I remember
many years ago browsing the shelves of my local video store. That is right
kiddies there used to be a place where you went to borrow actual physical
copies of movies for a small fee! I saw the cover to this DVD and thought it
was worth a watch. Sure, it was a low budget British made werewolf flick from a
director, Neil Marshall, that I had never heard of. But there wasn’t anything
else that I was interested in, so I figured why not.
The movie
kicks off with a man being chased in the woods. Very quickly you find out that
he is in training to become part of a special forces team. His last test is to
shoot the dog that allowed the other soldiers to track him. He refuses and the
asshole in charge, Captain Ryan, shoots the dog and fails him. Later we find
that Cooper, the man that failed, is back with his regular unit on yet another
training exercise. They end up running into some weird shit as they find a
bunch of bodies or at least bits of them. The only survivor of that group is
Ryan, who is torn up and clearly scared. Werewolves show up and the shit hits
the fan!
The rest
of the movie is the group stuck in a siege as they have barricaded themselves
in a farmhouse and do everything they can to defend themselves from the
creatures trying to claw their way in. Lots of blood is spilled and there are a
couple of twists along the way. I will point out that while the twists are good
the ending is predictable. But I can honestly say that it didn’t affect my
overall enjoyment of Dog Soldiers at all. The story is solid and wastes no time
to getting to the good stuff. The action is ramped up right away and never lets
up. There is always something interesting and exciting happening from start to
finish. The characters are developed a bit with some dialogue but are more
importantly defined by their actions. I have a prime example of that later on
in the review. Admittedly that they fall into predictable categories for anyone
that has watched a horror flick with an ensemble cast before. When done correctly,
as it is in Dog Soldiers, I have zero issues with that.
I love the creature design! |
Many of
you who read my stuff know that I hate it when movies do bad things to dogs, so
I clearly wasn’t happy in the first few minutes. But I have to say that it is
such a shocking and twisted bit that in that one act they establish exactly who
Ryan is, which is used later in the story. I can’t think of a better way to cement
him as heartless asshole then to have him kill a dog so I get that choice and
the movie does redeem itself later on so I’m willing to cut them some slack. Heck
there is even a “hero” dog that ends up with the main characters. And yes, that
one does make it to the end.
Seriously how cool is this? |
I believe
that I’ve mentioned this in my past reviews of werewolf movies, but it doesn’t
hurt to repeat it. Your success in filming a story featuring lycanthropes is
going to rely on how well you are able to execute the special effects work. They
do a fantastic job in Dog Soldiers with what I don’t think was a huge budget.
The special effects work is all practical and looks spectacular. Early on they
keep them in the distance or mostly covered by the night and trees but fear not
when they attack the house things are out in the open and fun. There are
several creatures on screen with each having a slightly different look, which I
noticed and appreciated. Different people shifted into the monsters so they
shouldn’t all look the same. I was somewhat surprised by the lack of gory kills,
but we do get some guts shoved back in and super-glued into place. That was
pretty good and sort of funny. But most of the really brutal stuff is implied
by blood sprays and piles of gooey bits lying around after the fact. Still if
they decided to blow the budget on creature makeup rather than the kills I’m
good with it.
This is a
great movie that I recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it. If you have, I’d
still say it is worth a re-watch. I hadn’t seen it in a few years and was
pleasantly surprised how well it has aged. I have zero issue saying that Dog
Soldiers is one of the best horror flicks of the last twenty years.
Ó
Copyright 2020 John Shatzer
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