Who is the “Dog Killer” in Under The Silver Lake?

welcome, to my own little game of clue!

My latest film watch was the A24 hidden gem “Under The Silver Lake” starred by Andrew Garfield (you know who this man is!) and directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows). Since it was recommended to me by one of my closest friends E.V., I knew it was going to be a home run, but I had no idea AT ALL to what I was in for.

(Pictured Above: Andrew Garfield AKA my favorite Spider-Man)

The movie tells the story of Sam (Garfield), who is a young LA lost soul who one day meets a mysterious blonde girl in his apartment complex. After spending the night together, she’s gone (gone girl style), leaving only a box containing a polaroid selfie of herself and her old vibrator (because why not). Sam stars investigating and ends up in a way bigger hole than the one he thought he was getting into. First shown in the Cannes Film Festival, the movie received THEE worst public reception, like literally the worst on the entire festival, which honestly I can see why (the film doesn’t really care to explain a lot of what is happening or what happened, reason to why I’m here, writing this) but come on! there must have been a worst movie in there! I personally really enjoyed the film and wouldn’t want anyone who hasn’t given “UTSL” a chance to get spoiled by this article, so if you happen to be interested in watching, please do! You can finish reading this after you’ve seen it, i promise it will be good to know what the fuck I’m talking about because hell, this film is C R A Z Y.

(Pictured Above: People standing in the street, where is written in red spray ink “BEWARE THE DOG KILLER”)

The movie is surrounded by lore, I mean, ITS A MOVIE ABOUT LORE of course they would leave questions so the people who make it a cult classic obsesses over the unanswered doubts. But in my opinion, the biggest mystery that surrounds Under The Silver Lake is the identity of the “Dog Killer”, that since the first shot of the film runs over the minds of the spectators in such rush that you end up sad when you realize the film is not going to confirm or deny any theory’s you might have made through your watch.

So in honor of Sam’s detective time, my obsession with Knifes Out and my Disney World bought Tower of Terror Clue game expertise, I decided to investigate this mystery myself! Here is a list of each suspect and why would they possibly be the notorious LA dog killer:

SUSPECT NUMBER ONE: Sam

(Pictured Above: Andrew Garfield as Sam, looking suspicious behind a tree, in which has a lost dog poster)

With probably every clue pointing at him, I couldn’t physically try to evict Sam out of this search party (get it? because he got evicted from his apartment? haha). Sam from the first shot has been pointed as the dog killer, being that he is carefully placed behind a “BEWARE THE DOG KILLER” vandalized window. But okay, that not all!!! He has a weird relationship with dogs, I mean at the end of the film we do get a sad little soppy story about how he got dumped and he misses his ex’s dog BUT HOW IN THE WORLD DOES THAT EXPLAIN HAVING DOG TREATS IN YOUR POCKETS??? And we can’t ignore the fact of his “nightmares” in which he conveniently finds a dead dog and wakes up with a bloody hand… (I will bring up later more his nightmares when I mention the next suspect). In sum, he could very much be our killer because I’m sure that if I dove deep enough into some weird little kid’s subreddit I would probably find even more evidence of his guilt, for now, I’m good.

SUSPECT NUMBER 2: Sarah AKA miss gone girl herself!

(Pictured Above: Riley Keough, YES, THE GIRL FROM ZOLA!!)

The blonde girl our protagonist madly chases, who we later find out is named Sarah, is culpable of maybe killing some dogs for one reason only, Sam’s fucked up dreams. In his first dream sequence, Sam is walking back to his apartment when he finds dog treats on the street, he ends up following them, finds a dead dog (remember what I said earlier?) and then finds “Sarah”, who is mouthful into some guys guts, and believe me, she’s IN THERE. I don’t genuinely think it could be her, but at this point, why not?

SUSPECT NUMBER 3: …this man?

(Pictured Above: An extra using a pretty green shirt with a lot of animals who are definitely not part of a secret code… for sure.)

Okay, bear with me. In the opening shot, we see a man wearing a green t-shirt, if you squint your eyes and have a great quality image, something I didn’t have (thank you HBOmax, for nothing.), you can see that in the design of the shirt there’s a bunch of animals. The animals are, bear, walrus, alligator, raccoon, dog, ostrich, giraffe, koala, iguana, lion, and again, raccoon. If you take the first letters of each animal it makes the iconic phrase of the film, BWAR DOG KILR (beware the dog killer). So yeah… idk about this… it’s weird… but at the same time, we do see more people wearing this exact shirt at one of the multiple parties in the film. Could it be the actual puppy murder or just another cool easter egg. I guess we’ll never know.

SUSPECT NUMBER 4: Shadow figure!

(Pictured Above: A shadow figure standing like he’s about to do something ominous…)

During a walk home, Sam encounters a shadowy figure, who they are? No idea. Are they possible or animal murder? FOR SURE LOOK AT THAT!

SUSPECT NUMBER 5: Owl woman

(Pictured Above: Murderous owl woman at Sam’s apartment holding a knife)

Another unsolved mystery of the film, the owl woman! Who she is? No clue, but she does kill Sam’s friend in a pretty bloody way. Is she possibly our killer? Maybe not, why? Cause in the films lore, she actually is a HUMAN murder, not ANIMAL murder, so I don’t know if she kills these dogs as a side hustle but I think she is definitely capable of doing so.

(Pictured Above: A window that has “BEWARE THE DOG KILLER” written on it)

At the end of the day, no matter how much digging we make or searching on subreddits we do, we will never actually discover the real identity of our villain, since the director will probably never tell us what he imagined to be the so searched for character. We can make our theories tho, maybe none of these people are culpable, or all of them are, somehow maybe the dogs were just killing themselves IDK. The mystery of the silver lake stands, if you live in LA and have been through anything similar, tells us your thoughts, maybe you can figure this out yourself!!

At last I leave you one final plea, keep your dogs safe, you never know when the infamous Dog Killer, might make its comeback…