In the opening scene, a young couple camping in the Scottish Highlands puts out their fire, makes some remark about looking out for wild animals, and starts fooling around in their tent. They are rudely interrupted by sudden howling noises, a stranger unzipping the tent, and the girl being dragged out in a spray of blood. The first ten minutes of Dog Soldiers looks like the typical beginning of a bad monster movie, but looks can be deceiving. The film is about a band of werewolves reeking havoc in the woods, however, that is where its similarities to a late-night creature flick end. Few werewolf movies seem to feature wisecracking soldiers with gung ho braveness as heroes and a scene of a dog playing tug-of-war with…well…some-thing not for the faint of heart. In Dog Soldiers, a team of British Army officers is left in the wilds of Scotland for a training exercise. The mission abruptly ends with the discovery of scattered human remains and a barely living Special-Ops soldier with large claw marks across his chest. The soldiers walk into a nightmare of large, angry, furry creatures who threaten to make life short for all of them. They take shelter in the house of a local woman, but they are soon under siege by hungry lycanthropes. The rest of the film is warfare between soldier and beast in this remote and claustrophobic bunker. Dog Soldiers is meant to be a horror movie, but also takes on the characteristics of a war movie and a black comedy. The soldiers are not stereotypical action heroes by any means. They are just average louts who pass obscene gestures and lament about missing the big soccer game on TV. Regardless of they commonness, they are still brave heroes, especially the tough, yet loyal, Cooper (Kevin McKidd) and their brotherly leader, Sgt. Wells, affectionately known as Sarge (Sean Pertwee). The characters are not mindless pawns but three-dimensional human beings. They don’t look vexed by the carnage around them; they look completely terrified. Their large supply of one-liners, however, shows how human beings can cope in this hopeless chaos. The carnage almost acts as another star, as it is displayed in such great detail that it takes on a personality of its own. Director Neil Marshall does not shy away from showing heaps of blood, dead bodies, and the former pieces of dead and living bodies. This film is definitely not for those who are easily disturbed by such things, but its raw display shows a type of cinematic honesty, although it borderlines on being gratuitous. Starring alongside the blood and gore in the visual department is the cinematography. The audience gets the point of view of a soldier regarding how this house is a part of hell. Another visual highlight is the periodic shot from the wolves’ point of view that is the same grainy, black-and-white shot that was gloriously used in The Blair Witch Project, a film that was probably a source of plot inspiration. The DVD features a behind-the-scenes featurette and film trailers. Dog Soldiers is the classic horror movie that makes one wary to travel in the woods, yet it takes an old formula and puts a smart twist on it. It is a good film to watch on a random Saturday night with popcorn, beer, and a strong stomach.
Plymouth State University
Thursday, June 26, 2025