Los cachorros (1973) User Reviews

Classic in Mexican exploitation.

[insomniac_rod · 8/10 · 6 January 2007]

Classic and key movie in Mexican drama and exploitation genre. This movie is rather depressing than shocking.

The title tells you half you need to know. A young man is taking a shower when a savage dog attacks him and devour his genitals. The scene is pretty gory and raw but I repeat, it's not that shocking; it's depressing. As a child that scene impressed and shocked me, but now as a grown-up I understand the sad situation and I can fully understand the symbolism of his attitude as an adult. The fixation and voyeurism attitudes reflect the burdens of being psychologically disturbed.

The rest of the plot deals with his normal life as an adult and how traumatic the experience is. He gets into a passionate relationship with a love caring and beautiful woman but everything gets horrible when they try to have a sexual relationship. . .

The movie is not that raw in visuals but in dialogs and character development it's truly disturbing. Low budget in Mexican cinema always means crudeness.

You won't be disappointed if you like difficult topics displayed into movies.

MAJOR SPOILER

The ending is also very depressing and truly makes you feel sorry for the male lead; which by the way is played brilliantly by Pepe Alonso.

Death wasn't the solution in my opinion.

Also: Helena Rojo was freaking hot.

Freely based on Vargas Llosa's novel

[embolicat · 2/10 · 28 November 2008]

This movie just draws from Mario Vargas Llosa's novel the name and what happens to the protagonist as a kid.The rest is just the silent (and I mean SILENT) and painful life of this guy as a young man who's life is destroyed: he can't study, he can't have a girlfriend. He only drinks.

Way low budget, but the actors are good (maybe not in this flick, but hey): José Alonso, María Rojo, Helena Rojo... just to name a few. Bad, bad, bad, cinematography, and I'm puzzled that in a certain love scene there is piano music playing "Love is real" by John Lennon, a song that was not written until 1979, eight years after this movie was released.

I'm sure you have better things to do than watch this movie, like, clean your drawers with Q- Tips, or something...

The Other Review is Wrong

[bogart__mcfly · 3/10 · 19 January 2008]

The main character "Cuellar" is played by Jose Alonso.

As a little boy, Cuellar is attacked by an old dog (just one), not by puppies .One might thing that the title refers to the attacking dog.

One of the wonders of the English Language is that it has specific words. The English title for this movie is "The Cubs", not "The Puppies". This is because the Cubs refer to the group of friends of the castrated boy.

It is based on a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru. Thus this Mexican movie doesn't really explore the main objective of the novel, which is the longing of the teenage years of the group of friends and the nostalgia of their hometown that has changed.

Instead this movie, focuses on Cuellar's voyeuristic attitude and his suicidal tendencies for not being able to feel like a real man.

Another problem is that the novel was written in the fifties.

That's why it is odd to watch grown men in their late twenties (maybe the casting was wrong) that are sexually inexperienced and are disturbed when someone talks about sex, in a movie that is set in the mid seventies.

The movie leaves many questions unanswered. The movie doesn't really explain (or show) if the women that discover Cuellar's secret are killed after being attacked by him. And it doesn't show if Cuellar's friends survive after a crash caused by his drunk driving. (or maybe Cuellar killed them on purpose, because they were growing up, getting married, attending Ivy League graduate schools and becoming men, while he was an alcoholic (supported by his father) who didn't have a woman by his side).