The Plague Dogs(Movie, 1982)

The Plague Dogs is a 1982 animated adventure drama film, based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Richard Adams. It was written, directed and produced by Martin Rosen, who also directed Watership Down, the film adaptation of another novel by Adams, with animation direction by Tony Guy. The Plague Dogs was produced by Nepenthe Productions; it was released by Embassy Pictures in the United States and by United Artists in the United Kingdom. The film was originally released unrated in the United States, but for its DVD release, was later re-rated PG-13 by the MPAA for mature themes such as animal cruelty, violent imagery, and emotionally distressing scenes. The Plague Dogs is the first non-family-oriented MGM animated film, and the first adult animated feature by the studio. The film's story is centered on two dogs named Rowf and Snitter, who escape from a research laboratory in Great Britain. In the process of telling the story, the film highlights the cruelty of performing vivisection and animal research for its own sake (though Rosen said that this was not an anti-vivisection film, but an adventure). ()