Dog Soldiers (2002)

Neil Marshall

UK

105 min, color, English

Review © 2006 Branislav L. Slantchev

This has got to be the best horror film debut since Sam Raimi splattered Bruce Campbell with goo so many decades ago. I had totally missed the original release but after seeing Marshall's absolutely superb second feature, I just had to see more of his work. This one lived up to expectations. Although not as scary and disturbing as The Descent, Dog Soldiers delivers in a way that seems to be becoming the norm for the new British horror: deadpan humor, strong characters, and some intensity, although nothing that would cause the BBFC to sharpen its scissors.

Just a routine training exercise	His sausages are hanging out

Although billed as a horror film, this really is a soldier buddy picture. Imagine Saving Private Ryan with the good guys shooting blanks and the Germans not being vegetarians. Essentially, and unlike the typical werewolf drama, this film concentrates on the people who must face a threat that at first seems impossible (although real enough), and then keeps coming in an implacable way as the countdown to survival slows down with the saving sunrise receding ever farther into the unattainable future. As their numbers dwindle, hope vanishes and the real question is what will give first: their humanity or their physical existence.

Things go howl in this night	Where, the hell, are the owners of this farm?

And it all began so innocently (for them, not for the viewers). A platoon of British soldiers is dropped in the middle of Scottish nowhere on a routine training exercise. They are led by the experienced and tough Sergeant Harry Wells (Sean Pertwee) who relies heavily on talented special ops flunker Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd). Now, Cooper washed out of qualifiers for the elite forces not because he was incompetent but because he refused to obey an illegal order to shoot a trained dog without a reason. The guy who issued that order, one Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham), is one bad mother, not just because of gratuitous canine violence he indulges in but because he is sinister and never up to any good. So when we see him observing our platoon through binoculars, we know something's up.

It seems the werewolves ate the carburetor	Drop the large intestine and fetch my liver

But we do not know what. Although we have some idea what's in store for the soldiers. After all, the film does open with two campers getting ripped to shreds, and not by the park rangers either. (The scene where the two huddle inside their tent and sit petrified watching the zipper slowly going up is among my favorites.) As the soldiers make their way through the woods and have a brief scare by the fire, we begin to suspect that Ryan may have something to do with the werewolves. But then Ryan is stalked and attacked by someone who either sees exceptionally well in the dark, as revealed by the patented Were-Cam (tm), or has stolen a pair of the night-vision goggles from the special ops people.

Infection? Peritonitis? Ha! Superglue laughs at them all!	You're all gonna die

While we linger in mild confusion, the platoon stumbles on the bloody remains of many boxes. Suddenly, the parameters of the exercise shift as they realize that they are facing an unknown number of hostiles with bad packing skills. To add insult to their fear, they discover Ryan who has a bad stomach wound and who raves about them having to flee for their lives. This does wonders for their morale, of course, and causes Corporal Bruce Campbell (Thomas Lockyer) to impale himself on a tree branch. In solidarity with the radioman, Wells performs seppuku by proxy but reconsiders his options on sight of his hanging entrails.

Please hold still while we take your measurements	You are not a wolf but a pussy!

Cooper helps him stuff his large intestine back in (don't you hate it when somebody spills his guts and they either don't fit back into the abdominal cavity or they do but then you discover you've left some of them out when you're done), and the post haste retreat is on. Or rather, the soldiers "attack in another direction," preferably away from the beasts which we know to be werewolves but which the soldiers believe to be irate cows. In an unbelievable coincidence that may make one rethink his atheism, they run into the one other person who lives in a 100-mile radius. Megan (Emma Cleasby) drives a truck and seems to believe our boys are the core of a rescue mission. The group retires to a farmhouse whose owners seem to have stepped out minutes before its arrival, and the siege is on.

Don't piss off a special ops guy	Werewolf or not, you WILL fetch my stick

The rest of the film plays like an cross between The Night of the Living Dead (because the guys are trapped in a house with things that want to eat them trying to get in), Evil Dead 2 (because of all the humor and the witty repartees), and a Jane Austen-inspired drama because of the posh accents that make "I hope I give you the shits" sound elegant and classy. As we are all well aware, people wounded by werewolves will turn pretty soon, so the question is how long it will take and whether it will catch the good guys while their guard is down. We also know that the werewolves outside will be getting at least some non-Agnus steaks for dinner, so the questions are who, when, and under what circumstances. How many will survive to see the dawn? What is Megan's deal? And will we find out the score of the England-Germany football (that's 'soccer' to American readers) game?

I can't believe he stole our sword	I never trusted women

Shot on 16mm, the film actually looks much better than its limited budget may suggest. Sometimes necessity turns into virtue, as it has done here because it has forced Marshall to rely on prosthetics and animatronics rather than CGI effects. It may be possible to make fully believable CGI werewolves who would interact with the physical world "around" them in a natural way, but it usually costs boatloads of money and the results are far from predictable (witness the horrifyingly bad CGI during the arena fight in the second of the new Star Wars films). A film made on a shoestring budget has no prayer with CGI. But real props can be made to look good, and these absolutely do.

It's that time of the month	These are some disheveled werewolves

It's not like that lack of money does not show: there is no full transformation sequences, for example. We know it can be done very well with animatronics (American Werewolf in London, anyone?), so this was a disappointment. But that's minor grief really. What the director could not film---like an extended fight sequence with the werewolf moving freely around (this one probably due to the uncomfortable costumes that forced the actors to perch on top of leg extensions)---he made up for in sheer entertainment coming from the undeniable chemistry between the actors. In fact, at many points in the film, I got annoyed by the werewolves interrupting cool dialogue. And I was positively pissed when they got Private Spoon ("Where is Spoon? There is no Spoon.") who was played with gusto and to the hilt by Darren Morfitt. What a bravura performance, especially that last fight in the kitchen.

It's OCCUPIED! Damn intrusive werewolves!	Breathmint?

Although I liked immensely the performances of both Sean Pertwee and Liam Cunningham, I have to say that Kevin McKidd has got the be the coolest soldier I have seen on screen. And I am not just saying this because he was my favorite Roman soldier (Lucius Vorenus) in the HBO miniseries Rome. This guy is the epitome of professionalism and camaraderie, and he somehow manages to convey it all without becoming some sort of inhuman superhero. You also gotta love his last line in this film when the proceedings switch into self-referential semi-parodic mode. After we thought all the werewolves were killed---although we should know better, this is a horror film, after all---he is surprised by what used to be Campbell. Cooper stabs him with a silver dagger, and then lifts his gun, sitting on the floor facing the audience, and says, "You thought it was all over --- It is now." Bang!

Fire in the hall... I mean wardrobe!	This toothpick slightly oversized

I saw the American release by Artisan, which offers both widescreen (1.85:1, anamorphic) and pan-scan (WTF?) transfers of the film. Considering the source material, it looks as good as possible although the colors were a bit muted and the dark scenes too dark to see much (screen caps for this review had to be 'enhanced'). I listened to the Dolby Digital Stereo track, not to the 5.1 remix on the assumption that it was the original. It worked fine although I had to replay some scenes because I missed parts of the dialogue. That may have been due to the accents, however. English subtitles can help with British films with too much slang but only Spanish subs are available. There's an interesting making-of featurette and a commentary by the producer that I did not bother with. I will buy the UK release because it has deleted scenes (some of them apparently hilarious) and a commentary by the director.

February 12, 2006