Hello and welcome to Day 25 of my 31 Days Of Horror and this is a film I knew I liked – I just forgot how much. Long before he was writing and directing the likes of Game Of Thrones, The Descent and Doomsday, Neil Marshall came to people’s attention with his canine masterpiece, Dog Soldiers!
Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, a squad of six British soldiers are dropped into a special training mission opposite the SAS. Bitter that they’re missing the England-Germany World Cup game, the squad are pulled together by Sergeant Wells, played by the incredible Sean Pertwee.
While out on manoeuvres, the squad stumble into their opponents – but find the Special Forces, and more importantly – their bodies – ripped to shreds. The only survivor is the sinister Captain Ryan, who you very quickly learn to distrust. He appears to know what had attacked them – claiming that there should only be one. Ooo.
Even if he wanted to warn them, there wouldn’t be much chance. The squad are swiftly attacked by unseen predators, and are forced to retreat to a cottage somewhere on the road, meeting Megan – the zoologist – on the way. The only survivors are Wells – barely holding himself together – Cooper, Spoon, Joe and Terry. The group are forced to secure the property and defend themselves against the growing number of what appear to be werewolves.
The werewolves prove themselves more than capable, and attack the house as a team – viciously taking down one soldier at a time before ending with a final confrontation.
This might be one of the funniest horror films out there. Deliberately so. One of the influences is said to be the Evil Dead series and you can ABSOLUTELY tell. I’ve also heard that the dialogue between the squaddies is eerily accurate, by actual real life squaddies. This film gets so much right, and remains laugh out loud funny throughout some truly graphic scenes.
What’s more, I sincerely think Dog Soldiers might just be the gold standard of British horror. Well. Horror-comedy, anyway. It’s pumped full of energy and – actually features the most horrific scene I’ve watched during this whole month of horror movies. There’s a bit, with this sword, and it scrapes the inside of Cooper’s teeth and makes this horrible.. ugh.. my body feels funny just thinking about it.
Now go away and watch Dog Soldiers. It’s the BEST.
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