How to Kill Your Neighbor's DogMovies like How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
- Key Features:
- Playwright, Existential crisis, Midlife crisis, Writers block, Impotence, Insomnia, Doppelganger, Dysfunctional family, Neighborly relations, Cerebral palsy, Dark comedy, Los Angeles setting
- Tone:
- cynical, humorous, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Cerebral drama fans, Viewers interested in character studies
- Emotional Arc:
- Despair → Connection → Reflection
How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog

The story of Peter McGowan, a chain-smoking, impotent, insomniac playwright who lives in Los Angeles. Once very successful, he is now in the tenth year of a decade-long string of production failures. He finds himself bonding with a new neighbor's lonely young daughter who has mild cerebral palsy; and during one of his middle-of-the-night strolls, he encounters his oddball doppelgänger.
How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.

A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.

Everyone hates Ward’s wife and wants her dead, Ward most of all. But when his friends’ murderous fantasies turn into an (accidental) reality, they have to deal with a whole new set of problems — like how to dispose of the body and still make their 3 p.m. tee time.

One man's quiet suburban life takes a sickening lurch for the worse when a young couple move into the deserted house next door. From the word go it is obvious these are not the quiet professional types who *should* be living in such a nice street. As more and more unbelievable events unfold, our hero starts to question his own sanity... and those of his family.

Henri is a middle-aged writer with fading inspiration who has published nothing worthy of note in years. Feeling increasingly misunderstood by his wife and four grown up deadbeat kids, he dreams of running away to start over again. Yet when he discovers an unattractive, bad-mannered dog in his garden, he decides to adopt him and both start developing an unexpected friendship that inevitably upsets Henri’s family and neighbors.

Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog, Paul. During his quest to get Paul (and his life) back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others -- risking his sanity all the while.

Dr. Steven Murphy is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who presides over a spotless household with his wife and two children. Lurking at the margins of his idyllic suburban existence is Martin, a fatherless teen who insinuates himself into the doctor's life in gradually unsettling ways.

Stanley Ford leads an idyllic bachelor life. He is a nationally syndicated cartoonist whose Bash Brannigan series provides him with a luxury townhouse and a full-time valet, Charles. When he wakes up the morning after the night before - he had attended a friend's stag party - he finds that he is married to the very beautiful woman who popped out of the cake - and who doesn't speak a word of English. Despite his initial protestations, he comes to like married life and even changes his cartoon character from a super spy to a somewhat harried husband.

A straight-laced pharmacist's uneventful life spirals out of control when he starts an affair with a trophy wife customer who takes him on a joyride involving sex, drugs and possibly murder.

Michel and Cathy, wed for longer than they can remember, lead a quiet but monotonous life in the mountains. When a bear bursts out in front of Michel’s car, accidentally killing two drug dealers and revealing a €2 million loot in the process, their life takes an unpredictable turn, especially when they decide to cover up the incident and keep the money! But their plan leads them to stumble upon an unexplained trail of dead bodies. More used to being honest than crooked, Michel and Cathy’s clumsy cover-up efforts soon put an interfering inspector hot on their trail.

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

A dachshund passes from oddball owner to oddball owner, whose radically dysfunctional lives are all impacted by the pooch.

A hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other.

Harry is having a very, very bad day. He returns home from an all-night drinking binge with his cousin Cecil, to discover that his little dog Jolly...Harry's one true love and the source of light in his dark, solitary life-has been murdered. Brokenhearted and beyond consolation, he vows to track down the dog's murderer at any cost. Armed with a stockpile of firepower in the trunk of his car, he and Cecil embark on a frenzied, alcohol-fueled wild-goose chase, leaving a bloody path of destruction in their wake.

While drying out on the West Coast, an alcoholic hit man befriends a tart-tongued woman who might just come in handy when it's time for him to return to Buffalo and settle some old scores.

In the affluent, gated community of Camelot Gardens, bored wives indiscriminately sleep around while their unwitting husbands try desperately to climb the social ladder. Trent, a 21-year-old outsider who mows the neighborhood lawns, quietly observes the infidelities and hypocrisies of this overly privileged society. When Devon, a 10-year-old daughter from one family, forges a friendship with Trent, things suddenly get very complicated.

On the set of a playwright's new project, a love triangle forms between his wife, her ex-lover, and the call girl-turned-actress cast in the production.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.

Arvid is an ordinary bank clerk who lives a rather unassuming life with his dear girlfriend. But his life is turned completely upside down when he bravely manages to avert a robbery against the bank where he works.

When secretive new neighbors move in next door, suburbanite Ray Peterson and his friends let their paranoia get the best of them as they start to suspect the newcomers of evildoings and commence an investigation. But it's hardly how Ray, who much prefers drinking beer, reading his newspaper and watching a ball game on the tube expected to spend his vacation.

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

Isabel is torn between the need to feel valued as an actress and her insecurities and contradictions. One night, she hosts a very special dinner: her husband Ángel, who is a scriptwriter, and Susana, Ángel's ex-wife and film director, want to convince Argentinian actor Diego Peretti to star in a movie. But at some point something unexpected happens that surprises everyone and disturbs the evening.

A nightmarish evening unfolds for neighbors David and Robert when they accidentally hit a woman on her bike and flee the scene. While David is increasingly plagued by feelings of guilt, Robert shows no remorse and becomes overbearing and possessive.

When a family of raccoons discover worms living underneath the sod in Jeff and Nealy's backyard, this pest problem begins a darkly comic and wild chain reaction of domestic tension, infidelity and murder.

A mild-mannered college professor discovers a look-alike actor and delves into the other man's private affairs.

Andrey, a detective and the world's most horrible father, brings together a terrible group of people in his apartment: his resentful actress daughter, an angry thug, and a cheated cop. Each one of them has a reason to want revenge..

A middle-aged man in a stagnant marriage, finds his life upended when an attractive young woman and her seemingly abusive husband move in next door.

Christopher Gill is a psychotic killer who uses various disguises to trick and strangle his victims. Moe Brummel is a single and harassed New York City police detective who starts to get phone calls from the strangler and builds a strange alliance as a result. Kate Palmer is a swinging, hip tour guide who witnesses the strangler leaving her dead neighbor's apartment and sets her sights on the detective. Moe's live-in mother wishes her son would be a successful Jewish doctor like his big brother.

A playwright of note, Darius developed a drinking problem after his first major hit, and has taken time out from writing his follow-up to go to a clinic and dry out. After his release, Darius finds his producer has hired a leading lady for his next show, booked the theater and advertised the starting date -- all without Darius writing so much as a word of this new play. Darius desperately tries to come up with ideas, but nothing comes to mind, with an inflexible deadline staring him in the face. One day, Darius kills a neighbor's cat by accident; terribly depressed, he swallows some sedatives and falls asleep at his computer -- only to awake with the beginning of his play glowing on the screen. Darius is now convinced he must kill in order to create, and starts murdering an ever-expanding variety of creatures in order to satisfy his now bloodthirsty muse.

Toby, a cynical film director finds himself trapped in the outrageous delusions of an old Spanish shoe-maker who believes himself to be Don Quixote. In the course of their comic and increasingly surreal adventures, Toby is forced to confront the tragic repercussions of a film he made in his idealistic youth.

Brad has committed murder and barricaded himself inside his house. With the help of his friends and neighbours, the cops piece together the strange tale of how this nice young man arrived at such a dark place.

In the film, Solo is a down-on-his-luck writer who is encouraged by his psychiatrist to get a dog. Solo meets his love interest, who he assumes to be a dog owner when meeting her at a dog play park, but dog problems stand in their way.

Restless and unhappy, two couples get caught up in infidelity and deception. Barry is a sullen businessman married to Mary, a writer who is unsatisfied with their relationship. Mary begins an affair with Jerry, a smug theater professor and husband of her friend, Terri, who is also a writer. Adding to the adulterous mix are Cary, a callous doctor, and Cheri, an art-gallery assistant.

When Dr. Pieter Fales' patients start receiving ominous letters and getting murdered by an unknown black-clad assailant, he and his daughter both come under suspicion.

A former mental patient's repressed anger reaches the boiling point, leading him to embark on a mission of revenge against the thugs who once subjected him to severe physical and mental trauma.

Avery, a reclusive older man, has a best friend in his dog, Red. When three teens kill Red without reason, Avery sets out for justice and redemption, attempting to follow the letter of the law. But when the law fails him, and the boys' father clearly defines right and wrong in his own way, Avery must avenge himself by any means possible.

If you've never been good at anything in your life, why would murder be any different? Patrick has always had a somewhat combative relationship with his little sister Marilyn, but when she brings home her new sci-fi soap star fiancé Ryan, it's all out war. When Patrick fails to drive a wedge between the happy couple, he reaches for sharper instruments.

In this Shakespearean farce, Hero and her groom-to-be, Claudio, team up with Claudio's commanding officer, Don Pedro, the week before their wedding to hatch a matchmaking scheme. Their targets are sharp-witted duo Benedick and Beatrice -- a tough task indeed, considering their corresponding distaste for love and each other. Meanwhile, meddling Don John plots to ruin the wedding.

Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

In an isolated family mansion, a group of rich 20-somethings decides to play Bodies Bodies Bodies, a game where one of them is secretly a "killer" while the rest tries to "escape". Things take a turn for the worse when real bodies start turning up, setting off a paranoid and dangerous chain of events.

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract killer to do the job. Then, while awaiting his demise, he meets a woman and promptly falls in love.

A young man drops out of university and goes to the police. He's done nothing wrong he just wants a job. A particular job. Playing the victim in murder reconstructions. Maybe by getting close to death he can manage to cheat on his own.

A young boy whose parents just divorced finds an unlikely friend and mentor in the misanthropic, bawdy, hedonistic, war veteran who lives next door.

An idle part-time college lecturer is annoyed by the yapping sound of a nearby dog. He decides to take drastic action.

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

Two married couples find only trouble and heartache as their complicated lives unfold. After 40 years of marriage, Alfie leaves his wife to pursue what he thinks is happiness with a call girl. His wife, Helena, reeling from abandonment, decides to follow the advice of a psychic. Sally, the daughter of Alfie and Helena, is unhappy in her marriage and develops a crush on her boss, while her husband, Roy, falls for a woman engaged to be married.

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

A chauffeur kidnaps his rich boss's dog to hold it for ransom, but when she accidentally gets the dog back, she thinks that it's the chauffeur who's been kidnapped.

The widow of a wise professor stumbles upon one of his inventions that's able to record and play a person's memory.

Recently fired and facing eviction, a new dad has his life turned upside down when he meets a wealthy couple who offer a path to financial security... but at a price.

A woman snaps and assumes the psyche of a vicious dog as her checked-out, philandering husband attempts to keep the family together.

When Petula and Dorothy cover up the accidental murder of one jerk boyfriend, they hatch a hilarious scheme to collect a huge ransom.

Melvin Udall, a cranky, bigoted, obsessive-compulsive writer of romantic fiction, is rude to everyone he meets, including his gay neighbor, Simon. After Simon is brutally attacked and hospitalized, Melvin finds his life turned upside down when he has to look after Simon's dog. In addition, Carol, the only waitress at the local diner who will tolerate him, leaves work to care for her chronically ill son, making it impossible for Melvin to eat breakfast.

An aging horror-movie icon's fate intersects with that of a seemingly ordinary young man on a psychotic shooting spree around Los Angeles.

Timmy Robinson's best friend in the whole wide world is a six-foot tall rotting zombie named Fido. But when Fido eats the next-door neighbor, Mom and Dad hit the roof, and Timmy has to go to the ends of the earth to keep Fido a part of the family. A boy-and-his-dog movie for grown ups, "Fido" will rip your heart out.

A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.

Clay is a young man in a small town who witnesses his friend, Earl, kill himself because of the ongoing affair that Clay was having with the man's wife, Amanda. Feeling guilty, Clay now resists the widow when she presses him to continue with the affair. Clay unknowingly befriends a serial killer named Lester Long who murders the widow in an attempt to "help" his "fishing buddy."

Suburban dad Craig falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor Austin, and his attempts to make an adult male friend threatens to ruin both of their lives.

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

New York City writer Iris finds her comfortable, solitary life thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor bequeaths her a Great Dane named Apollo. The huge dog immediately creates practical problems for Iris, from furniture destruction to eviction notices, as well as more existential ones. Yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with Apollo, she begins to come to terms with her past, and her own creative inner life.

A serial killer murders a girl from his neighborhood. The residents begin to suspect him one by one, as he tries to cover his tracks and plans another kill before escape.

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.

Roy Freeman, an ex-homicide detective with a fractured memory, is forced to revisit a case he can't remember. As a man's life hangs in the balance on death row, Freeman must piece together the brutal evidence from a decade-old murder investigation, uncovering a sinister web of buried secrets and betrayals linking to his past. With only instincts to trust, he faces a chilling truth - sometimes, it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Sarah Nolan is a newly divorced woman cautiously rediscovering romance with the enthusiastic but often misguided help of her well-meaning family. As she braves a series of hilarious disastrous mismatches and first dates, Sarah begins to trust her own instincts again and learns that, no matter what, it's never a good idea to give up on love.

In the 1980 French countryside, farmer Jojo and his ill-tempered wife Lulu hate each other, though their respective interests speak against divorce. The only thing that keeps the oppressed Jojo from murder is the threat of the guillotine...

Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

Ned is in the throes of a mid-life crisis. His work as a writer on an outrageous, semi-pornographic TV show is less than satisfying. His fifteen year old son has just told him he is gay and his eleven year old is afraid of, well pretty much everything. When his wife, Jeannie, moves her sick and embittered father from Detroit into their home in NY, it puts added stress on an already strained marriage. And when a sexy female co-worker puts the moves on Ned, the temptation sends him spiraling.

Aspiring architect Tom Thompson is told by mysterious Ruth Abernathy that his best friend, "Bill," has taken his own life. Except that Tom has never met Bill and neither have his incredulous friends. So when Tom foolishly agrees to give the eulogy at Bill's funeral, it sets him on a collision course with Ruth -- who is revealed to be Bill's oversexed mother -- and Julie DeMarco, the longtime crush Tom hasn't seen since they were teens.

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.

After her husband runs off with his secretary, Terry Wolfmeyer is left to fend for herself -- and her four daughters. As she hits rock bottom, Terry finds a friend and drinking buddy in next-door neighbor Denny, a former baseball player. As the two grow closer, and her daughters increasingly rely on Denny, Terry starts to have reservations about where their relationship is headed.

Paloma is a serious and highly articulate but deeply bored 11-year-old who has decided to kill herself on her 12th birthday. Fascinated by art and philosophy, she questions and documents her life and immediate circle, drawing trenchant and often hilarious observations on the world around her. But as her appointment with death approaches, Paloma finally meets some kindred spirits in her building's grumpy janitor and an enigmatic, elegant neighbor, both of whom inspire Paloma to question her rather pessimistic outlook on life.

When Maggie gets an emotional support dog to help quell some of her anxiety, she finds him to be even more effective than she imagined... because unbeknownst to her, he kills anyone who adds stress to her life.

Joey Boca is the owner of a pizza parlour, and has been married to Rosalie for years. When Rosalie discovers that Joey is a womanizer and has been cheating on her for a long time, she goes to extreme lengths to punish him.

A group of eccentric assassins are fed up with Gunther, the world's greatest hitman, and decide to kill him – but their plan turns into a series of bungled encounters as Gunther seems to always be one step ahead.

A sex-addicted con-man pays for his mother's hospital bills by playing on the sympathies of those who rescue him from choking to death.

A group of residents begins to suspect that their strange neighbor might be hiding something dark.

When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.

Lincoln Rhyme was the department's top homicide detective and leading expert in criminal forensics until an injury left him paralyzed, depressed, and incapable of working. But when a gruesome murder in Manhattan leaves detectives baffled, they call on Rhyme to help solve the mystery. Amelia Donaghy, a rookie cop whose quick thinking preserved a gruesome murder scene, is enlisted by Rhyme to be his on-the-scene forensics expert. With Amelia reluctantly acting as Rhyme's able-bodied go-between, the pair piece together cryptic clues the killer leaves behind at the scene of the crime, hoping to catch the grisly serial killer.

Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.

A white Bull Terrier named Baxter is given to an elderly woman by her daughter. As time passes, the dog develops aggressive and murderous behavior in order to be adopted by another family.

A violent screenwriter and a female neighbor fall in love after she clears him of murder, but she begins to have second thoughts.

Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

When top hitman Joe Flood is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he decides to take matters into his own hands – by taking a hit out on himself. But when the very hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend, he must fend off an army of assassin colleagues and win back the love of his life before it's too late.

Henry’s and Fay's son Ned sets out to find and kill his father for destroying his mother's life. But his aims are frustrated by the troublesome Susan, whose connection to Henry predates even his arrival in the lives of the Grim family.

A 12-year-old tech prodigy, whose science experiment goes awry, forges a telepathic connection with his best friend, Henry-his dog! The duo join forces and use their unique perspectives on life to comically overcome complications of family and school.

Ottone, a professional dog sitter who's uncertain about most things in life, asks an analyst if he made the right decision love-wise while recounting the significant relationships he had with four women.

Detectives Jonas and Erik are called to the midnight sun country of northern Norway to investigate a recent homicide, but their plan to arrest the killer goes awry, and Jonas mistakenly shoots Erik. The suspect escapes, and a frightened Jonas pins Erik's death on the fugitive. Jonas continues to pursue the killer as he seeks to protect himself; however, his mounting guilt and the omnipresent sun plague him with an insomnia that affects his sanity.

A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.

Cosmo Vittelli, the proprietor of a sleazy, low-rent Hollywood cabaret, has a real affection for the women who strip in his peepshows and the staff who keep up his dingy establishment. He also has a major gambling problem that has gotten him in trouble before. When Cosmo loses big-time at an underground casino run by mobster Mort, he isn't able to pay up. Mort then offers Cosmo the chance to pay back his debt by knocking off a pesky, Mafia-protected bookie.

Hutch Mansell, a suburban dad, overlooked husband, nothing neighbor — a "nobody." When two thieves break into his home one night, Hutch's unknown long-simmering rage is ignited and propels him on a brutal path that will uncover dark secrets he fought to leave behind.

The US President and the UK Prime Minister are planning on launching a war in the Middle East, but—behind the scenes—government officials and advisers are either promoting the war or are trying to prevent it.

After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.

Jack Gladney, professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette, and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an "Airborne Toxic Event" forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear - his own mortality.


