Dog Soldiers (2002)

A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

Director:

Neil Marshall

Writer:

Neil Marshall

Stars:

Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby

5 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Sean Pertwee	...	Sgt. Harry G. Wells
Kevin McKidd	...	Pvt. Cooper
Emma Cleasby	...	Megan
Liam Cunningham	...	Capt. Ryan
Thomas Lockyer	...	Cpl. Bruce Campbell
Darren Morfitt	...	'Spoon' Witherspoon
Chris Robson	...	Pvt. Joe Kirkley
Leslie Simpson	...	Pvt. Terry Milburn
Tina Landini	...	Camper
Craig Conway	...	Camper
Villrikke's Acer	...	Sam the Dog
Bryn Walters	...	Werewolf
Ben Wright	...	Werewolf
Brian Claxton Payne	...	Werewolf

Storyline

A British Squad is sent on a training mission in the Highlands of Scotland against Special Operations squad. Ignoring the childish "campfire" stories heard about the area, they continue with their mission and come across the bloody remains of the Special Ops Squad, and a fierce howling is pitching the night sky... With two mortally wounded men, they make an escape, running into a zoologist by the name of Megan - who knows exactly what hunts them. What began as what they thought was a training mission turns into a battle for their lives against the most unlikely enemies they would have expected - werewolves.

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Plot Keywords:

exploitation | grindhouse film | scotland | training mission | full moon | 

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Taglines:

Imagine you're leading a six man squad on a routine army exercise.... ....and it all goes horribly wrong....

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Genres:

Action | Horror | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence/gore and language

Did You Know?

Trivia

The piece that Megan plays on the piano halfway through the film is Debussy's "Clair de Lune", roughly translatable as "moonbeam". The link is obvious, but is possibly also a nod to An American Werewolf in London (1981), the soundtrack of which consisted purely of songs with "moon" in the title.

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Goofs

The super glue used to stitch up the sarge's gut wound is a Loctite Gel bottle. It has blue tabs on the edges that you need to squeeze together in order for the glue to come out. When they hold the glue by its sides so no glue would be coming out of the bottle.

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Quotes

Ryan: There are some places you really shouldn't go.

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Crazy Credits

During the closing credits b&w photographs are shown from the camera used during the siege in the cottage.

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Connections

References Aliens (1986)

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Soundtracks

Tom Hark
Written and Composed by Rupert Bopape (as R. Bopape)
(c) 1958 by EMI (South Africa) PTY Ltd
Peermusic (UK) Ltd, London
Used by permisison

User Reviews

It's a black comedy, take it as such and enjoy

Right.. let's get one thing straight. This is not 'the classic' werewolf movie. It is not a 'revolution' in horror flicks. It's just a damn good horror movie, in the same was that Dawn of the Dead was a damn good horror movie. I'm not going to bother explaining the plot, it's been done before, I'll tell you what I think about the movie. It's a good old fashioned slasher horror. To say that's it's Dawn of the Dead with werewolves is probably a bad but effective analogy. Black comedys are a difficult thing to get right. It's an art to get someone laughing while people are being ripped to pieces left right and centre.. Dawn of the Dead was funny... and if you've got the right sort of twisted sense of humour, Dog Soldiers is funny too. Damn I'm writing this review at 5:30am after watching the film.. so don't expect some critical genius. I have to reiterate this basic fact.. THIS FILM IS FUN TO WATCH. This is all that really matters in this sort of genre. Do you want an all-out action movie that puts the grey-matter through a ringer? Not really, you'd like to see someone elses grey matter splatter all over the nearest wall as some evil looking creature bears down with nasty big pointy teeth.

Various gripes that people have had with the film including predictable-ish storyline and b-movie-esk themes can be easily dismissed. What were you expected.. shakespeare? You've got a bunch of army guys in the woods with enough bad language to put a bus full of gangster rappers to shame. They have guns.. there are nasty effectively invincible werewolves that are rather keen on making a meal out of our plucky heroes. That's it... that's the basic plot. Ignore the plot, it's not relevant in an action thriller like this. And it is thrilling and there are times when you wonder 'how the hell are they going to get out of this?'. The casting is excellent, the characters are far more realistic than the plaster-casting of modern hollywood. You can relate to the characters, which is great since they're about to be torn to bits.

You don't get to see the werewolves on screen for more than a second or two. I think this works. Maybe it's a method of disguising the bad wolf costumes but as a horror film pivot it works. For the first half of the film you don't get to see them at all, which is even better. The unseen enemy makes the imagination run wild.

I dunno what more to say about this movie... If you like stuff like the Evil Dead then you'll probably like this. It is in the classic horror b-movie style, and it works. Just don't expend a brain-bending hollywood epic, because it isn't.

8/10

Details

Country:

UK Luxembourg

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 May 2002 (UK)

Also Known As:

Dog Soldiers

Filming Locations:

Luxembourg

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$3,537,283

Company Credits

Production Co:

Centurion, Kismet Entertainment Group, The Noel Gay Motion Picture Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1