This 43-minute retrospective documentary covers a lot of interesting and illuminating ground on the making of "Cujo." Director Lewis Teague calls the film his greatest work and goes into fascinating detail on how particular moments in the movie were done using various different elements. Stephen King expert Douglas Winter identifies "Cujo" as one of King's darkest and most claustrophobic books as well as reveals that King preferred the film's upbeat ending to the downbeat ending in his novel. Dee Wallace describes her part as a tour-de-force role for a woman. Danny Pintauro admits that be bit Wallace's fingers for real during the seizure scene. Composer Charles Bernstein points out that about 80% of his score is warm type of music. Cinematographer Jan de Bont talks at length about the difficulties of shooting inside the car. In addition, no one is able to correctly remember exactly how many different dogs were used to play Cujo. Recommended viewing for fans of the film.
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Woodyanders26 February 2019
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Michael_Elliott6 October 2012Dog Days: The Making of Cujo (2007)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Three part documentary takes a look at the making of CUJO, the cult 1983 film, which turned into a rather profitable hit for the studio. Dee Wallace, Lewis League, Danny Pintauro, Jan de Bont, King expert Douglas Winter as well as the producers and composer are all interviewed and tell some good stories about the making of the film. Some of the highlights include Wallace talking about the various things they have to do to the dogs because they were simply having too much fun and they weren't looking scary enough. This includes making sure to tie their tails between their legs so that it wouldn't move around as they played. The director also talks about how he got hired and the various changes that went on during pre-production. There's also some talk about the how many dogs were used and it's clear that no one really knows. We also learn which scenes a human in a costume was used as well as just a mechanical dog's head. It seems that everyone was very happy with how the film turned out and especially director Teague who calls it his greatest work. It would have been nice had Stephen King been involved but Winters does give a few comments about the original novel and how the author got the idea for the story.