AllMovie

If you like the title of this Belgian production, you'll love its source, a story by Charles Bukowski titled The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, Calif. Actually the film draws material from three different Bukowski stories to outline three crucial stages in a man's life. The hero begins as a 12-year old naif, "develops" into a miserable pimply adolescent who yearns for the girls who laugh in his face, and "matures" into an alcoholic, drug-addicted bum with a predilection for necrophilia. Amazingly, the material is handled with subtlety and sensitivity--the trick is to get through the film's first painful moments. The episodic nature of Love is a Dog From Hell is due to the fact that the film began as a 30-minute short subject, then was expanded into a feature when a distributor evinced interest. For its grindhouse playoffs, Love is a Dog From Hell was retitled Crazy Love.