DogHouse
2025 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jon Plester
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
A negligent house sitter loses the dog he was supposed to be watching and submits to a 'cutting-edge transformation' to atone. What sounds like a cosmetic upgrade turns out to require something more anatomically specific.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The pitch alone — lose the dog, become the dog — is the kind of premise that makes me forgive a hundred quirky-roommate shorts. If Plester actually commits to the bit, this is gold; if he flinches, it's still funnier than whatever Sundance is calling brave this year.
Pet-sitter penance escalating into Cronenberg-deleted-scene body horror — Plester plays it deadpan, which is the only register that lets the conceit work. ITYSL with a transformation chamber sounds about right.
A negligent house sitter submitting to a 'cutting-edge transformation' to make up for a lost dog, played deadpan as body-horror-adjacent comedy — the punchline's anatomical specificity is the load-bearing element. Risky if the transformation reveal doesn't earn its setup.