“Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair”: The Plague Dogs (1982)

A very different kind of animated film. Make sure to leave the kids (and pets) at home for The Plague Dogs, a rarely-screened masterpiece of arthouse animation whose haunting memory will never leave you.

This fascinating follow-up to 1978’s landmark Watership Down follows lab test dogs Snitter and Rowf, who jailbreak from their torture in a secret facility only to find that the outside world’s even more bleak. Since the dogs accidentally broke a vial used by plague researchers on their way out, the human world launches a lethal hunt. Here is a world where animals are not a blank slate for our ideals and morality, but are the direct expression of the animals themselves; Humanity’s the bad guy, and the audience is not left off the hook. Featuring a slew of top-tier British voice talents: John Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, Judy Geeson and Patrick Stewart.

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