‘A Breed Apart’ is a Lazy, AI Filled Disaster: A Review
If you’re thinking about watching A Breed Apart, please read this first.
Table of Contents
What is A Breed Apart About?
A Breed Apart is a comedic animal-attack movie about a group of influencers trying to escape an island populated by feral dogs.
Thirteen years ago, a dog-attack movie was being made on an island. The dogs went rabid and killed their trainers, so the production shut down, and the dogs were abandoned. Today, a rich guy named Vince invites five influencers to the island which he now owns and refers to as Vincetopia. Vince and his girlfriend Thalia host what is supposed to be a contest in which the five guests try to “save” the most dogs, with the winner receiving the island as their prize. But the dogs kill Vince, and now everyone else tries to survive packs of killer dogs while searching for a way to escape the island.
A Breed Apart stars Grace Caroline Currey, Page Kennedy, Zak Steiner, Riele Downs, and Troy Gentile as the five influencers. Joey Bragg and Virginia Gardner play Vince and his girlfriend Thalia, and Hayden Panettiere appears in a few scenes as Hayden Hearst, the star of the fictional movie within the movie that never got made.
A Breed Apart Review
You know, this is what I get for not always paying attention to trailers. I thought I watched it, but I must have had it on in the background while I was doing something else. I didn’t realize that A Breed Apart was going to be loaded with AI generated shots, but it is. It’s LOADED with them, and they all look horrendous.
I’m not even sure where to begin. I don’t enjoy writing bad reviews, and I don’t usually get worked up about movies I don’t like, but this movie felt borderline insulting. That said, I think I’ll leave the AI stuff for the end of this review, because that’s not the only thing wrong with A Breed Apart. Okay, well, let’s start with the story choices.
The first thing that annoys me is that this is yet another movie that uses influencers as all of the main characters. I get it, there are a lot of content creators in the real world, so it makes sense that they would be the stars of movies. Those types of characters can benefit a story, and I’ve seen plenty of films that use influencers/content creators in creative ways. A Breed Apart is not one of those movies. Other than being the reason Vince invites them to the island, them being content creators has almost no bearing on the story. It’s just a lazy way to get them on the island, and it feels like a lazy way to try to appeal to a certain demographic.
Another thing I need to mention is a specific issue concerning the continuity. This is a small thing, but I think it points to a larger problem. The movie opens with text on the screen that says “13 Years Ago.” This is when the movie was being shot on the island and the dogs went rabid. When Vince is explaining the story to his guests, he says the incident happened 15 years ago. Okay, not a big issue, maybe he’s rounding up. But then, when I finally paid attention to the trailer, it also says 15 years. I know it sounds like I’m nitpicking, but continuity issues like this point to writing being haphazard and, again, lazy.
The examples of haphazard writing are abundant. For instance, what exactly is this game that Vince wants everyone to compete in? How are the dogs supposed to be “saved.” He obviously knows they’re dangerous, because he warns everyone to stay inside during their first night on the island. Vince’s “game” makes so little sense to me that I kept waiting for Thalia to reveal some big master plan, like Vince planned to make a snuff film of everyone getting killed by dogs. But there is no master plan. Everything you see is exactly as it seems, and everything seems confused and lazy.
Like, are the dogs supposed to be the same dogs from 13/15 years ago? I’m pretty sure rabies is fatal, so are these descendants of the original dogs who also went rabid (I don’t remember if they say it’s rabies, but they do show a bat on a dog’s face, so I’m assuming)? Are they infected with some sort of mutated rabies? Is it a genetically engineered mutation like in The Breed (2006)? Or are the dogs just feral? Unless I missed something (which is possible because my brain started checking out), no explanation is ever given. Not that I need an explanation, but if it’s rabies like they insinuate, then some sort of hint should be given as to why they’re not all dead.
I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, A Breed Apart is a horror-comedy about violent dogs. Why take it so seriously? Well, the things I rambled on about above wouldn’t necessarily cause me to dislike a movie. I love bad movies. It doesn’t help that I find most of the “comedy” in A Breed Apart completely unfunny, but lazy writing and annoying characters? I’ve watched and enjoyed countless movies like that. But when paired with my biggest issues with the movie, it all feels worse as a whole. My biggest issue is all of the AI used throughout the film.
It looks like almost all of the action shots with the dogs are created using AI. The dogs have that weird, slick plastic look of poorly created AI images. With the fur it is extremely noticeable. Also, the movements of the AI dogs never look realistic. They never look like their paws are actually touching the ground. They sometimes wobble strangely and never move like they should relative to other objects or characters on screen. When the action is more quickly paced, the blur created by the AI images is bizarre. In short, the AI dogs look terrible. All the time. In every shot they’re in.
Bad CGI is one thing, and I talk about it a lot in my reviews. But atrocious AI feels, to use the word again, lazy. If you can’t or won’t use real dogs and dog handlers for action scenes, you probably shouldn’t make a movie about dogs attacking people.
It’s not just the dogs though. Establishing shots of the landscape are sometimes generated by AI. Some of the backgrounds appear to be AI, with the actors walking in front of them occasionally causing a weird and distracting halo effect. I even noticed a few point-of-view shots that were created with AI. They couldn’t even be bothered to make a simple POV shot in the woods without resorting to AI. It’s honestly baffling, especially since they did apparently shoot the film in Guatemala.
It also boggles my mind that, even with the abundant use of AI generated shots, they still had a tough time editing together action sequences that make physical sense. If you’re using practical effects, I can understand shooting around certain things that are difficult to create. But if you have no problem using generative AI, then why couldn’t you create enough shots to make actions look fluid and complete? So many times throughout this movie there are action sequences that are so choppy that it’s difficult to tell exactly what’s happening. It’s so strange. But I guess I’ll stop there. I’ve spent too much time on this movie already.
A Breed Apart Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 1 out of 5
I don’t recommend that anyone watch A Breed Apart. I gave it one star because I like many of the actors, but I’m annoyed that I spent money to watch this movie. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, and it’s not exciting. I wouldn’t presume to speak about the motivations of any of the filmmakers involved or who ultimately decided that this was the movie they wanted to release, but from a film fan’s perspective, A Breed Apart feels like a lazy attempt to push out content to sell without caring about its quality.
If you do choose to watch, A Breed Apart is currently streaming on VOD platforms including Amazon Prime Video.
Further Reading
- Mouse of Horrors Review: Better Than You Might Expect for a Steamboat Willie Slasher
- Zombie Strain Review: A Light and Silly Zombie Comedy
- Dark Match Review: Pro-Wrestling Horror that Delivers Action but Loses Focus
- Most Memorable Dogs in Horror Movies
- Animal Horror Movies
- Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2025
- New/Upcoming Horror Movies
