Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4064 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-02-17
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
An enjoyable low-concept monster movie, Dog Soldiers is basically Night of the Living Dead with werewolves. A platoon on a training exercise in Scotland, already fed up because they are missing a vital England-Germany match, come across the wounded survivor of a special ops team (Liam Cunningham) that has been attacked by monsters. There's a confused conspiracy angle, with a scheme to sacrifice the squaddies in order to capture a werewolf for military uses, but it's mostly a lost patrol picture with the soldiers besieged in a mysteriously abandoned house in the woods, complete with "pork" stew on the boil.

The hardman sergeant (Sean Pertwee) is disembowelled early but gruesomely patched up with superglue, letting the sensitive Scot (Kevin McKidd) play hero. A pack of effectively glimpsed Howling-style bipedal werewolves make repeated attacks on the house, whittling the cast down with each invasion. The soldier characterisations are solid cliché, albeit of a British variety rarely seen in horror movies (a highlight of the use of Brit slang is the Geordie shouting "Come on if you think you're hard enough"). The monsters are okay, but writer-director Neil Marshall's strongest suit is his third, as editor, covering for the old-fashioned monster suit effects and making the suspense and action mechanics work.

On the DVD: Dog Soldiers is an excellent DVD package complete with two commentary tracks, a British one with Marshall and the cast and an American one with a couple of producers. Both are interesting and rarely overlap, and there's an amusing contradiction between the Brits who rush over script changes they didn't want to make and the Yanks who imposed a sub-plot they feel saved the picture. Also, a bunch of trailers that amusingly spoof a recent army recruitment ad, deleted scenes and outtakes with optional Marshall commentary, a standard making-of featurette, storyboards and Marshall's short film, Combat. --Kim Newman

Special Features
Director, Cast and Crew Commentary
Producer's Commentary
Deleted scenes
"Making of" Dog Soldiers
Gag Reel
B Roll footage
Storyboards
Photo Gallery
Theatrical trailers
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of Hearing
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (16x9)
Sound: 5.1

Synopsis
Something evil lurks in the wilds of Scotland, and this unfortunate troop of soldiers are about to stumble upon it. A routine exercise takes an unexpected turn when the troop discovers ravaged corpses out in the woods. With dusk quickly turning to night, and an ominous full moon lighting up the sky, the men (including Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd) decide to hide out in an abandoned farmhouse. With their supplies and morale both in short supply, the soldiers become trapped in the house by a pack of hungry werewolves who seem hellbent on enjoying the men for dinner. Can anything stop these relentless lycanthropes

Customer Reviews

There's a bad moon rising.............
I first went to see this movie one Friday afternoon - I was bored and wanted some entertainment - I wasn't disappointed !
The tagline for the movie is '6 Men, Full moon, no chance !'. The plot is quite simple enough. A group of British soldiers are on a training mission in the Sottish Highlands. They happen across the remains of an SAS unit, whose captain is the only survivor. Whilst on the run from a pack of werewolves, they seek refuge in a deserted farmhouse. With no silver bullets or means of communication with the outside world, what follows is a game of survival - with the werewolves trying to get in and the soldiers trying to stay alive until daybreak.

What makes this film stand out from the bog-standard werewolf movie in the British 'tongue-in-cheek' humour and dialogue. The best one-liners come from Sergeant Wells (hilariously played by Sean Pertwee) who, in one scene, manages to keep his sense of humour intact despite all his vain attempts to keep his guts from falling out of his superglued stomach, following a werewolf attack !

Fans of 'An American Werewolf in London' will love this film as it shares the same mix of horror and black comedy with some really good 'jump out of your seat' scenes.

To sum it up, Dog Soldiers is a gory, scary and very funny Britflick, and proves you don't have to have a big budget to produce a great film

Dog Soldiers
Dog Soldiers is one of the most original horror films to come along in a long time, combining nail biting tension with great British humour. Six army men are on a training exercise in Scotland, and are preparing to rendevous with Special Forces. When they come across the Special Forces camp, it is covered with the various intestines of its occupants, but thee is no sign of any actual corpses. Only one man has survived the attack, and he is wounded and delirious. The men pick up the live weapons and head for an abandoned farmhouse, followed by the werewolves. Excellent performances all round, especially from Sean Pertwee as the sergeant who would die for his men but will fight to the death first, and Trainspotting star Kevin McKidd as the private who has to take control. Spoon is an inspired creation, spouting lines like "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough", and taking on a werewolf with kitchen utensils and his bare hands. Possibly the best British horror film ever. Brilliant

--- Dog Fight ---
.
This is a great little film. Low budget and British made it is a good old fashioned horror movie.

A bunch of Army squaddies are dropped on a manoeuvre in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. What seems to be a routine exercise turns into mayhem when they discover in a forest, a destroyed SAS camp with a lone survivor. The rest of the special forces team are gone leaving nothing but gore, entrails and their weapons. Dumping their blank firing exercise weaponry, the soldiers tool up with the SAS weapons and try to escape the beasts in the woods.

Holed up in a remote farmhouse with a mysterious local woman, the soldiers barricade the house and prepare to defend themselves against the pack of werewolves that have surrounded them.

The night passes with them being systematically picked off and fighting back.

Everything is predictable in this film and the acting is a little poor in places and the script a bit cliched. But this is a great film. The soldiers behave as you would expect a bunch of squaddies to, showing their resolve, typical services morbid sense of humour, their fear and their bravado. The wolves are "the howling" style as opposed to "American Werewolf" style and there is lots of blood, terror and a sprinkling of slapstick humour.
If this were remade by the American film industry it would turn out more like Predator.

Good film - buy it.