Man's Best Friend

We tackle John Lafia’s 1993 creature feature Man’s Best Friend, a bizarre blend of family-comedy vibes and gory killer-dog horror starring Ally Sheedy and Lance Henriksen.

After breaking into the Emax lab for a story, reporter Lori inadvertently rescues Max, a genetically engineered dog spliced with traits like speed, strength, climbing, camouflage, and even acid urine—then chaos follows as the mad scientist Dr. Jarrett and the police close in.

We talk standout cast and effects, the surprisingly sitcom-like tone and Spielberg-ish score, and set pieces ranging from a swallowed cat to an escalating chase back to the lab. Max ultimately dies stopping Jarrett, but a final reveal hints his legacy lives on in a litter of puppies—including one that looks a lot like Max.

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Man’s Best Friend (1993)

Episode 489, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: It was Craig’s turn to pick this week, and wouldn’t you know it, I think his love for dogs is showing through. If you’re a longtime listener of this podcast, you’ll know that, uh, which of the two of us are the major pet lovers.

We both love pets, don’t get me wrong, but I’m more of a cat guy, and, uh, Craig is a dog guy. So, uh, I think he decided … I don’t know why you chose this. This is 1993’s Man’s Best Friend, written and directed by John Lafia, who’s responsible for the Child’s Play franchise. I think he wrote the first one. He directed the second one.

He’s done a few other things, but… And then he did this movie, which is chock-full of stars. But I had heard of it. I, I think it was somewhere on our list somewhere to do eventually, but I hadn’t seen it, and I didn’t really know much about it. How about you, Craig? Had you seen this before?

Craig: I know that I had.

I think I probably saw it when it came out when I was younger. I mean, I guess I would’ve been, like, a freshman in high school-

Todd: Mm-hmm …

Craig: just because I thought that the box art looked awesome.

Todd: It is pretty badass, yeah.

Craig: It’s, like, this Rottweiler-looking, mean, snarling dog’s face, and, like, half of it is, like, a cyborg dog.

Todd: Yeah. Oddly.

Craig: And yeah. And then Lance Henriksen is down in the bottom corner. And you know, of course, I knew him from a bazillion things. Yeah. So I’m sure I watched it then when I was a kid, and then I’m pretty sure that I watched it again. I haven’t mentioned it in a long time, but when I was doing my internship in another town where I didn’t know anybody, and s- all I did was hang out in my apartment and rent several horror movies a day and- Yeah

this I, I’m s- I’m sure I re-watched it then. But honestly, I didn’t remember anything about it going into it And so I popped it on last night, and I am so excited to talk about it. I’m

Todd: glad you are. There are so many people in this. Oh my God, I, I really kind of went in blind, and Ally Sheedy, Lance Henriksen, the freaking, that kid actor, J.D.

Daniels from The Mighty Ducks, and John Cassini, and I don’t know if you know Robert Costanzo. You might not know his name- Yeah … but you know his face- Yeah … in every movie that’s ever been made in the modern era, I think.

Craig: Yeah. He’s

Todd: in it

Craig: somewhere. He, uh, he was in an episode of, uh, Golden Girls. He played a coach.

Todd: He’s been in everything. Any time you need this- I

Craig: know …

Todd: big, fat, bald Italian guy, he’s the one.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: Always making some wisecrack remark.

Craig: You, you, you click on the See All tab on his IMDb page, and you have to scroll for, like, pages and pages. Like- … he’s been working for decades. He’s been in everything.

Todd: It’s been amazing.

This is the guy I wanna be, you know? As a famous actor- Right? … that’s the kind of famous actor I’d wanna be. Just this dude who does like- Definitely … five to 10 movies a year, all these small roles. Probably very few people are stopping him on the street and telling him how- Right … how amazing he is, you know?

He just gets to live a normal life, but also be in so many movies, work with so many cool people, and probably make a nice living for himself.

Craig: Sure,

Todd: sure. I mean, God, his residuals alone must be insane. I should look up his house. Can you look that stuff up online? Like, what does Robert Costanzo’s- Probably

house look like? I’ll bet it’ll surprise you. Even Bob Shay has a very small cameo in here.

Craig: Yeah. ‘

Todd: Cause it’s New Line produced and- Oh my word, what a movie, what a movie.

Craig: Yeah, there’s… And so the guy who wrote and directed it, John Lafia, he was a co-writer on the first Child’s Play named Chucky, and then he directed Child’s Play 2.

And we both really liked Child’s Play 2. Oh

Todd: yeah,

Craig: absolutely. And his special effects guy on this, Kevin Yagher, I guess is a big special effects guy- Oh, yeah … but he worked with Lafia on, on Child’s Play, and he designed Chucky and he did all the work on the puppets, and he also did all the other, like, makeup and gore effects too.

Todd: Yeah, I mean, he did The Cryptkeeper too. I mean, he’s, he’s definitely- Did he? … a big special effects guy, yeah.

Craig: Right.

Todd: We’ve done a lot of movies that Kevin Yagher has, uh, contributed to.

Craig: And then ex- Okay, so it’s a movie about a dog, really, and oh God- … I can’t wait to talk about so many things about it, but, like, the dog, you know, doesn’t talk, but it makes dog noises.

And I just assumed that they just got, you know, got stock dog noises from somewhere. But apparently they had Frank Welker, the voice of Megatron and Scooby-Doo, come in and do a lot of Max’s- … uh, voice work too.

Todd: That’s, that’s one of those things where you’d c- you kinda wonder like, “Really? D- was that necessary?”

I’m glad the guy got some work, and I’m s- you know, I’m a voice actor. I understand there’s talent involved. You can’t just get anybody off the street to come in and do these voices. But, uh, you know, a- as a voice actor who’s not fa- a, also a famous actor, it, it irks me a little bit when nowadays instead of getting, like, professional voice actors in for cartoons and things, they get stars in- Right

to do these voices. And this is just, like, another step in that other direction where w- did you have to get this really, really famous voice actor to come in and do the dog sounds for this? Or could you gotten, like, a, a guy who would’ve liked his break? It’s like Vin Diesel being Groot. Really? Yeah. Really?

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know, but I mean, he did a good job because- Yeah … sounded like a real dog to me.

Todd: Sure did.

Craig: And I don’t even know, did you mention Ally Sheedy when you were talking about-

Todd: I don’t think you heard half of what I said because you’re repeating almost everything.

Craig: I’m sorry. I must not be paying attention to you- No, it’s okay

because I’m so excited. You’re- Seriously …

Todd: No, I’m, I’m teasing you. I’m teasing you. No, yeah, I’d mentioned Ally Sheedy right off the bat, and I was like, “Ah, I haven’t seen Ally Sheedy in a while. Is she even still around doing stuff?” I don’t even know.

Craig: Honestly, I just have so many things rolling around in my head that, like, as I was watching it last night that I wanted to talk about that I think I’m distracted.

So let me start out with Ally Sheedy by saying it struck me very early on that this movie has almost an identical plot to Short Circuit.

Todd: Oh my God

Craig: There’s, you know- You’re

Todd: right …

Craig: evil scientists create this dangerous science experiment that then escapes and finds Ally Sheedy, who sees the good in it and tries to protect it from the evil scientists.

Todd: Uh-huh. …