ID Mass Review 1: Dog Soldiers

Its the final of the World Cup footie in 2001, but a section of luckless soldiers are being sent off to Scotland for an apparently routine exercise, pitting themselves against a Special Ops platoon. However, it only takes a few short hours for things to take a macabre turn as they discover all but one of the Special Ops guys have disappeared, their equipment smashed and their blood spilled. It seems some old dogs have taught themselves new tricks...

I’ve seen Dog Soldiers once before but quite a few years ago, so I had an almost fresh viewing of this. It still did a good job of making me jump and grossing me out in the relevant places. I think the best thing about this film is the acting from the soldiers, who are all well developed characters (as well as can be developed over a day or two) and are very humorous and sympathetic and plausible. The lady character, however, has occasional very awkward lines that seem to come out of the blue and which would be nigh on impossible for anyone to pull off naturally. I blame the scriptwriter and the director.
The storyline itself is easy enough to follow until the end, when once again the lady character shamelessly pulls a plot twist out of her arse and rants on about ‘not trusting women’ as if that’s been a story element before. This is just confusing and brings up a lot of questions which don’t get answered. I’m very happy for them to have things go the way that they do but seriously please make motives and such a little more transparent.
Apart from this, the film is well executed and I have no complaints regarding pacing, sound, tone or camera shots. The gore was done nicely, with some quite-convincing innards at one point. It also has a nice twist (before the aforementioned bad twist) concerning the nature of the werewolves. That reminds me; at the start of the story I was disappointed with the obviousness of the way that a solid silver dagger is introduced. It’s just so groan-worthy, like if at the start of a vampire movie someone gifts someone else a crucifix necklace, you just know it’s going to come back as the deciding weapon later on. I’m sure they could have found a more subtle way to put that in. Gripe over, it’s not such a big detail that it ruins the film. Overall, I think it is very good and definitely worth seeing.

4/5

Dog Soldiers plays with the survival horror genre giving the often overlooked werewolves some good screen time. It gives us the great premise of 'what if the protagonists were actually competent'? And it is fun to watch. The section is smart, well armed and experienced. They are also utterly screwed, because werewolves shake off machine gun fire like pond water, but they are badass enough to keep fighting in the face of these circumstances. They are also quick to adapt and, though they don't necessarily start believing in werewolves the instant things gets weird, they do not act like straw man Scullys and claim it must all be a hallucination brought on by light refraction. Or angry badgers, or some such.
The squaddies are great characters, their sweary but affectionate banter making them appeal even to a limp-wristed anti-military liberal like myself. Sergeant Wells particularly, the vitriolic but caring father to his men. In their dialogue, especially exchanges with animal-mudering Special Ops scumbag Captain Ryan who is up to something dodgy, there are some very interesting asides into what makes a 'real' soldier, and the multiple meanings and metaphors contained within the title go very deep if you look closely.
The only person who doesn't give an absolutely top notch performance is Emma Cleasby as Megan, who appears rather to be phoning it in. It might be just how the character is written; her 'posh bird' schtick seems unnatural compared to the salt o' the earth soldiers, and she's just not as well-rounded. She throws out philosophical lines like 'Now consider what you really believe!' without a care for the tone of the scene, which is in usually bullet-riddled ass-kick mode. Also there is a bit at the end where she reveals the true nature of the werewolves which is cryptic to the point of complete incomprehensibility, leaving us wondering whether it was supposed to be mysterious or if the writer just accidentally left out a few important lines.
The cinematography and editing are, I am given to understand, typically Neil Marshall; gritty, action-packed, fast-paced. The film makes this style its own so much that the more artist shots (one I remember is some bullet casings dropping to the floor in perfect focus) seem quite out of place.
The gore is well done and there are some literally gut wrenching scenes of wounding...also, when the monsters turn up on screen they look great, and are shot in such a way as to make them very real.
The locations (not in fact in Scotland, but it looks like it) are great. The house where they end up holding fort is a charming cottage that would not out of place in an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, but here it ends up being part of some kind of demolition challenge, whereby the various characters try to destroy as much as possible using only the implements inside. Could be a good premise for a game show, if it isn't one already. Its slightly explained at the end, but during the film I couldn't help wondering how the wattle-and daub and timber was keeping out the werewolves. Also it was hard to see how the wooden beams that were nailed to the window frames with huge gaps between them could form an effective barrier.
This was a very fun film, more of an action flick that a true horror, but nevertheless a good yarn. Look forward to exploring the rest of Neil Marshall's bloody back catalogue.

4/5