Dog Walker (1994)

One of the most legendary companies in adult film, VCA released many a classic throughout the 80's and 90's. From 1988 to 1994, VCA was the home of actor turned director John Leslie, releasing many of his finest directorial efforts. VCA was also the distributor for the films of Stephen Sayadian (Rinse Dream), having released Cafe Flesh (1982), Nightdreams 2 and 3 (1991) and Party Doll a Go-Go! (1991) as well as the main distributor for Gregory Dark until 1995, so clearly VCA we open to releasing films that strayed from the norms and conventions of adult films. Several of Leslie's films during this period do just that. With outlandish plots that often strayed into surreal and horror territory, films like The Catwoman (1988), Mad Love (1989), The Chameleon (1989), Curse of the Catwoman (1991), Laying the Ghost (1991) and Chameleons (1992) are all decidedly different from standard adult fare. Even Leslie's more straightforward films like Goin' Down Slow (1988), Second Skin (1989), The Tease (1990), Anything that Moves (1992) and Bad Habits (1994) have far more thought put into them than other narrative based hardcore features. Nevertheless, when Leslie proposed his idea for 1994's Dog Walker, it proved to be far too out there for VCA, leading Leslie to secure financing from Evil Angel to shoot and release Dog Walker, his magum opus and one of the best films of the 90's.

Dog Walker is a film very much in the vein of films like Andrzej Zulawski's Possession (1981) or David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) in the way it goes about its business. Much like Zulawski and Lynch's films, the way Leslie has the elliptical narrative play out defies any attempt to neatly summarize it. The films centerpiece is Tito (Steven St. Croix), a gangster who runs afoul of the organization he's working for after demanding immediate payment for a diamond robbery. Shortly afterward Tito is accosted in an alleyway by a mysterious man (Leslie, credited as the “Fortune Teller”) who claims Tito's life going to become a living hell. Prior to that moment the film had been set-up like a fairly typical mob/crime story, but following the Fortune Teller's warning to Tito the films tone is drastically altered. The cliché way of describing Dog Walker would be “dreamlike” but a more accurate description would be that the film is taking place in the time period in-between wakefulness and sleep. The setting of the film resembles Los Angeles circa 1994, but something is always slightly eschewed as Tito tries to adjust to his new life with the sword of Damocles hovering over his head. Leslie never quite lets it be known until the very end if all of Tito's encounters throughout the film are happening in reality or some form of fantasy, even the sex scenes begin to take on a hallucinatory quality much like the film as a whole the further it goes on.

In a way Dog Walker feels like the film Leslie was building up towards since he made the transition from acting to directing. While Leslie already had a consistent track record of great films, Dog Walker feels like the culmination, fusing the crime and thriller aspects of films like Goin' Down Slow and Second Skin with the more otherworldly and strange elements of the Catwoman and Chameleon films as well as the supernaturally plotted Mad Love and Laying the Ghost. Leslie had shown his penchant for bizarre films fairly early on in his directorial career, but what sets Dog Walker apart from his previous films is the sheer inexplicably, for instance the multiple instances of Leslie cutting away from the LA setting to scenes taking place in the country with a western theme, or Tito's meetings with his mysterious boss played by Jamie Gillis which feel oddly intimidating, again very evocative of Lynch. Dog Walker is also Leslie's most explicitly noir inspired work, not simply in style with it's dimly lit shady, smokey alleys and seedy city streets but most importantly in the way the titular “dog walker” (Christina Angel) Tito keeps encountering is presented. Like so much of the film, exactly what she is or what she represents is rather ambiguous until the very end, though like so many femme fatales in the classic noir fashion, she has the aura of a specter of death and what Leslie does with her and Tito near the end of the film is quite fascinating.

Reflecting upon the film, Evil Angel head and longtime friend of Leslie's John Stagliano recalled that the title of the film and what it might entail was the first thing that made VCA nervous, despite nothing resembling their concerns being in the film. VCA were also uncomfortable with the violence and fight scenes in the film which was somewhat more understandable to do the various legal issues VCA president Russ Hampshire faced over the years. Leslie himself produced the film under his “John Leslie Productions” banner while Staglinao financed the film with Leslie paying him back residuals and Evil Angel became Leslie's main distributor until his death in 2010. Dog Walker was also shot on film and at the 1995 AVN Awards, coincidentally hosted by St. Croix, Leslie won in both the film and video categories for best director for Dog Walker and Bad Habits, his final movie for VCA. The film also racked up two more awards from AVN, best screenplay and cinematography and it was awarded best film at the XRCO Awards where Leslie nabbed another best director win. Leslie was to make one more narrative feature the following year with Fresh Meat: A Ghost Story (1995) before taking the gonzo route which again, makes Dog Walker seem like an apex of sorts. The film is hands down Leslie's masterpiece and a film that set a new benchmark for its genre.