Dog Soldiers (2002)

Night of the Werewolves

Cast:

Sean Pertwee is Sgt. Wells
Kevin McKidd is Private Cooper
Liam Cunningham is Captain Ryan
Emma Cleasby is Megan

What the box says:

A band of soldiers is dispatched to war games deep in the woods. When they stumble across a rival team slaughtered in camp, they realize they're not alone. Something deadly is waiting in the darkness: something not animal and not human. Holed up in abandoned farmhouse, the soldiers start a bloody battle against the beasts. Dawn is only a few hours away but they may not live to see it.

Dog Soldiers is a terrifying chiller in the tradition of Predator and An American Werewolf in London.

Plot:

In Scotland, a couple is camping. The chick gives the guy an ornate silver dagger. That night, they are distracted from sharing the love. Something drags the chick away before killing the guy.

2 hours earlier, Cooper is being chased by a number of soldiers. Finally, he is cornered by a guard dog. Captain Ryan orders him to shoot the dog. Cooper refuses to do it. He has evaded capture for 22 hours but is failed for not capping Rin Tin Tin. Ryan promptly kills the dog. Cooper lays the smack down on the officer until a gun is pointed at his head. Ryan returns him to his squad.

4 weeks later, in a Scottish forest, a chopper offloads a squad of soldiers. They grumble about various things because of this training exercise against Special Forces.

Cooper points out several of the enemy positions to Sergeant Wells. All of them get on the move.

As they march, it gets mentioned how there a few disappearances every couple of months in this forest.

The squad has set up camp and is talking about fears. Suddenly, a guy runs into camp and quickly dies. He has teeth marks all over him. Sergeant refuses to break radio silence yet. They will hold out through the night and set up sentries.

Bruce Campbell (character’s name) is on guard when he becomes Purina Wolf Chow.

In the morning, they search for Bruce to no avail. They do find several small pieces of human haggis. Spotting a flare, the squad finds the shredded remains of another squad. They get the guns and switching to real ammo after finding this massacre. When they’re about to call for the airlift, Captain Ryan is discovered.

The radio isn’t working. Ryan is delirious. The squad finds nets and tranquilizer darts. Ryan blurts out there was only supposed to be one. He won’t say anymore about it.

The radio apparently has been bugged. They take all the weapons they can find. Ryan warns them to leave.

Something is closing in on them. A strategic withdrawal ensues. The rear guard sees something and while being chased he gets impaled.

A firefight breaks out. The werewolves are driven away after gutting Sergeant Wells. Cooper drags him to safety.

The soldiers keep firing at the approaching werewolves. They spot a truck on a nearby road and get in it. They head to the closest farm to patch up Sergeant Wells.

The farmhouse is searched. It seems to have been deserted in a hurry. They get to patching up Sergeant Wells wounds. Cooper wants Megan to drive them to the nearest town.

They discover the truck’s motor was shredded. Seeing werewolves approaching they get back to the house. Cooper blows up the truck before getting back inside. The wolves pound on the door. An actual dog starts playing with Wells’s intestines. Ryan cries for the dog to be killed. One of the soldiers gets sick and blows chunks on the ever-deserving Ryan.

Cooper starts getting the house fortified.

Megan asks why the soldiers are here. She thought it was some sort of rescue mission. The wolves are at the tree line. She also starts talking about the werewolves’ intelligence.

Ryan washes up.

Megan is trying to explain werewolves to Cooper.

The wolves start to rush the house.

Megan is going to help Cooper patch up Wells. Apparently, superglue is an emergency medical supply. The Sarge is pretty out of it after downing some whiskey and professing his undying love for Cooper. He asks Cooper to knock him out cold. A couple of punches later, Wells in the land of slumber as his guts have a come together meeting with Krazy Glue.

Megan is a zoologist studying werewolves.

The squad is pretty much on edge from everything. Megan tries explaining the werewolves to them. Ryan’s team was wiped out the night before. Cooper checks on Ryan. Everyone sees that Ryan’s wounds have gotten better, a lot better. Suddenly, the power is cut.

The calm before the storm ends when the wolves are pounding on the door.

The wolves storm the house again. A siege begins. Cooper goes after Wells when a werewolf starts climbing the house to get into the second story.

The squad is able to drive the wolves away again. Well, Terry, one of the soldiers, gets captured by the wolves. Ryan tells them to forget him, he’s dead. It is 6 hours away until daylight.

The ammo is the only thing keeping them away and that is running very low.

Ryan is offering more and more snide comments again. Megan recognizes Ryan from the first visit. They needed a werewolf expert.

Suddenly, that line of conversation is killed. The farmers had a car. If it can be hotwired, they can escape. However, they need a way to distract the werewolves away from the barn, too.

As Joe goes out to draw the wolves towards him, the other guy gets to the barn. Joe makes it back to the house.

At the barn, the guy sees a werewolf having a some kibble and bits made from humanity. Hotwiring the car, and driving out of the barn, the wolf kills him.

Unaware of all of this the squad readies to make a break for the van. Suddenly, a wolf lunges for the door. Megan puts the wolf down.

Later, she is playing a piano. The squad contemplates their next move and mourns their losses. Outside, the wolves bay at the moon.

Cooper checks on the farmer’s truck. It is bad shape.

Ryan is getting more and more arrogant. He finally reveals that the Special Weapons Division, sort of like Bio-Weapons Division in Aliens. The plan was to catch a werewolf. However, they didn’t realize there were so many of them. The plan was to use Sergeant Wells and his squad for bait. Ryan wanted to get some revenge on Cooper for 4 weeks ago.

Ryan is getting stronger and wolfs out. He runs outside to join the pack.

Cooper finally realizes the werewolves are this farming family. They will have to kill them all.

Megan explains the pack mentality.

The plan is to destroy the wolf den and hopefully get all of them in one fell swoop.

Molotov cocktail manufacturing ensues.

Sergeant Wells wants to hold the wolves back so Cooper can get away. Wells knows he is healing too fast for a man and won’t run anymore.

Cooper sets a propane tank into the farmer’s truck. The truck’s gas tank is leaking. He drives it straight into the barn and hightails it back to the house. The gas on the ground is lit as fuse. The barn is blown up.

Megan is sure there is no way to escape. Cooper realizes there weren’t any werewolves in the barn, and Megan is part of the family, too. She let the wolves in and starts turning.

The remainders of the squad open fire on the wolves.

Wells gets away.

One guy, I think it is Joe, starts boxing a werewolf?

Sergeant Wells is trapped in a closet.

The boxing continues.

Sergeant fixes up a makeshift flamethrower from an aerosol can and lighter.

Guy tosses everything he has at the werewolf. One great comment later, he becomes puppy chow.

Sergeant and Cooper have found each other.

A werewolf is having a snack.

Sergeant and Cooper manage to get to another room and barricade it. They discover under the floorboards a large pile of bones. They learn that Spoon is dead.

Cooper and Sarge argue. Wells wants Cooper to get away while there is still a chance so the squad’s losses won’t be in vain.

Wells pulls out the gas line from the stove as the wolves break into the kitchen. Cooper has crawled under the house through the bone pile.

As Wells starts to lycnathropize uses his lighter to ignite the gas and blow up the house.

Cooper is in the basement. One werewolf is left. It is Ryan and smacks Cooper around. Somehow, the dog distracts Ryan. Cooper finds the silver dagger from the very beginning of the movie. He stabs Ryan with it and caps him like Old Yeller.

Cooper and the dog head out amidst the wreckage as the movie ends showing some werewolf shots.

Who said the Weekly World News was wrong?

What I say:

I complain a lot about how vampire movies seem to have a lot of pseudo goth types bemoaning their immortal fate and not putting themselves out of my misery. Werewolves are a bit different. While, in human form, they may be repulsed by their actions like Stephen King's Silver Bullet or even An American Werewolf in London. The hairy beasts just don't care. Really very few werewolves movies have came out in the past few years. Ginger Snaps and its sequels and Dog Soldiers and its forthcoming sequel Dog Soldiers 2: Fresh Meat.

This movie has a lot of similarities to other movies. Alien, Aliens, Assault on Precinct 13, Predator, Evil Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and Bad Taste. Alien has a scene where the xenomorph investigates the cat. Here, we have a scene where a werewolf investigates a dog. The firefights almost had me wanting to see if anything was crawling on the ceiling during the "bug hunt" in Aliens. The small military unit ruthlessly hunted down by an unbelievable killer cries Predator. Being trapped in the woods is Evil Dead. Being trapped in a farmhouse with every avenue escape continually being cut off sounds Night of the Living Dead to me. The house explosion reminded me of the one in Bad Taste. Even with its similarities, Dog Soldiers is still several cuts above the typically lame horror movies at the theater of the past few years.

I have mentioned how Dog Soldiers is reminiscient of a lot of other movies. Maybe, I am trying to think too much of other movies. Whether it is intentional or not, a movie that is has a lot of easy to spot references like Battlefield Earth and Johnny Mnemonic. Even with Dog Soldiers similarities to other movies, it is still able to stand on its own. The characters are able to really elevate what could be considered a derivative movie into something excellent.

The DVD box has a quote by Total Film proclaiming it as "one of the most explosive and purely enjoyable horror debuts since The Evil Dead." I don't think I would consider in the Evil Dead category. Neil Marshall wrote and directed Dog Soldiers. The term "ferociously original" has been used so much it should have been put to sleep by now. The few horror movie debuts I remember weren't too memorable. This is definitely one of the best werewolf movies in the last couple of decades.

Most horror movies don't really try to make their characters likeable or more than one dimensional at best. Most scripts are determined to make everyone think if you aren't thinking about sex, you are dead or asleep. Well, the squad seems believable griping about missing the soccer match and just being together. However, when the fecal matter hits the turbine propellor, make sure you're behind these guys.

Sean Pertwee gets into his role so far you could really picture him as a gruff sergeant who would beat you if you mentioned how much he thought of his unit. However, Pertwee is determined to see that his squad survives. Normally, most movies would rather have a sergeant like R.L. Ermey from Full Metal Jacket. Very few movies show the military in a good light say Sgt. Apone and the others from Aliens.

My complains about this movie are small. Most of the shots that are set at night, you can see it is daylight outside. The English slang is sort of hard for a confused Southerner to understand. What do you need to know besides their football or any possible abbreviation is what we call soccer? The jerky camera shots during the fights is jarring and almost Blair-Witchian. For me, it is sort of hard to keep track of who is who. Wells, Cooper, Ryan, and Megan werent't. However, Spoon, Joe, etc seem a bit replaceable.

No CG. Too many movies have been ruined by grabbing on with both hands to computer generated imagery. It can be used to really enhance a movie if used right. However, thoseeffects are used to almost bludgen the audience. Not Dog Soldiers, these are actual wolf suits. The lycanthropes are taller than men. It seems that far too many horror and sci-fi moves would rather use computer generated effects than prosetics. It warms my Grinch-like heart to see a monster suit in a movie. A good man in a monster suit is nothing to be ashamed of in a movie. It sure beats crappy computer generated monsters.

Megan does several suspicious things throughout the movie. One she mentions how to kill werewolves. However, no one asks her about it. You're trapped in a remote forest by seeming mythical creatures. Someone has been studying them for a year. Well, she better be singing all she knows fast. The same goes for Ryan who kept the werewolf as a weapon project to himself for most of the movie.

The fight between the werewolf and Joe is completely serious. Dead Alive had the completely off-the-wall kung fu master Father MacGruder going old school on a bunch of zombies. As much as I love that scene, you know it is just a joke. The wolf Joe fight doesn't have any snappy one liners. A guy who is out of bullets is trying everything he can do to stay alive and try to take out his enemy before having to cash in his chips.

Werewolf movies had normally been always thought of as in the vein of the Universal Wolfman movies. The 60s and 70s had the Paul Naschy vision of werewolves. The early 80s had Howling and An American Werewolf in London. For nearly 20 years, we've gotten very few werewolf movies and even fewer good ones. A long time coming has arrived. After Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers some high quality werewolf movies have finally arrived on the scene to put those pseudo gothy-vampire wannabees in there place.

Quotable Dialogue
"I expect nothing less than gratitious violence from the lot of you."
"It's the Kobayashi Maru test."
"Put a kibosh on that clan."
"That was my car!"
"The big guy with the axe is Joe."
"No self-respecting werewolves would have silver in the house anyway."
Morals of the Story
Dog killing is special forces requirement.
Whistling soldiers aren't the 7 Dwarves.
Werewolves see in black and white.
Dogs love human intestines for chew toys.
Vomiting calms dogs down.
Superglue is great for major chest wounds.