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Dog Soldiers starts with a couple in the woods having a campfire, before some sort of creature slowly opens their tent zip, grabs at them from offscreen, almost bumps off the female half of the couple, before snatching her body, with her hand trying to – unsuccessfully – claw back to him…
Then it jumps back 2 hours earlier where Special Forces Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham – The Guard) is being a particular hardass towards soldier Cooper (Kevin McKidd – T2 Trainspotting), before the plot moves on four weeks later to the Scottish highlands (albeit shot in Luxembourg due to tax breaks, but the idea was based on the director visiting Scotland), where Cooper’s team is on a training exercise, firing blanks, and led by Sgt Wells (Sean Pertwee – Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa).
Before too long, they come across evidence of something very grim happening in the woods, with blood all over the place, but we know this is a werewolf movie, even though it takes the soldiers a bit of time to catch on to this, although they get a clue when they’re interrupted late at night by a murdered cow, and Wells declares, “We’ve got hostile targets. So, if Little Red Riding Hood should show up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I expect you to chin the bitch!”
Meanwhile, Cooper muses, regarding their enemy: “Werewolves – Full moon, Silver bullets, eyebrows that meet in the middle”… so, like Liam Gallagher, then?
Dog Soldiers is very well shot, such as making the training team look like they’re on an epic hike as if they’re in Deliverance, there’s plenty of good close-up shots as well as the use of cutting between scenes to add to the tension and to excellent sharp effect, and at one point, the sound of guns being co-cked in separate speakers as they get ready for the attack from the werewolves.
For part of the time, it’s case of tell, don’t show, similar to Jaws, while at others, it can be pretty gross, such as when someone’s guts fall out, and while Liam Cunningham’s character comes back into it at some point, the soldiers also hole up in a cottage owned by Megan (Emma Cleasby), a zoologist who’s been tracking werewolves, and studying them.
As for the suits for the werewolves wouldn’t do much for them up against the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but it’s still quite a fun low-budget movie.
As an aside, this is the first time I’ve seen this film, but many moons ago, I DREAMT that I watched it! I’m not sure what I thought I was watching when I woke up, but it was enough to make me think, that during the dream, I WAS watching it. However, I wasn’t.
The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, in 4K on a single disc, and the picture is very nicely detailed. There is a little bit of grain, but then it’s a 2002 movie shot on film. It’s nothing that’s a problem, though.
The extras are as follows:
He also talks about potential sequels, and discusses other films of his including The Descent, which I’ve still to get round to seeing plus subsequent films, and how he came to direct the Game of Thrones Season 2 finale on their biggest budget ever at the time.
He’s refreshingly honest when talking about 2019’s Hellboy reboot which he also directed. He said it had a “terrible script, was a miserable experience to work on, and it was a godawful film.. you can’t polish a turd”. He wasn’t allowed to make any changes to the script, which is why it “couldn’t really be saved”.
The menu features spooky background atmosphere – albeit rather loud, so I did mute it after a while, Subtitles are in English only, however, despite the advancements of technology and bringing this to us in 4K, old habits die hard, and there’s still only a paltry 12 chapters.
Dog Soldiers is out now on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray. It’s also available on Limited Edition 4K Blu-ray, DVD and Amazon Video.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
7 9 8 8 |
| OVERALL | 8 |
Cert: 
Running time: 105 minutes
Year: 2002
Chapters: 12
Cat.No: 2NDBR4158
Distributor: Second Sight Films
Released: August 22nd 2022
Picture: 2160p High Definition (4K Blu-ray)
Widescreen: 1.85:1 (Super 16)
Subtitles: English SDH
Disc Format: BD100
Director: Neil Marshall
Producers: David E Allen, Christopher Figg, Tom Reeve
Screenplay: Neil Marshall
Music: Mark Thomas
Cast:
Wells: Sean Pertwee
Cooper: Kevin McKidd
Megan: Emma Cleasby
Ryan: Liam Cunningham
Bruce: Thomas Lockyer
Spoon: Darren Morfitt
Joe: Chris Robson
Terry: Leslie Simpson
Campers: Tina Landini, Craig Conway
Sam the Dog: Villrikke’s Acer
Werewolves: Bryn Walters, Ben Wright, Brian Claxton Payne
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.