Review of Dog Soldiers (2002) by Paul Z — 18 Nov 2010

This relentlessly gripping locomotive of a monster movie is splendidly ludicrous and gruesome midnight movie material, without any of the psychosexual drivel usually inherent in modern werewolf fare. Some have shrugged it off as an Aliens knock-off of something of that sort, and while it is a heavy borrower and payer of homage, Dog Soldiers is also a film designed to provide our basest animal expectations from movies about war and military combat by dressing up as a supernatural slasher picture. It's plumb horror, guys getting slaughtered piecemeal in the ghastliest manner possible, and occasionally staying alive in the ghastliest manner possible. Part of what makes Neil Marshall's classy and hard-boiled movie so enjoyable is the exceedingly resourceful crudity of his squadron of British soldiers on a training exercise in the Scottish Highlands.

Though Trainspotting's Kevin McKidd plays the heroic action-taker of the squad, it is Sean Pertwee as the Sergeant who takes what might have inevitably been a slavish exposition and made it the most intriguing part, delivering a chilling monologue about a past combat experience, and affording the air of a guy in charge who wouldn't slow down no matter how many internal organs may be discharged by strange talons. We begin to get the feel of a real squad of more or less individual guys, which is more than one could say for most monster movies. Then, the film develops into yet another affair closely akin to Aliens, The Thing, The Evil Dead, humans being slain till there's merely a couple remaining, at which juncture someone is, customarily, furtively one of the beasts.

But just as Neil Marshall demonstrated a patent pattern of duality in his work by following up this purely male-dominated horror actioner (with the exception of a ridiculously sexy woman surrounded by man's men who sporadically mention how women screw everything up) with a purely female-dominated horror actioner (with girlfriends seeking to get their minds off men in their pasts), in this very debut film he is not just making a horror film but a guys-on-a-mission film. Dog Soldiers hums with that vigorous, passionate workmanship straddling various tropes to give off the feeling of depth and color to a piece. Just as many successful pulp filmmakers before him and after---Tarantino, Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Zach Snyder, Kevin Smith, Joe Carnahan---Marshall makes essentially an homage film with such steam engine liveliness that pausing to go out for a cigarette never crosses one's mind, and frankly, no matter how above the material anyone might feel they are, we're interested in what happens next.

The night under consideration occurs during a full moon, except issues of silver are sparse until the climax in a manner that makes one doubt the success of shooting thousands of rounds at the brutes. Said cheekiness makes this splendidly transparent and adrenalized shocker less a werewolf movie than a genuinely well-done genre Xerox and indie action picture. Shot on what must have been a shoestring, the film's monsters have the magnificent appearance and aura of old-school puppet, make-up and practical-effects handiwork. That Marshall's debut is basically an especially well-directed, serviceably written, marvelously edited, stunningly well-acted, plain chip off various old genre blocks is a natural outcome, but there's a lot to be said for vigor and dexterity.