Dog Soldiers
Having read other reviews of Dog Soldiers and watched segments of the movie on the Sci-Fi channel, I didn't have much hope for this movie. But I was doing research for a book, so I figured it was worth a shot. I was pleasantly surprised.
A lot of parallels are made between Dog Soldiers and Aliens and Predator. To be more specific, the movie is often touted as "Aliens with werewolves." The assessment is accurate, but not for the reasons you might think.
Yes, technically Dog Soldiers is a horror movie. But Aliens helped invent the hybrid action/horror movie ("haction"?). It is very much a war against enemies on their home terrain, echoing Vietnam and now the war in Iraq. The bad guys are everywhere, they know the terrain better than us, and they strike from nowhere, only to disappear into the darkness. But it's important to note that all three movies are about soldiers first, the bad guys second. The monsters are worthy adversaries to be sure, with unique biologies. But it's a war movie that happens to have monsters in it. The Marines of Aliens and Dutch's soldiers are very much like modern day warriors. The poor saps caught in Dog Soldiers are no different.
Okay, they're a little different in that they are distinctly not American. This is one of those movies, like 28 Days Later (which it has a lot more in common), that blithely ignores the U.S.-centric perspective. The grunts are decidedly British, talk in their own slang, mumble their own jokes, and act like...well, British soldiers. This is a turnoff for some Americans, but I was able to mitigate the language barrier (that's a joke, kids) through judicious use of close captioning.
The story begins with our hero, Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd), trying out for Special Forces under the stern tutelage of Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham). Although he manages to take out four men with just a flashlight, he fails to pass the final test - shooting an innocent dog in the head. Why? We find out soon enough.
Kicked back into the grunts with everyone else, Cooper traipses through Scotland on a training exercise. The Scottish wilderness seems a lot like the Blair Woods from Blair Witch Project - impossibly large and isolated. It's the perfect setting for troops to train, or to bait werewolves.
As it turns out, the grunts are the bait for the Special Forces team who is out to capture a werewolf. The only problem is that werewolves run in packs and the Special Forces team is decimated by a surprise attack. That leaves the grunts, led by Sergeant Harry G. Wells (Sean Pertwee). The troops joke, they talk about football (uh, soccer, sorry), and they just want to go home. They're not so much heroes as kids out in the forest who, given different choices, might never have joined the military. These guys aren't killing machines, they're just regular Joes.
Their leader, Wells, is an affable man who has a surprising tolerance for stupidity. Call it my American sensibilities - when one of the squad forgets his watch, I expect a full public dress-down, American drill sergeant style. Instead, Wells gives the lad his own watch with the lightest of tongue-lashings. Wells cares about his men, first and foremost, and knows full well that war sucks and his team is the unfortunate recipient of a lot of bad decisions.
This is most evident when the man talk about what they fear the most. While the grunts joke about this and that, Wells portrays a gruesome death of his own squad mates. This isn't a camping trip, even though it is a training exercise, and Wells knows it.
The werewolves eventually show up in all their glory, although the director (Neil Marshall) has enough sense not to show them most of the time. Marshall sticks with werewolf standbys - they're essentially invulnerable to normal weapons, turn into wolf-like humanoids at the full moon, and spread their contagion with tooth and claw.
Because there's no CGI in this movie, the werewolves are very realistic. While at times they look like guys in gorilla suits, they are hulking beasts - the prosthetics that the stuntmen wore increased their height to nearly eight feet - and have a terrifying on-screen presence you can't get with CGI (unlike, say, American Werewolf in Paris). These things aren't just werewolves, they're GIANT FRICKIN' WEREWOLVES.
It doesn't take long before the soldiers are in trouble and Wells gets gutted in disgusting detail. Fortunately, they come across a suspiciously friendly zoologist, Megan (Emma Cleasby), who takes them to an isolated house where the troops make their last stand.
The troops act in realistic and organized fashion, but slowly but surely run out of options. Then they start acting like normal people, freaking out and doing whatever they have to in order to survive. In their darkest hour, each character shows his heroic traits as they fight to the end.
The acting is excellent, once you get past the high-speed, heavily accented dialogue. The plot is filled with alternate humor and desperation. Most importantly, the writing is very tight - every strange coincidence is explained. Marshall achieves this cohesiveness by keeping the movie tightly focused, which helps reinforce the claustrophobia of the werewolves outside the house.
Although it is not a pure horror movie, Dog Soldiers is one of the best (if not the best) werewolf movies to date, although that not may be saying much given the sheer amount of garbage that passes for werewolf films.
A lot of parallels are made between Dog Soldiers and Aliens and Predator. To be more specific, the movie is often touted as "Aliens with werewolves." The assessment is accurate, but not for the reasons you might think.
Yes, technically Dog Soldiers is a horror movie. But Aliens helped invent the hybrid action/horror movie ("haction"?). It is very much a war against enemies on their home terrain, echoing Vietnam and now the war in Iraq. The bad guys are everywhere, they know the terrain better than us, and they strike from nowhere, only to disappear into the darkness. But it's important to note that all three movies are about soldiers first, the bad guys second. The monsters are worthy adversaries to be sure, with unique biologies. But it's a war movie that happens to have monsters in it. The Marines of Aliens and Dutch's soldiers are very much like modern day warriors. The poor saps caught in Dog Soldiers are no different.
Okay, they're a little different in that they are distinctly not American. This is one of those movies, like 28 Days Later (which it has a lot more in common), that blithely ignores the U.S.-centric perspective. The grunts are decidedly British, talk in their own slang, mumble their own jokes, and act like...well, British soldiers. This is a turnoff for some Americans, but I was able to mitigate the language barrier (that's a joke, kids) through judicious use of close captioning.
The story begins with our hero, Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd), trying out for Special Forces under the stern tutelage of Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham). Although he manages to take out four men with just a flashlight, he fails to pass the final test - shooting an innocent dog in the head. Why? We find out soon enough.
Kicked back into the grunts with everyone else, Cooper traipses through Scotland on a training exercise. The Scottish wilderness seems a lot like the Blair Woods from Blair Witch Project - impossibly large and isolated. It's the perfect setting for troops to train, or to bait werewolves.
As it turns out, the grunts are the bait for the Special Forces team who is out to capture a werewolf. The only problem is that werewolves run in packs and the Special Forces team is decimated by a surprise attack. That leaves the grunts, led by Sergeant Harry G. Wells (Sean Pertwee). The troops joke, they talk about football (uh, soccer, sorry), and they just want to go home. They're not so much heroes as kids out in the forest who, given different choices, might never have joined the military. These guys aren't killing machines, they're just regular Joes.
Their leader, Wells, is an affable man who has a surprising tolerance for stupidity. Call it my American sensibilities - when one of the squad forgets his watch, I expect a full public dress-down, American drill sergeant style. Instead, Wells gives the lad his own watch with the lightest of tongue-lashings. Wells cares about his men, first and foremost, and knows full well that war sucks and his team is the unfortunate recipient of a lot of bad decisions.
This is most evident when the man talk about what they fear the most. While the grunts joke about this and that, Wells portrays a gruesome death of his own squad mates. This isn't a camping trip, even though it is a training exercise, and Wells knows it.
The werewolves eventually show up in all their glory, although the director (Neil Marshall) has enough sense not to show them most of the time. Marshall sticks with werewolf standbys - they're essentially invulnerable to normal weapons, turn into wolf-like humanoids at the full moon, and spread their contagion with tooth and claw.
Because there's no CGI in this movie, the werewolves are very realistic. While at times they look like guys in gorilla suits, they are hulking beasts - the prosthetics that the stuntmen wore increased their height to nearly eight feet - and have a terrifying on-screen presence you can't get with CGI (unlike, say, American Werewolf in Paris). These things aren't just werewolves, they're GIANT FRICKIN' WEREWOLVES.
It doesn't take long before the soldiers are in trouble and Wells gets gutted in disgusting detail. Fortunately, they come across a suspiciously friendly zoologist, Megan (Emma Cleasby), who takes them to an isolated house where the troops make their last stand.
The troops act in realistic and organized fashion, but slowly but surely run out of options. Then they start acting like normal people, freaking out and doing whatever they have to in order to survive. In their darkest hour, each character shows his heroic traits as they fight to the end.
The acting is excellent, once you get past the high-speed, heavily accented dialogue. The plot is filled with alternate humor and desperation. Most importantly, the writing is very tight - every strange coincidence is explained. Marshall achieves this cohesiveness by keeping the movie tightly focused, which helps reinforce the claustrophobia of the werewolves outside the house.
Although it is not a pure horror movie, Dog Soldiers is one of the best (if not the best) werewolf movies to date, although that not may be saying much given the sheer amount of garbage that passes for werewolf films.
posted by talien | 12:31 PM
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