Official synopsis
For decades the story of the Michigan Dogman has been retold through song, urban legend and internet sensation, while the truth lay behind a smokescreen of speculation and what-ifs. Now, documentarian Seth Breedlove and Small Town Monsters goes beyond the rumors to meet the researchers and journalists who first chronicled the legend, and the witnesses who continue to cross paths with the impossible creature. Since the late 1980s, the sightings have continued, leading many to ask if the Michigan Dogman is more than just a story.
Review
Director Seth Breedlove and the rest of the Small Town Monsters crew deliver another intriguing cryptozoology documentary with Dawn of the Dogman. A sort of American version of the werewolf, the dogman is one of the “newer” cryptids, as this film explains.
On a personal note, as a lifelong fan of cryptids and other high strangeness, I placed the dogman in the same category as shadow people: something that was never considered well known until brought up in one form of media or another, after which suddenly many people claimed to have witnessed the phenomenon. Dawn of the Dogman explores this, as disc jockey Steve Cook explains how he made up a novelty song about the creature as an April Fool’s joke in 1987, and how after the song became popular, people started saying that they or people they knew had actually seen the cryptid.
Plenty of alleged eyewitnesses to dogman sightings exist, and Breedlove interviews some of them, along with experts in the cryptozoology field. As always with Small Town Monsters documentaries, local color and giving a voice to witnesses are emphasized. These positive aspects are an important part of what sets Small Town Monsters’ films apart from many other such documentaries.
The film is dedicated to the late cryptozoologist and author Linda Godfrey, whose research — beginning with newspaper articles and building into books and interviews — helped bring the dogman into the spotlight. Previously unseen interviews with her are another reason for checking out Dawn of the Dogman. Cryptozoology aficionados from the casual to the well-informed will want to do just that.
Small Town Monsters’ Dawn of the Dogman will launch exclusively on streaming platforms, including Apple TV, Prime Video and Google Play, on December 9, 2025.
