A cocky group of soldiers get sent on what they believe should be an easy mission. On arrival though, they quickly discover it’s far from that, as they are savagely attacked by creatures they can scarcely believe exist. The party are bailed out of the initial attack by a civilian with first-hand knowledge of the monsters. She’s driving a vehicle which allows them to escape and take shelter nearby. But with no means of departure, and an ever-dwindling supply of ammunition, the soldiers must try to withstand repeated waves of the nearly unstoppable enemy descending on their position. Not helping matters: one of their own party knows more than they’re telling, and has a different agenda. His orders are to capture one of the creatures, and bring it back for study, and possible weaponization.
“I wanted to do essentially Aliens with werewolves”
— Neil Marshall
Another, key point of similarity with Aliens, is the slew of characters who populate the film. Both Cameron and Marshall do a brilliant job of giving us memorable, three-dimensional characters, who seem real after only a few minutes in their presence. Just as we remember and relate to Vasquez and Hicks, so the personalities of Spoon, Cooper and Wells shine through dialogue which crackles and is immensely quotable. My favourite line is when Sean Pertwee’s Sergeant Wells – initials H.G, in another one of those references! – says, “If Little Red Riding Hood should show up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I expect you to chin the bitch.” Just below that is, “You’re behind me, aren’t you?”, which has also entered Film Blitz lexicon, and tends to get rolled out at least one per When Chinese Animals Attack movie.
But like many great films, the concept is elegant in its simplicity. “Soldiers versus werewolves” is such a brilliant, slap-yourself-on-the-forehead idea, it’s surprising it took Marshall six years of shopping it around and trying to get funding, before it was eventually made. Even when it did, filming had to be relocated twice. Plans to shoot first on the Isle of Man, and then in Canada, fell through before Luxembourg was able to pull out the necessary tax breaks. Of course, I’m disappointed a film set in the Highlands of Scotland could not be shot there. All the obvious aerial stock footage and references to midges can’t conceal the bait and switch pulled there.
The pacing is absolutely relentless, with it running over half an hour shorter than Aliens. Once things start – with a dead cow falling into the middle of the platoon, just as one of their members is getting to the punchline of a joke – it rarely lets up. It’s one of the key reasons Chris cites this as her favourite werewolf movie. I’m not quite as certain: I think An American Werewolf in London probably edges it for me. For if there’s a weakness here, it’s that the transformations in Dog Soldiers are… well, rather pants, of the “human falls down behind a table, hairy arm reaches over the top, werewolf stands up” kind. I’d like to think it’s a touching nod to earlier works in the genre. But I’m 99% certain, they just couldn’t afford to hire Rick Baker.
That said, the actual monster themselves are damn impressive, possessing a grace in motion which you would not typically associate with werewolves. Marshall’s decision to cast professional dancers to occupy the suits is a stroke of genius, helping them move with a fluidity which is in defiance of their gigantic bulk. It’s also one of the more brutal werewolf movies, with guts being torn out on more than one occasion. This led to one bit of lore which has become legendary: when Sgt. Wells is getting his stomach glued back together, he’s not especially pretending to be drunk. “It was interesting seeing that scene at the premiere, because I didn’t quite remember it!”, recalls Pertwee. He was thus able to laugh it off when medic Pvt. Cooper (Kevin McKidd) misjudged a punch, and squarely socked his commanding officer in the face.
It is interesting to speculate on how things might have looked, had the casting gone in another direction. As is common, the actors who ended up in the roles weren’t always the initial choice. The role of Cooper, for example, was originally intended to go to British action stalwart Jason Statham. However, the original schedule clashed with him being required for Ghosts of Mars, so he wasn’t able to do it. Similarly, Spoon was a part offered to Simon Pegg, but he had been asked by Edgar Wright to keep his horror debut for Shaun of the Dead, and had to pass. That would have been remarkable had he done both: depending on how you feel about 28 Days Later, arguably the top two British horror movies of the decade.
Remarkably, it has so far managed to avoid being remade, and there haven’t even been any sequels. It was originally planned as a trilogy. According to Pertwee, “The second was going to be about the science of creating these dog soldiers – these lycanthropes – and the third one was going to be us as dog soldiers.” In January 2004, producers announced a follow-up film, Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat, would go into production that spring. However, more than a decade on from that, nothing except a poster had shown up, promising “Coming 2014”. [Narrator voice] It did not, in fact, come. And seeing how badly Marshall’s next movie, The Descent, would have its reputation sullied by a sequel nobody really wanted, it’s probably for the best.
Despite going straight to the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States, the film has become a cult classic, and deservedly so. I’d rank it as one of the best British horror films of the decade, if not all-time, and it’s one of the most assured feature debuts in genre history. Marshall’s career was successfully kick-started, though after helming some of the most memorable Game of Thrones episodes, his recent work has been a little variable. Pertwee and Liam Cunningham have gone on to become two of Britain’s best character actors, while McKidd – born just a few miles away from my hometown – has suppressed his Scottish accent and taken on a long-running role in Grey’s Anatomy. Where as Chris noted, he plays an army trauma surgeon, discharged from the military after his platoon was wiped out. In my head canon, Soldiers and Grey’s share the same universe…