Review #267: Dog Soldiers (2002)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #21 - Dog Soldiers (2002)

Dog Soldiers is the story of a group of British soldiers on a training mission, when they are attacked and pursued by a group of werewolves. With the help of a passing local, they take shelter inside a seemingly-abandoned home and attempt a last stand against the vicious predators- but will they make it until daybreak? Or is the true enemy already inside the house?

I had never even heard of this movie before today, and simply put, I was blown away. This movie is incredibly well-produced, fantastically written, and although it looks slightly low-budget compared to some other films I've seen, it definitely knows its limits and the director only showed what they knew would look good on-screen. It's incredibly well-paced, and the atmosphere subtly shifts between hopelessness and camaraderie throughout its runtime as the script really utilizes the fact that the protagonists are all a team that work well with one another.

I don't know what it is about werewolf movies that engenders such a good platform for exploring the depth and breadth of emotions one can feel in a crisis; a few years ago I watched Night of the Wolf, which was at its heart a story about the difficulty of an old man trying to reconnect with his son after the death of his wife, and it parallels so well with the themes of death, of hope, and of loyalty that Dog Soldiers really takes its time to bite into. I think it might have to do with the fact that werewolves are still people, but a twisted perversion of people- a perversion that can pull others into it and create more of them. It turns the mirror on humanity and really makes us question if we're civilized, or if we're just beasts waiting for a full moon to give us an excuse to rely on our base instincts.

I really do think this is an incredible movie, and reading up on the trivia about it makes me like it even more. There's tons of easter eggs, references to other media, hidden themes and parallels I didn't notice the first time through, and even plans for sequels that sound genuinely interesting. I also love how much work clearly went into making the soldier interactions as authentic as possible- I really felt like the cast worked as a team, and I loved seeing how they all worked together to overcome challenges according to each one's strengths. This film was incredibly satisfying to watch, with its many setups and payoffs, and even though I saw several clues early on that led to interesting twists later, everything felt earned when we eventually got there.

I highly recommend this film!

Overall Rating: 9/10 Chekhov's Letter Openers

He Was Right to Be Worried: Kevin McKidd (who played the main protagonist, Cooper) broke a rib during one of the first days of shooting, but he hid it from the director out of fear of being recast. When the pain got to be too much, he did reveal his injury, and the director did in fact replace him. However, his replacement was Jason Statham, who eventually had to leave the project due to a prior commitment, at which point McKidd's injury had sufficiently healed and they re-cast him.