Dog Soldiers (2002)

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Neil Marshall wrote and directed this lower budgeted Werewolf masterpiece. I saw this with a straight face as usually I cannot stand movies that involve werewolves. I would go so far as to say that the majority of werewolf movies I actually cannot fully pay attention the entire movie due to boredom. Neil though has hit it on the head in what makes this kind of a film work.

Before "Rome" Kevin McKidd wasn't quite yet a household name. Actually he still isn't quite a household name but the man's acting is superb and as he plays Pvt. Cooper as the lead in this film you could see even at this time that he is an actor to watch.
The premise of the film is that Cooper failed out of a special operations unit due to having too high of a morality level for what was being asked of him. He had the skills just did not have the ability to blindly kill anyone who he is ordered too. Being back in the regular military he is sent on a training mission in Scottland to test his unit's skills and are actually being pitted against the Special Ops Squad he was denied from.

The first night of the outing we are shown that the Special Ops team is attacked and Cooper's team stumbles across them completely slaughtered short of the team leader who is badly wounded and partially in shock. Our characters are immediately thrown on the run and where will you run for safety in a forest? A cabin in the woods! While that is the first choice they are actually picked up as hitchhikers by a woman in the area. Actually it's a house but it feels styled as if it were a cabin. Perfect for any forest themed horror film and the bonus is that they reach it at nightfall so have to deal with not only a being stuck in a cabin and surrounded by werewolves - but in the dark as well.

Once we are in the house the soldiers barricade themselves in to try and wait out the werewolves or plan a way out. We get interaction between the soldiers and learn that the special ops unit knew about the wolves ahead of time and had an agenda of their own. We further discover that the woman who picked them up also has secrets as she studies lycanthropes and has had dealing with the special ops unit in the past as a ‘specialist’ on the subject. Plans for waiting out the attack are shot down as the wolves constantly attack the house itself, breaking through their defenses and being fought off. Each attack though has causalities and as the soldiers numbers dwindle they finalize a plan to escape.

The movie has a style reminiscent of Evil Dead and not in a cheesy way or the feel of the film itself but more in the look and lighting of many of the scenes. The ‘cabin in the woods’ idea also helped stress this Evil Dead feel as well as monsters that are rarely shown on screen or only partially shown. While the wolves aren’t shown in full that often - when they are and you can tell that is where quite a bit of the budget went into. I wish more people could learn from movies such as this that CGI is overrated and props and costumes ARE the way to go for that extra bit of realistic feel. I have to say this was truly a fun movie and as someone who usually can’t stand a werewolf movie this might be better suggested to fans of horror who don’t usually like what they do with this style of film. It’s partially a werewolf film, partially a war movie, and horror all the way through.