After an apparent training exercise in the Scottish highlands goes gorily awry, the film’s heroes (a well-written and acted group of British squaddies led by Sean Pertwee) find themselves trapped in a remote farmhouse. Their enemy? A family of exceptionally tall, fantastically hairy and mostly realistic werewolves – three cheers for well-made costumes and animatronics everyone!
The son of the iconic Dr. Who and Worzel Gummidge actor John, the younger Pertwee is the film’s biggest name and gives a strong performance as a shouty sergeant who’s not quite good enough for the SAS but is trying to hold together a group of terrified, confused but very British, very belligerent soldiers in the most desperate of circumstances.
One hefty and unexplained plot hole aside (relating to when and how one particular werewolf changes) the script is very well put together, balancing some great shocks and spectacular violence with more genuinely funny lines and exchanges than you’d normally find in a great, bloody fistful of so-called horror/comedy films.
Dog Soldiers is also stuffed with film references that reward multiple viewings. A special forces/secret government programme subplot helps move things along as the soldiers stage an increasingly desperate, ever-more bloody last stand, trying to hold out until dawn. Will they make it? Well, obviously some won’t – and they die in a variety of satisfyingly bloodthirsty, sudden ways at the claws and teeth of their unusually cunning, intelligent tormentors.
A British production with some funding and the majority of filming taking place in Luxembourg of all places, Neil Marshall’s debut feature as director (he also wrote and edited the film) marked him as a new and exciting director to watch. Indeed, his next film, the Descent (2005) was even better. And even if his subsequent projects Doomsday (2008) and Centurion (2010) were somewhat disappointing, Marshall remains one of British action/horror’s very best directors.
With plenty of memorable moments – few films include a soldier taking on a werewolf in a fistfight or a pet dog tog-o-warring with a still-living man’s intestines, Dog Soldiers is an immensely enjoyable werewolf film.
On its 2002 release it was the probably the best werewolf film since 1981 classic An American Werewolf in London. And now, a decade on, with a couple of follow-up teaser trailers out there, and sequels planned, announced and shelved dating back to 2004, surely it’s time, finally, for Dog Soldiers 2? Few werewolf films deserve it more.
ANDREW GARVEY lives in Staffordshire. He writes (infrequently) about mixed martial arts, professional wrestling, history, horror and folklore. Follow him on Twitter: @AMGarvey Check out more Andrew Garvey articles for the Spooky Isles here.