White Dog - Reception

Reception

With the film limited to release in independent film houses and film festivals in the United States, it only grossed $46,509. Critics heavily praised the film, particularly its treatment on racism and Fuller's directorial talents. Dave Kehr, of the Chicago Tribune, praised Fuller for "pulling no punches" in the film and for his use of metaphors to present racism "as a mental disease, for which there may or may not be a cure". Kehr considered the film less melodramatic or bizarre than Fuller's earlier works, which was also positive since it left the film "clean and uncluttered with a single, concentrated line of development mounting toward a single, crushingly pessimistic moral insight". Entertainment Weekly's Kim Moran called it a "uncompromising, poignant examination of racism" and felt it was one of Fuller's most inspired films and a "gripping, meditative, and ultimately beautiful achievement". Video Business reviewer Cyril Pearl called it "bombastic, odd and quite chilling" and felt the film was an antiracist work that "deserve an audience".

"Full of startling close-ups and arresting visual contrasts (above all the stirring image of the ebony hand soothing the hound's snarling pale snout), it's a work that envisions racism not with a guttersnipe's shrill righteousness but with a scarred humanist's awareness of how ignorance and pain can be toxically ingrained into the fiber of society."

Charles Taylor, writing for The New York Times, lambasted the film's original suppression due to "the stupidity of pressure groups" that wrongly labeled the film as racist when it is, in his words, "a profoundly antiracist film, though a despairing one". He praised Winfield's tense performance and Fuller's use of melodrama to create one of his "most potent" films. Lisa Dombrowski, the author The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I'll Kill You! and an associate professor of film studies at Wesleyan University, referred to the film as "an impassioned attack on racial hatred". Another New York Times reviewer, Janet Maslin, praised Fuller's "command of stark, spooky imagery", "B-style bluntness", and the way the cinematography, scene setting, and soundtrack combine to give the film "the blunt, unnerving power of a horror story". She also commended Paul Winfield's performance as Keys, feeling the actor turned what might have been a boring character into one audiences would find interesting. Slant Magazine's Fernando F. Croce felt the film was "part marauding-animal horror movie, part Afterschool Special, part tragic-sardonic agitprop" B-movie that is "searing confrontation of the irrationality of prejudice".

In The Magic Hour: Film at Fin de Siècle, J. Hoberman referred to the film as an "unusually blunt and suggestive metaphoric account of American racism". Though he felt the film was a "sad waste" of Fuller's talent, he praised the director's treatment of the work, including the changes made to the source material, noting that "filmed in headlines, framed as allegory, White Dog combines hard-boiled sentimentality and hysterical violence." He praised the musical score used in the film for lending dignity to the "iconic visuals and cartoon dialogue."