Adrian Graham
A Boy and His Dog
In the film A Boy and His Dog (1975), Vic, a teenager, struggles to stay alive in a hostile, post-apocalyptic world. Following a nuclear war, civilisation has collapsed, and anything resembling a society as we know it has clearly been eradicated, as does any notion of moral decency. And, wandering through this remorseless landscape, Vic, relies on his genetically mutated canine companion (Blood), who has telepathic powers, and appears to be intellectually well read.
Vic and Blood are mutually dependent on one another for their survival. The desert wilderness in A Boy and His Dog is sparsely populated, and those who have survived sustain themselves by pilfering stores from beneath the desert sand, taking from the ruined civilisation that pre-existed the nuclear war. The survivors dig holes in the ground, searching for tinned food, and plundering the dangerous subterranean ruins. A Boy and His Dog is about individual self-reliance in a world without a functioning society.
Telefon
Telefon combines the conspiracy theory story, the spy movie, a detective story (hunting down a ruthless psycho), and an action thriller, with a hint of romance thrown in at the end. Borzov is the classic dangerous foe who is effectively working for ‘us’ to stop a nuclear war. The sleeper agent (which has been explored from the Soviet viewpoint more recently in the US TV series The Americans), presents a sympathetic portrayal of the Russian hero and his female accomplice. Their adversary, Dalchimsky, is a classic psychotic madman who must be tracked down and stopped, by any means possible. Dalchimsky is the creepy monster hiding in plain sight, a man in a business suit.