Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall (Screenplay)
Starring: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby, Liam Cunningham, Thomas Lockyer, Darren Morfitt, Chris Robson
Plot: A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: One of the Best Werewolf Films
Story: Dog Soldiers starts as we follow military unit led by Sgt Harry Wells (Pertwee) on a training mission in the Scotish wilderness, in his team is Private Cooper (McKidd) who has been rejected by the special forces Captain Ryan (Cunningham) but this does make him the strongest member of the unit.
When the men get attacked they learn Captain Ryan has been on a mission within in same location hunting something down and they soon meet these creates, werewolves hunting at night in the wilderness of Scotland, this is no longer a training mission and the men must show their skills to survive the night.
Thoughts on Dog Soldiers
Characters – Sgt Wells is running his military unit through a routine training exercise, he shows his strength in leadership even if Cooper is the best soldier in the unit. Private Cooper is soldier who missed out on special forces even though he has all the skills to be one of their best, returned to the small unit he must take control of the situation when the werewolves attack. Megan is seemingly a random woman in the woods but she has a connection to the bigger picture studying the werewolves. Captain Ryan is the leader of the special forces unit and has been involved in hunting the werewolves down, he is fully behind the cause over the right thing.
Performance – Sean Pertwee in the lead soldier role is something he becae famous for because he talks the shit needed as well as getting the respect from his unit and in the early 2000s no one did it better. Kevin McKidd is great is the super soldier that knows how to battle against anything thing that gets in his way. Emma Cleasby is an actress that seemed to fall of the face of the Earth after this performance which she did a good job in. Liam Cunningham as the villainous soldier is something we know he can do and we all like to just sit and listen to him talk.
Story – Group of soldiers must fight against werewolves over a one-night period, well that is the core of this story and it works perfectly, keeping things simple. We do have a couple of twists along the way which work and are fine for the story but overall we didn’t need to see anything overly complicated for this movie.
Action/Horror – The action is all bullets flying and blood spattering off the walls, this is a good use of the action horror genre because we might not get jump scares but we have the threat to the soldiers in werewolf form.
Settings – Most of the film is set in one location, a house in the middle of the woods, we make sure the communications are lost and the nearly location is too far away to make this a fully enjoyable isolated location for our characters.
Special Effects – Filled with most practical effects we see our soldiers and werewolves in battle in what is one of the best uses of the mix since American Werewolf in London.
Scene of the Movie – House goes Boom.
I always get annoyed by one thing in a movie, this is that moment – In the opening sequence we have campers killed, then we move back 2 hours earlier in a different location before going forward 4 weeks. This just seems like overkill.
Final Thoughts – This is easily one of the best modern-day werewolf films if not the best.
Overall: Enjoyable horror rush.
Rating
