While John Wick 4 is a hit in cinemas, we invite you to discover The City of Monsters, an unlikely film from Keanu Reeves’ early career in which he plays… a dog man!
There’s the Keanu Reeves we all know, the one from Point Break, Speed, the Matrix movies and the John Wick saga, the fourth installment of which is a hit in cinemas right now. And then there’s the lesser-known Keanu Reeves, who excelled in completely wacky comedies early in his career.
In the quirky genre, fans of Keanu Reeves have no doubt seen the SF comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its two sequels. But do you know The City of Monsters, that completely insane 1993 film in which the American slips under the traits (or rather, the hair) of… a dog person?
In 1993, Reeves, not yet 30 years old, was a star. Revealed in Point Break, the one who starred in My Own Private Idaho and starred in Dracula directed by Coppola is a name beginning to count in Hollywood. Surprising and very satisfying, I have to say, to then see him act in parallel in both humble and completely insane productions, including this city of monsters, co-directed by Alex Winter, his accomplice in the Bill & Ted films.
The story of this unreleased feature film in cinemas in France? Those of a pretentious actor, his best friend and a dedicated activist who find themselves on a farm run by a strange scientist. A farm in which we will find a series of completely insane characters.
Among these freaks (the original title of the film is Freaky), included a nose man, a bearded woman (played by… Mr. T!), a sock man, a worm man and therefore a dog man named Ortiz, played by an unrecognizable Keanu Reeves.
Below, Keanu Reeves as Dogman (the beginning of the video) and other amazing passages from “The City of Monsters”:
Influenced by ZAZ comedies (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, the fathers of Is there a pilot on a plane? and other delusions on the big screen…), City of Monsters is great all-black and absurdist humor, a UFO without limits, rich in supposed bad taste. See it to believe it!
Finally, note the presence of Brooke Shields and a certain Sam Raimi in the credits. The director of Evil Dead and the first Spider-Man trilogy dons the costume of a corrupt cop for the occasion.
Wrong adaptation: Mistakes and mistakes by Keanu Reeves