Review of A Boy and His Dog (1975) by Jake C — 30 Jun 2018

It is, for all intense and intensive purposes, a love story, of the sort that Nabokov's "Lolita" is, but set in the unconventional conventions of satirical and surrealist sci-fi, a comedy as black as the universe. The result is the very definition of the uncanny: Familiar and unfamiliar all at once, strange yet seductive, mundane but otherwordly. The story is so ordinary-what lengths we go to for our pets, the quiet companionship of a boy and his pupper-but when cast beneath the shadow of nuclear winter, it takes a profoundly bizarre turn toward the grotesque. We are made to feel for this uncanny twosome, this typical duo, even as they are so alien: Psychic, cannibalistic, murderous, misogynist rapists, to be blunt about it, and yet their story stirs the soul, like Humbert Humbert transported from the heartland to a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

In truth, I doubt this would fly today, even with a bigger budget, a CGI canine, a better known (at the time, at least) lead, and all else that characterizes post-77 sci-fi, with its hard edges but nostalgic, unchallenging heart. There is something too real in the fantasy, something that cuts to the core of what makes us human, both in our inhumanity toward each other, and the recognition that the nonhuman is often more human the we are.