horror film that has yet to be discovered by the audience who 
would appreciate it most, Baxter was a chilly surprise when it gradually played around the world from the late '80s into the early '90s. A very dark comedy of sorts and an icy parable about the cost of submitting to fascism, the film was based on a 1977 novel by American writer Ken Greenhall (originally published in several markets as Hell Hound). Sticking quite close to the source material, the film is essentially the dark flipside to the usual dog odyssey stories all the way from The Call of the Wild through A Dog's Purpose, painting a cautionary look at the various aspects of humanity experienced by a broken animal psyche. 
complicated by an impending baby. Again displeased with the situation and consumed by "unnatural thoughts," Baxter eventually ends up with budding neo-Nazi Charles (Driancourt), 
who's created his own version of Hitler's bunker at the local junkyard and proves to be the icy dictator Baxter's soul truly craves. 
Here Baxter is a rigid and, ahem, dogmatic personality who latches onto an even more destructive one in his path to happiness, only to find out that it usually isn't such a great idea to 
get everything you ever wanted. This film is also significant as an early job for screenwriter Jacques Audiard, who went on to international prominence writing and directing films like Read My Lips, A Prophet, Rust and Bone, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, and The Sisters Brothers (as well as the only other feature by director Jérôme Boivin, Barjo). 
The big extra here is a new audio commentary by filmmaker Mark Savage (Puragtory Road, Sensitive New Age Killer), who is quite possibly the film's biggest English-speaking 
fan and has been championing it for years. It's a thorough and appreciative track as he touches on other works dealing with the theme of young Nazi indoctrination and fetishism like The Tin Drum, In a Glass Cage, and Beautiful Girl Hunter, the biggest challenge this would have faced being made in the U.S., the two significant alterations made from the book (including the fate of one character), and extensive background about Greenhall and his place in '70s horror fiction alongside writers like James Herbert. Also included are bonus trailers for Slow Dancing in the Big City, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (which would make a perfect double feature with this film), 9/30/55, Diva, Le Professionel, and (not surprisingly) Dogs.