Reader Recommends: Dog Soldiers (2002)

Today I choose to watch another movie recommended to me by a few friends. The first person to tell me to watch Dog Soldiers was twitter user @wideawakewesley, co-host to the awesome Media Pulp podcast, who asked us to do an interview on the show (episode 5). By pure co-incidence, I then also saw the DVD on the shelf at a friend's who then gave it to me to watch. I'm quite a fan of werewolf movies, and so this sounded right up my alley. Hit the jump to see if it was everything I thought it would be.


Before I get into the story of the movie, let me just give you a really brief idea of what I thought this movie was about. I thought this was about government experiments to make a team of elite soldiers into werewolves as a sort of ultimate weapon. As cool as that sounds, and as much as the title leans towards that, and even though there is a team of werewolves out to get our heroes in the movie, that's not actually what this movie is about at all.

The real story is that a military team is sent out into the deep forests on a "routine training exercise". They encounter the werewolves and find the special ops team they were to be up against for the exercise has been wiped out. They take all the live ammo they can find, even though it's odd that the other team even had live rounds, and hoof it to try to find safety. They come across a road just as they're attacked, and while defending themselves a local woman in a jeep comes along and saves them, taking them to a nearby cottage for help. Not surprising, considering what's out in the woods, the cottage's door is open and the owner has gone missing, finding only a dog left alone in the house. They hole up in the house, setting up defenses, and pray they can survive the night.

The hardest part about werewolf movies is the fact that the werewolves never really look that good. It's sort of a fact of life that fans, such as myself, have to come to except when watching such a film. Sure, there are some movies nowadays where the wolves can look amazing, but the vast majority of lycanthrope films either have the beasts looking like men in suits, rubber or animatronic heads, or obvious CG. Basically a strong suspension of disbelief is usually required to enjoy most older werewolf movies, and if you can do this, you can usually have a pretty good time.

Lots of guns and giant werewolves to go around

Dog Soldiers is no different in that the wolves are clearly men in  big hairy costumes. As far as werewolf costumes go though, and having seen a lot of werewolf movies, I thought these ones were pretty good. The wolves didn't all look exactly the same in the faces, and I thought the heads looked quite good, not looking very rubbery at all, and were in fact quite close to real wolf heads. My friend who watched it with me though, thought the fact that they looked more like men in suits made the costumes look bad, but as I said, werewolf movie fans know that this just sorta comes with the territory.

I'm coming to the conclusion myself that I really prefer practical effects in werewolves, and monster movies in general. While the CG werewolves in Underworld looked really good, seeing a real thing with real hair and fur and gooey drool dripping off its teeth is just more frightening. It's like when you compare the newer Aliens movies versus the older ones with only a guy in a costume. Sometimes it just plays on the mind better and looks more real when you know there's something physically there with the actors on screen.

I thought the werewolf costumes were actually pretty damn good

I thought the action, and the whole "trapped in the cottage" feel of the movie, reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead, only with werewolves was very good. There's lots of gun fights and it all sounds really good too. We even get some action with a medieval sword a few times! For those who like blood and gore, there is plenty on display here, with lots of guts and bodies being torn apart and heads being tossed about.

The movie follows the usual monster movie rules of badassery, which state that the more badass an attack on the monster is, the more damage it will do. This means that blindly firing an entire clip from a machine gun, even if all the shots hit the target, will never do as much damage as a good ol' boot to the snout, or a straight punch to the ribs of the monster. Got a knife? Then you'd best get in there one-on-one with the 8-foot-tall beast! I love this kind of movie logic as it's just fun and usually awesome, but my friend, once again, found it just made the movie unbelievable. Even more unbelievable than just having werewolves apparently.

When you've got no silver, punching a werewolf is just as effective as shooting it, but WAY more badass!

I just want to quickly bring up the acting and actors if I can. I know this review is starting to get a little long in the teeth (pun intended, hehe). The main characters Sgt. Wells and Pvt. Cooper are played by Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd respectively. I thought all the actors did a pretty good job, making some believable soldiers, if not a little stereotypical sometimes, but it was Pertwee and McKidd who really did a good job I thought. In particular, Kevin McKiddRome and Journeyman TV series. You may also recognize him from such things as Grey's Anatomy, Trainspotting, and Kingdom of Heaven. I really wish he was in more movies, I think he's quite good to be honest.

Kevin McKidd makes a pretty tough soldier

Overall I have to say I really enjoyed Dog Soldiers even though there are plenty of examples of things happening that just shouldn't happen. The big finale, for example, is just silly and would never occur, but man it was cool to see. If you like werewolf movies, then don't miss out on Dog Soldiers, the early scenes in the woods are especially creepy and fun. If you're not already a fan of this kind of movie, however, this isn't going to be the one that wins you over.