Bullet Points: Dog Soldiers
It’s another Foreign Film Friday here at Bulletproof Action and I’m especially excited to bring you this movie because I’ve become a big fan of director Neil Marshall over the years and Dog Soldiers is one of my favorite movies from him. If you haven’t yet sat through this lovely romp from the English-born Marshall then you should find it immediately and thank me afterwards with a gift card of some kind.
The Gist: A squad of Scots on a military exercise find themselves being hunted by a pack of werewolves deep in the forest with no hope of escape. Their only chance at survival is to fight back against the killer beasts.
The Cast: Veteran actors Liam Cunningham, Sean Pertwee, and Kevin McKidd rock out as a few tough as nails soldiers who find themselves pretty much shit out of luck and instead of spending a weekend firing blanks at each other they’re getting torn to pieces and eaten by a bunch of werewolves. That’s never happened to me in real life but I can imagine it sucks pretty badly. Liam Cunningham is currently kicking ass on Game of Thrones as Ser Davos and you might remember Kevin McKidd from the other HBO series involving swords, cloaks, robes, and naked chicks called Rome. McKidd is the hero of this story but for my money Sean Pertwee is an absolute badass and does a great job as the leader of the squad.
Screw cover and concealment!
The Villain: I’m sure you can imagine who the villains of this film are by the synopsis above; it’s werewolves. The makers of the film paid special attention to how the lycanthropes looked and made sure not to use a lot of CGI so the shots look much better than some George Lucas computer alien bullshit. The wolves were either animatronics or actors in bodysuits on stilts.
The werewolves are gangly looking and weird. Like a dog version of Venus Williams.
The Action: Writer/Director Neil Marshall, who you made know from directing several episodes of Game of Thrones and that one killer movie I told you about called Centurion, really knows how to do action. Machine guns, shotguns, a broad sword, and I’m pretty sure someone gets stabbed with a faucet. There are a few times in the movie where I almost needed subtitles because I’m a stupid American and I don’t understand all of the Scottish slang that gets slung around but I do love the accents.
There are some pretty gruesome and amazingly gory death scenes.
Take it Home:
- Pure Silver: Whenever I see an early scene involving a silver knife in a werewolf movie you can be sure that the thing will feature prominently in the climax of the film.
- Favorite Quote: “I hope I give you the shits you fuckin’ wimp.”
- Owwwww: After a dude gets his stomach ripped open and his guts hang from his body, a dog starts playing tug of war with the man’s entrails. I wonder if Neil Marshall laughed out loud when he told everyone about that scene.
- This or Teen Wolf: Dog Soldiers is probably the best werewolf movie of all time. There, I said it.
Rating: 3.75/5
