The Plague Dogs – 1982 | 103 mins | Animation, Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Like Watership Down, Plague Dogs is an animated feature adaptation of a Richard Adams novel produced by Martin Rosen. And also like Watership Down, its general grimness makes the film more appropriate for an older audience than younger children. The downbeat story of Man’s Best Friend is straightforward and lacking in subtlety but increasingly tugs at the heart strings as we’re led to a haunting tear-jerker finale. The US release is heavily cut and lessens the impact of the sobering ending.

A pair of laboratory dogs, embittered Labrador Rowf and guilt-ridden terrier Snitter (voiced by John Hurt and Christopher Benjamin), escape from a government research centre in Coniston and go in search of the ‘masters’ Snitter speaks fondly of from his flashbacks. The pair meets only hostility from the public they encounter and have to survive in the wilds of the Lake District with the help of a cunning fox (The Tod). The lab director tries to keep the escape quiet, but as an increasing number of sheep are found killed, word leaks out, together with rumours that the dogs might be plague carriers. With the farmers failure to control the two dogs before long the army are called in to sweep the moors.