Doghouse 2009

Vince Stephen Graham is reeling from a painful divorce, and six friends—Neil Danny Dyer, Mikey Noel Clarke, Graham Emil Marwa, Matt Lee Ingleby, Patrick Keith-Lee Castle, and Banksy Neil Maskell—propose a lighthearted “boys’ weekend” to lift his spirits. They hire a minibus driven by Candy Christina Cole to Moodley, a town famous in rumor for outnumbering men four to one, hoping the escape from routine will do them all some good. Banksy, however, misses the bus and makes the trip solo.

When they arrive, Moodley feels eerily quiet and oddly devoid of women. On the way back to the minibus, they intervene as a hooded teenage girl is attacked by a man in military uniform. In the chaos, the hooded teen grabs the soldier’s knife and stabs Neil, dragging the wounded man away. They discover Candy has already become infected, and more infected women appear, forcing the group to retreat to a house owned by Mikey’s Nan Beryl Nesbitt. The soldier confesses that the town has been infected by a biological agent that turns women into cannibals.

Desperate to escape, they try to lure Candy away by using Neil as bait, but two additional infected women join the chase, sending them racing through the streets. The group scatters into a toy store, a clothes shop, and the butcher, while Patrick finds himself trapped on a billboard. Neil fights his way through a morbidly obese woman who mutilates him by severing a finger and eating it, but he eventually escapes and reunites with the others in a local church. There, they stumble upon a military command center and Matt powers up the computers, briefly speaking with Meg Nut [Mary Tamm], a politician who had been involved in distributing the toxin disguised as a household product.

Meg’s information hints at a higher-level threat: a sonar device designed to emit a high-pitched sting to stun the evolving “Phase 2” monsters. The group learns that the women are mutating—faster, smarter, weirder—and the device may be their best chance to halt the aggression. The device initially seems to work, but the soldier is soon killed by Mikey’s Nan, and the device stops functioning again. Matt bludgeons a monster-nan to death with a golf club, an act that leaves him shaken and withdrawn.

As Matt steps away to cool off, a new Phase 2 monster emerges from the church basement and kills him. The remaining men discover a nest where women feast on the bodies of men, forcing them to barricade themselves on the church roof. Banksy arrives with a ladder and helps pull them to safety, even as Graham is attacked by the morbidly obese woman. Banksy guides the survivors to a Smart car, but it’s too small for everyone, and the group must decide who stays behind. Patrick is killed in the ensuing chaos, and the others make a dash for the minibus, where Banksy is slain as Vince fights Candy on the vehicle’s turreted edge.

As tensions flare, Vince confronts Neil and Mikey, who, despite their flaws in treating women, manage to slip away while the more “gentle” men—like Vince and their deceased friends—are met with rejection or violence. Realizing the cost of the weekend’s bravado, Vince resolves to change his approach. Just as they prepare to drive off, Graham’s voice crackles over the walkie-talkie, and he powers up the stun-device again using a high-voltage power source. With the device briefly restored, the group fights to keep the attackers at bay, but Vince drops and breaks it once more, unleashing the infected.

In the final push, the quartet escapes in a tense sprint, Graham wounded in a shopping trolley as the remaining monsters close in. They stumble away, laughing through the fear, as Moodley’s horrors continue to unfold around them.