When animals act

DOGS IN FILM

First came Rin Tin Tin, the Olivier of canine thespians. That moneymaking hound was followed by Lassie, Benji, six Air Bud movies, and, in recent years, far too many pooches cuted up by CGI and celebrity voice casting. Old-fashioned doggie acting — a triumph of both training and editing — returns with Eight Below, which opens Fri/17 in Bay Area theaters. Based on a true story, as well as the 1983 Japanese film Antarctica, Eight Below bills itself as "the most amazing story of survival, friendship, and adventure ever told" — a strong statement, considering director Frank Marshall also made the plane-crash saga Alive.

Eight Below may lack cannibals, but it does boast adorable sled dogs, several veterans of the unfortunate Snow Dogs among them. Left to fend for themselves after "the biggest Antarctic storm in 20 years," the pups express confusion, grief, and determination with barks and knowing glances (if only the two-legged actors, including Paul "Ken Doll" Walker, emoted as effectively). They also fight a leopard seal, munch on a whale carcass, and refrain from devouring the first human that crosses their path after months in the wild. Alas, you'll have to watch The Thing — which Eight Below slightly resembles in its opening moments — to see anything so primal.

The Eight Below dogs may become heroes, but not so the teeth-baring members of 1977's The Pack. Joe Don Baker stars as a year-round resident of a resort island that's home to an increasingly angry population of pups left behind by vacationing families. Fans of the attack genre have elevated Sam Fuller's controversial 1982 White Dog — starring Paul Winfield, Kristy McNichol, and one helluva racist "four-legged time bomb" — to cult status. But the baddest of them all might be 1978's Dracula's Dog, which follows the efforts of Zoltan, Hound of Dracula, to turn the last descendent of Count Dracula into his unwitting master. Hey, if Resident Evil can have zombie dogs, why can't Dracula's Dog have vampire pets?

Special honors go to The Doberman Gang (and its sequels: The Daring Dobermans and The Amazing Dobermans, the latter starring a sheepish-looking Fred Astaire). If you thought Ocean's Twelve featured a ridiculous heist, you've never seen six dogs rob a bank. The theme song alone is worth hunting this one down. 'Course, not all canine actors play evil. The cop-and-a-dog genre has produced such notables as K-9 and K-911 (Jim Belushi and drug-sniffer Jerry Lee); Top Dog (Chuck Norris and neo-Nazi target Reno); and the slobbery Turner and Hooch, starring a pre-Oscar Tom Hanks.

And no discussion of dog movies can end without this surreal favorite: Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes 2, legendary for allowing the family dog his very own flashback sequence. (Cheryl Eddy)