When invited to see a relatively low-budget Werewolf movie I had my reservations, though I must admit the tv adverts which humourously took the piss out of British Army recruitment ads (which would make no sense to anyone outisde the UK of course) did intrigue me.
I was greatly surprised. While by no means original- indeed, it revels in its basic, no-frills, normal people trapped fighting supernatural creatures storyline- the thing hangs together damn well with an amazing combination of action, extreme (and rather gory) violence and a suprising amount of very black humour. If you never though you would laugh at a dog trying to eat someone's intestines, you may find yourself surprised as well, though it's not for the queasy-of-stomach amongst you. Which actually includes me; if it hadn't been so damn funny I might have been quite ill.
The plot is simple. A squad of ordinary every day British soldiers on a 'training exercise' in the remote hills of Scotland soon find that this is no training mission and they are up against something very nasty indeed. Finding a suspiciously well-tooled, but also extremely dead, speical forces squad nearby they kit up and flee with a local to a nearby house and try and work out a way to hold out, run away from or even kill the besieging werewolves.
But that doesn't do it justice; you have to see it, really.
Some of the soldierly dialogue is a bit over the top, the scene at the start is a complete cliche complete with a failed "Let's see if the audience forget this" plot device and you can pretty much tell who lives and dies within about five minutes...
...but on the other hand, some of the one liners are damn funny, the action scenes are well choreographed and, quite a rarity for this sort of film, you actually really care when some of the good guys get slaughtered. Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon) pretty much steals the show duting the whole film.
I have no idea when or if this comes out elsewhere, but I highly recommend you don't be put off by its appearance as a stock, low-budget British horror film. It took the director forever to persuade people to fund him making the film; on the strength of this, this sort of film should be made more often.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Ooooh Ush, I'm going to see this next week. I never thought anyone on here would have heard of it, let alone gone to see it. I'll post my review some time soon.
Okay, just got back from seeing it and it was kewl. I jumped a couple of times but overall it wasn't that scary. Made me laugh quite a few times and I loved Spoony's fight scene near the end. If this does come out outside of Britain, I'd recommend you go see it.
As Ush said, nothing new but its a good old fashioned movie.
Okay went to buy it straight away but it wasn't for sale yet DAMMIT! Rented it anyway and my favourite bit is on the DVD.......
Its at the very start before the film actually begins, I think its the logo of the company who made it or whatever. There's a bit at the start that shows a little dog in a dickie-bow and a hat.....GENIUS!
I wanted to go and see this but it was only playing at my local cinema for one week! Then is was replaced by bloody Spider Man. They don't even give people a chance to see British films.
I heard that Dog Soldiers was the 3rd best money making Brit film, thats after 4 weddings and Notting Hill so that proves it did pretty well in the UK at least. If there's any way you can rent this people I'll happily send you the money in the post myself.
ok i just saw dog soldiers finally. awesome action/horror movies. best of both worlds. reminded me of tales from the crypts demon night movie. lots of action and humor, and some pretty intelegent surprises. definately one any action fan will enjoy, and any horror fan.
KMC Community Forums
May 10th, 2002 11:03 PM
You have to be a chick or gay to like those two.
