Main cast: Sean Pertwee (Sergeant Harry Wells), Kevin McKidd (Private Lawrence ‘Coop’ Cooper), Emma Cleasby (Megan), Liam Cunningham (Captain Richard Ryan), Thomas Lockyer (Corporal Bruce Campbell), Darren Morfitt (Private Phil ‘Spoon’ Witherspoon), Chris Robson (Private Joe Kirkley), and Leslie Simpson (Private Terry Milburn)
Director: Neil Marshall
This low-budgeted movie is probably one of more well-produced werewolf horror movies that I thought no longer existed. With snappy male banter, this movie is actually superior than those Werewolf Nymphos and Naked Big Breasted Vixens one often find on the B-grade horror schlock aisle at the local rental store.
In a remote Scottish mountain region where the forests are endless and no one can hear you scream, a platoon of soldiers arrive for what seems like a routine military exercise. Armed with blanks, they proceed to do their thing… until they realize that the woods are teaming with real and very hungry werewolves. They encounter the local animal biologist Megan and the nasty survivor of a previous team of (now massacred) werewolf hunters, and now they find themselves holed up in a wooden cottage in the middle of nowhere, low on ammunition, fighting a desperate battle for their lives.
Dog Soldiers is fun. It’s obviously low-budgeted, but the werewolves look good, I must say. And as the gore flow thick and intestines fly (one character spends half the movie with a ripped stomach and his intestines dangling out), this movie also have really good and realistic male bonding between soldiers. I don’t know who is who, since most of them are just meat for angry doggies anyway, but their quirks and personalities are so well-done that I actually cry “No!” in dismay when my favorite shaved head becomes the next course on the wolves’ dinner table.
The suspense is very well-done, and I am at my seat’s edge most of the time. Where this movie falters, however, is a very transparent and predictable “plot twist” and the characterization of Megan, which doesn’t make sense half the time.
Still, if you’re hankering for a really good werewolf slash-and-dice and has been complaining about the lack of good ones since An American Werewolf in London, go grab this one at the local video store. It’s a ripping, bitching good time guaranteed fun. You probably won’t howl at the moon, but you’ll be glad you did all the same.
