Killing the dog

[blu blood]

Recently I was watching

[Show spoiler]Game Over Man, the Netflix original comedy from the Workaholics guys, in which the villain kills a supporting character's cute little dog with C4

I thought the movie was fairly funny, admittedly I was a big fan of their show when it was on, but not particularly memorable.

But when discussing the movie with friends I was actually pretty angry that they made the decision to kill the dog, not because I don't think you should ever kill the dog in a movie as a rule, I just thought it was completely unnecessary in a comedy. The villain was already well established, I didn't feel like killing the dog raised the stakes at all. There are countless times that movies like to give the impression that the cute little dog was in peril, only to escape at the last moment or miraculously reappear at the end of the movie, so I guess they were attempting to flip that familiar trope, but it bothered me.

What are your thoughts on "killing the dog"? Is it different in a comedy versus a drama?