Dog Soldiers (2002)
Directed by Neil Marshal
Starring Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, and Liam Cunningham
A couple camping in the Scottish Highlands are having a lovely vacation. That is, until they are slaughtered in their tent under a full moon. Later in the same location, a group of British army soldiers enter the area to participate in a weekend of war games. The main protagonist, Private Cooper (McKidd), and the rest of the squad are expecting a nice weekend of roughing it in the countryside. Not everything is going as planned. The squad cannot find their participants in these exercises, a British Special Forces unit. Eventually they find what is left of the Special Forces camp. There is blood everywhere, equipment destroyed, and all their weapons remain. The squad does find a lone survivor in Captain Ryan (Cunningham), who has some bad history with Private Cooper. Ryan is barely making sense, saying that some kind of beasts attacked his men. The squad prepares for the worst, but they are not ready for what is coming. They are attacked and driven to hide in a country house by something no one anticipated. Now, this squad has to survive a siege of werewolves until sunrise.
This movie never got a theatrical run in the states, which is both bad and good. It is bad since Dog Soldiers absolutely deserves to be seen. But, it is good because having no previous knowledge of this movie can make your first viewing an even better surprise. Dog Soldiers is a visceral gut punch of a horror flick. There is no letting up, lines and bullets fly so fast it is easy to miss what is going. The story is tight and filled with some great twists. Werewolf traditions are played with, people die in some truly gruesome ways, and several characters change sides all before the climax. You never do know what will happen next to these characters. The dialogue is outstanding, bursting with some of the best gruff military talk I have ever heard in a movie. In particular, Sean Pertwee’s Sergeant Wells has some killer lines that are expertly delivered. All the actors involved did a wonderful job and really help sell the predicament the characters are in.
The makeup and effects are simply fantastic. These baddies do not look like the weird hairy guy or the cat-like people of many previous werewolf films. They have snouts, beady black eyes, and some formidable stature. The wolves in this look just as movie werewolves should; pretty close to a believable combination of man and dog. With a mixture of costumes and animatronics, the werewolves are credibly terrifying. The gore of Dog Soldiers should be mentioned, because I have not seen anything this bloody and gooey since Dead Alive. All of it is fairly convincing, but bits and pieces of people are thrown about everywhere in this film. People lose their arms, their heads, and their guts frequently. There are scenes where the aftermath of someone’s evisceration is literally coating the floor of a set. The gore is so over the top it is ridiculous.
In all absolute honesty, you need to watch this movie now. Horror fans will get a kick out of this refreshingly vicious werewolf story. Horror newcomers and casual fans will be bowled over by the film’s unrelenting pace and violence. This is one the best horror films of the 2000s and one of the best werewolf movies ever made.
9 out of 10
