DIRECTORS: Lauris Abele & Raitis Abele
STARRING: Animation
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 36 minutes
LANGUAGE: Latvian, German
PLOT: In a 17th-century Swedish Livonian village plagued by ceaseless rain and rampant drunkenness, the theft of a sacred relic ignites a frenzy of witchcraft accusations. Into this chaos steps an 80-year-old self-proclaimed werewolf, the 'Dog of God,' bearing a strange gift: the Devil’s Balls.
GENRE: Horror
FILMING LOCATION: N/A
To check out all previous submissions for Latvia, click HERE.
STARRING: Animation
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 36 minutes
LANGUAGE: Latvian, German
PLOT: In a 17th-century Swedish Livonian village plagued by ceaseless rain and rampant drunkenness, the theft of a sacred relic ignites a frenzy of witchcraft accusations. Into this chaos steps an 80-year-old self-proclaimed werewolf, the 'Dog of God,' bearing a strange gift: the Devil’s Balls.
GENRE: Horror
FILMING LOCATION: N/A
To check out all previous submissions for Latvia, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“May the same fate befall on to you as it did me."
Dog of God is a strange, hypnotic work that blends folklore, surrealism, and biting social commentary into a singular cinematic experience. Set in a rain-soaked 17th-century Livonian village, the film introduces us to an atmosphere of decay and drunken revelry, where superstition thrives and paranoia lurks beneath every gesture. From the moment an old relic goes missing and whispers of witchcraft spread, the filmmakers plunge the viewer into a feverish world where fear, desire, and faith collide. The Abele brothers craft a visual style that feels at once archaic and vividly modern, balancing grimy realism with bursts of the fantastical.
The film’s aesthetic is one of its most striking qualities. Muted colors, stark lighting, and grotesque imagery create a painterly quality reminiscent of Bruegel or Bosch, but with a punk-like irreverence. The arrival of the so-called “Dog of God," an eighty-year-old self-proclaimed werewolf carrying a peculiar gift from the devil, injects a raw, chaotic energy into the story. Through him, the villagers’ fragile moral codes unravel, and the line between sacred ritual and blasphemous indulgence begins to blur. The Abeles revel in this ambiguity, presenting a medieval world that mirrors contemporary human contradictions.
Performance-wise, the ensemble delivers a mix of heightened theatrics and grounded realism that serves the film’s dual nature. Characters are drawn as archetypes, the hypocritical priest, the fearful peasants, the enigmatic wanderer, yet the actors bring them to life with conviction, making their struggles both absurd and painfully familiar. The dialogue, rich with both grotesque humour and moments of poetic despair, accentuates the film’s mood of tragic farce. In many ways, Dog of God feels like a folk tale retold for the screen, where the storytelling traditions of myth are refracted through cinema’s lens.
At its heart, the film interrogates the tension between faith and fear, authority and chaos. By resurrecting the folklore of werewolves, relics, and witch hunts, the Abele brothers reveal how societies cling to superstition in moments of crisis, often weaponizing belief to justify cruelty. The “Dog of God” becomes both a trickster and a prophet, exposing the villagers’ hypocrisy and suggesting that salvation and damnation may be indistinguishable when seen through the fog of fear. Ultimately, the film’s message resonates beyond its 17th-century setting: it is a meditation on how communities construct meaning, and how easily that meaning can collapse when confronted with the unknown.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“May the same fate befall on to you as it did me."
Dog of God is a strange, hypnotic work that blends folklore, surrealism, and biting social commentary into a singular cinematic experience. Set in a rain-soaked 17th-century Livonian village, the film introduces us to an atmosphere of decay and drunken revelry, where superstition thrives and paranoia lurks beneath every gesture. From the moment an old relic goes missing and whispers of witchcraft spread, the filmmakers plunge the viewer into a feverish world where fear, desire, and faith collide. The Abele brothers craft a visual style that feels at once archaic and vividly modern, balancing grimy realism with bursts of the fantastical.
The film’s aesthetic is one of its most striking qualities. Muted colors, stark lighting, and grotesque imagery create a painterly quality reminiscent of Bruegel or Bosch, but with a punk-like irreverence. The arrival of the so-called “Dog of God," an eighty-year-old self-proclaimed werewolf carrying a peculiar gift from the devil, injects a raw, chaotic energy into the story. Through him, the villagers’ fragile moral codes unravel, and the line between sacred ritual and blasphemous indulgence begins to blur. The Abeles revel in this ambiguity, presenting a medieval world that mirrors contemporary human contradictions.
Performance-wise, the ensemble delivers a mix of heightened theatrics and grounded realism that serves the film’s dual nature. Characters are drawn as archetypes, the hypocritical priest, the fearful peasants, the enigmatic wanderer, yet the actors bring them to life with conviction, making their struggles both absurd and painfully familiar. The dialogue, rich with both grotesque humour and moments of poetic despair, accentuates the film’s mood of tragic farce. In many ways, Dog of God feels like a folk tale retold for the screen, where the storytelling traditions of myth are refracted through cinema’s lens.
At its heart, the film interrogates the tension between faith and fear, authority and chaos. By resurrecting the folklore of werewolves, relics, and witch hunts, the Abele brothers reveal how societies cling to superstition in moments of crisis, often weaponizing belief to justify cruelty. The “Dog of God” becomes both a trickster and a prophet, exposing the villagers’ hypocrisy and suggesting that salvation and damnation may be indistinguishable when seen through the fog of fear. Ultimately, the film’s message resonates beyond its 17th-century setting: it is a meditation on how communities construct meaning, and how easily that meaning can collapse when confronted with the unknown.
