My review was written in October 1986 after watching the movie on Academy video cassette.
"Play Dead" is an old-fashioned horror film about a killer dog. Though filmed in Texas in 1981, picture was not released until early this year.
Yvonne De Carlo toplines as Aunt Hester, a rich woman who decides to kill off her relatives. Her sister just died after years in a mental home and Hester was always jealous of her, and in love with sis' husband who also died. Bringing a rottweiler dog named Greta home from Europe, Hester gives the animal as a gift to he niece Audrey (Stephanie Dunnam) and via supernatural incantations orders the dog to kill Audrey and other family members or innocent bystanders.
Silly film unfolds leisurely as a police investigation with folksy Det. Otis (Glenn Kezer) padding out the running time with his slow-witted tracking down of clues until the dog slips a dose of lye into Otis' Alka-Seltzer. Pic's finale of Hester ironically getting her just desserts is not very exciting but is played twice, once as a flash-forward during the opening credits and later in its proper sequence.
Director Peter Wittman (who later made the comedy "Ellie") uses stop-motion slow motion footage of the dog during each attack, bu Greta remains unscary, as does the film itself. Acting is okay, with De Carlo a campy highlight. Oddly, Earl Owensby produced his much-publicized but little-seen 3-D horror opus "Rottweiler" (a/k/a "Dogs of Hell") in 1981 also, but neither production was able to extract horror from the noble breed.