film Festival in any given year, I always look for a movie with some kind of hook. Due to the amount of movies and documentaries present each year, I have to find ways to whittle down the sheer deluge of titles into something more manageable. I always check out the description of each film in the festival’s program and find something, anything, that stands out for me. Maybe it’s who’s attached to a project, or if the film/documentary is about something that interests me. As long as a film makes me pause and think about it, it goes on my shortlist. From that perspective, Dog of God certainly has a lot of eye-catching points in its favor.
Before watching Dog of God, I was immediately struck by its rotoscope animation. That alone is worth mentioning, but when you factor in that it’s dripping in Gothic horror aesthetics and centers on witchcraft and werewolves, then you have my attention. That just sounds like a movie tailor-made for me. The fact that the film hails from Latvia is almost irrelevant. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people who will see it solely because it shares that same country of origin as this year’s Oscar-winning Animated Feature Flow, but those going in expecting something akin to Flow will be in for a rude and visceral awakening.
Dog of God
Directors: Lauris & Raitis Abele
Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Tribeca Film Festival)
Set in the 17th century in a small Latvian village that is poor and destitute, a local priest named Buckholz (Reginar Vaivars) goes on a crusade to punish the local tavern owner, a woman named Neze (Agate Krista), whom he’s been lusting over and is accusing of witchcraft. When he finally makes her stand trial, it’s interrupted by a werewolf named Theiss (Einars Repse), who brings with him a psychedelic and carnage-filled spectacle that’s honestly hard to describe.
Now, while I may have been intrigued by Dog of God’s rotoscoped animation and the grim atmosphere the film emanates, I very quickly noticed how adult-oriented this film is. Like, this is the kind of film that if it were to get a theatrical release, would receive a rare NC-17 rating. It wouldn’t be because of any excessive gore however, but entirely to do with the raw sex and horniness of the film.
One of the tags that’s been used to describe Dog of God is that it, stylistically at least, is most reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi’s work, which is a pretty apt comparison. If you want to see a movie that captures the feeling of the experimental nature of the 1970s, then Dog of God is for you. It starts out conventionally enough, introducing several characters and establishing their own side plots before they all converge at the trial, but just when you think it’s getting too slow and dry, a man will come on screen, penis fully erect, and scream about how he wants to have sex with everyone in the world.
Moments like that are oddly compelling. Comical and stupid, yes, but still compelling. They really do punctuate the film and break up the tedium that, at points, plagues the first half. At times, it feels like a dirge, with the characters and audience by proxy wallowing in the filth of this village, waiting to die like so many of its inhabitants. The rampant lust on display is unique, especially when compared to how tepid and prudish many films today can be, but it’s questionable whether there’s a point to it, or rather if it was just to raise eyebrows and outrage people much like Batski’s work.
However, while I can certainly criticize the pacing of the film, I respect and appreciate how the movie handles Latvian folklore and how it’s presented through Theiss. In Dog of God, werewolves aren’t your typical monsters. They’re spiritual beings and serve as protectors of sorts, with Theiss himself saying that he wandered into town because it was almost as if it was calling to him. The matter-of-fact nature of him, as well as the ambiguous nature of his claims, all present him as a compelling character. There’s darkness afoot in town, Theiss is here to observe it, and the cause, as always, is rooted in human nature.
In that regard, Dog of God may only really have its rotoscoping and crazed finale to stand on, because the majority of the film is conventional. Once you step back from the oddities of the film, like the appearance of a strange creature that provides euphoric lust, the plot is fairly conventional. If you’ve ever been forced to read The Crucible or seen Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you have a pretty good idea about how all the character relationships and drama will go. Granted, it’s all significantly darker, both visually and tonally, than either of those stories, but I often found myself glossing over the character moments because they’re fairly straightforward and self-explanatory, with the exception of the sex crazed baron.
As far as the animation goes, you’ll either love it or hate it. Animating over live-action actors is definitely hit-or-miss for some, primarily due to the uncanny valley effect that rotoscoping has, and I won’t deny that there’s some of that here. However, when Dog of God wants to just let loose and let the animators go wild, it’s some solid stuff. I may have been disappointed by the gray color scheme used throughout most of the film, but the usage of red in key moments is damn pretty, and how it’s used to make the climax as crazy as it is is something to commend. I can’t necessarily say that it was worth sitting through an hour and twenty minutes to reach, but it did help justify the watch.
It’s tricky because I respect a lot of what Dog of God does. It’s an experimental piece of art that very clearly is a passion project for its directors. No one else in their right mind would greenlight a rotoscoped horror movie set in the 18th century and rooted in Latvian folklore. It just doesn’t happen. But I’m happy that it exists, even if I didn’t love it or even like it all that much. I enjoyed what it attempted to do, and I’m all for films that take big swings and try to tackle the boundaries of genre and taste. Dog of God simply doesn’t stick the landing for me. There’s someone out there who is ready for a horny as hell animated horror movie, but shockingly enough, I’m not that person.
