Speaking of subjects that just won’t die, nature hates us viral humans, and tonight’s movie is just another example. It’s Joe Don Baker versus the hounds of hell (or at least a neglected little fishing island) in The Pack!

A bunch of people, who are very oddly mismatched, are preparing to go to an island for vacation. Elsewhere on the island, a little boy and his father abandon their dog because they’re movin’ on up to the east side in the big city where poochies aren’t allowed. I think we all know where Lassie’s going.

In perhaps the most terrifying scene in the movie, we’re shown Jerry (Joe Don Baker) having “the talk” with his two sons. They’re walking around the building site of their new house, and they find a dead horse that was chased by the evil dogs during the opening credits. On the other side of the island, the mismatched people move into a cabin. By mismatched, I don’t mean Donna Karen and golf slacks, I mean there’s a bunch of old guys, a couple of goofy college-age girls, and a fat loser guy. They might all be family friends or something, but we were making fun of them too much for me to notice. It doesn’t really matter, since they’re all Kibble & Bits & Bits & Bits anyway.

Jerry’s dog runs off to chase a rabbit and gets in a fight with the leader of The Pack. The evil dog kicks Jerry’s dog’s ass and attacks him, but he chases it off. Jerry tells his kids about tourists abandoning their dogs on the island. He tells one of his friends in town that he’s worried about a pack of wild dogs on the island.

The abandoned collie from earlier in the flick joins up with the pack. That night, the pack sneak out and attack the resident hobo’s dog. They rip up his dog and break into his house to attack and eat him. Jerry goes out to hunt the wild dogs, and while he’s away, the leader of the pack (vroom vroom! Ha ha ha! Dogs on motorcycles) attacks his wife and traps her in the car. Just when Stephen King is about to sue, Jerry shows up and chases the dogs away.

Jerry tells one of the guys at the cabin about the dogs. Against his warnings, the ditzy blond girl and the fat loser go for a walk, encouraged by one of the old guys who’s apparently trying to get them to hook up. The dogs arrive before loser guy can be shot down too bad, and they split up running. She escapes, for the time being, and loser guy falls off a cliff.

Jerry goes and investigates the old hobo’s house and finds the old guy dead on the floor. The local tour guide goes to get the people out of the cabin. The lost girl gets eaten in a barn. Jerry shows up at the cabin and they go to look for lost girl and fat loser guy. They find the girl dead and assume the worst for the loser guy. The girl's dad freaks out and tries to run over the dogs with his van. He gets out, shoots at them, and gets mangled. He’s rescued at the last minute and they get him back to the cabin, where Jerry radios for help.

They send a guy off on a boat to bring help, and the dogs arrive again. Jerry kills one and the rest run away. The dead girl’s dad dies and they dump his chewed-up ass in the lake. They board up the cabin and wait for help to arrive. Unfortunately, the guy they sent for help makes Straum Thurman look healthy and spry. He dies of a heart attack in the boat a few miles out. Another member of their crew goes out to the dock to try and flag down another boat. He almost succeeds, but the dogs attack him. Just before he gets chomped, Jerry arrives and chases the dogs away with the van.

Jerry hatches an ingenious plan to lure all the dogs into the house and blow it up. He has the rest of the crew lay in wait with gas cans while he gets the entire pack to chase him into the house. He runs up the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation-style attic ladder, and after a brief battle with the leader of the pack, closes the attic and jumps out the window. The house gets torched, and with it all the dogs.

Of course, they could have just abandoned the island and let the dogs live there in peace on their own, but man being the obstinate virus I mentioned earlier, we have to go and kill all the poor misunderstood dogs. Fortunately, there is something of a happy ending. The collie from the beginning of the movie’s leash got caught in a tree branch before it could run into the house. Jerry stops one of the other people from shooting it, and instead offers it some crackers and tames it from its man-eating ways.

As much as it sucked that all the dogs were killed for something they were forced into by the stupid, nasty humans in the first place, the last scene of the frightened dog being saved from death went at least a little way in balancing things out. Not a perfect film, but I like nature gone amok movies, and this is one of the better ones I‘ve seen. Even Joe Don Baker was somewhat likeable in it. It made goofy rear-projected giant ants and rats unnecessary by making the killers simple, real dogs. Beside making the movie less laughable, it adds a sort of frightening realism. What happened here could easily happen in reality. Just some heartless yuppie jerk-offs, a few abandoned dogs, and a couple of years could easily produce such a situation.

People would do well to take a lesson away from this movie. Don’t mistreat your animals. They’ve done nothing wrong to you. If you fuck with ‘em enough, you just might be looking at them from the inside, so mind your manners you redneck assholes.

Maybe I'm just too forgiving. I find myself liking all the movies that everyone else hates. Should I hate them too? Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy these things. Even Joe Don didn't mess this one up. The only way it could have been better was if it had a theme song over the end credits written especially for the movie, kinda like Orca. No, I'm not kidding.