THE 12 NIGHTS OF HALLOWEEN: 4. Dog Soldiers (2002)

 

                “Dog Soldiers” is a British horror war movie that was released in 2002.  It was written and directed by Neil Marshall (“Centurion”).  It was his first film.  The movie created barely a ripple in theaters and was later premiered on the SyFy Channel.  It is the kind of movie where the first deaths occur in the first minute.

                The movie is set in Scotland.  A squad of British soldiers are dropped into a forest for a “harmless exercise, not life or death” against a SAS unit.  Only it will be hard to war game against pieces of men.  There is a survivor – the enigmatically evil Capt. Ryan (Liam Cunningham).  He babbles that “there was only supposed to be one.”  What is he talking about?  Probably not squirrels.  It quickly becomes apparent that we are in the midst of the “who will survive?” subgenre.  They come under attack from something that we see only briefly enough to confirm that they are not squirrels.  The countdown begins when one of the men has a rude encounter with a sharp tree branch.  The really cool Sarge character gets slashed to where he has his guts spilling out.  Boo!  Why does he have to die so soon?  No one could survive that kind of wound unless…  The freaked out Brits are rescued by a woman in an SUV.  She takes them to her isolated farm house because the director had some film left.  We are now at Rorke’s Drift in “Zulu”.  And just like in that movie, they have no phone coverage.  And the enemy makes multiple assaults.  At one point they even break through a wall to escape into another room.  One of the men turns into a werewolf (but off-camera!)  He won’t be the last.  There is a lot of frenetic fighting to hold their fort and the director even manages to get an explosion in. 

                “Dog Soldiers” is a worthy addition to the war horror movie subgenre.  Marshall directs with panache.  The cinematography throws in some hand-held and slo-mo.  It is a cut above the average creature feature. The editing is outstanding with lots of quick cuts to rev up the action and intercutting during the house assaults.  The action is plentiful and balls to the wall.  The violence is very graphic and appropriately so.  And it saves the best for last.  A real crowd-pleaser.  The special effects are old schoolish as Marshall eschewed CGI.  The werewolves are a combination of animatronics and men in body suits on stilts.  They start off cheesy looking, but later views are more effective.  The movie wisely bleeds out the views.  It reminds one of “Alien” in this respect. 

                The actors do not take a back seat to the monsters.  It is a nice cast of recognizable British thespians.  The standouts are the antagonists Ryan and Cooper (Kevin McKidd of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Rome”).  They have a history that involves a dog and a dog neatly fits into the climax of the film.  Ryan makes a great villain and Cooper is rock-jawed sturdy.  By the way, kudos to the dog (Acer).  Good acting, boy!  Emma Cleasby is feisty as Megan the supposedly normal heroic lass.  The dialogue is very British and has some subtle humor that cuts the tension and adds to the fun.  The plot is predictable.  Like the fact that virtually everyone dies.  Oops, spoiler alert!  There are a few nice twists, so try to keep your eyes open. 

GRADE  =  B+