Customer Reviews
terrific - By: martin thomas, 06 Jun 2008 
excellent low budget british horror movie by first time director neil marshalll that marks him out as a talent to watch.this is a scary,funny & violent treat
AMAZING - By: J. A. Benham, 21 May 2008 
i bought this film after a friend recomended it to me & it has quikly become one of my alll time favorite films mixing humor & horror with some of the best werewolf ive ever seen in a film
Zulu - with werewolves! - By: Trevor Willsmer, 22 Dec 2007 Dog Soldiers starts off as Southern Comfort with werewolves before turning into something much better - Zulu with werewolves, as a group of British squaddies are trapped in a Scottish farmhouse by a family of hungry hairies. It doesn't play nearly as well on the smalll screen as the big, but it's still a lot of fun & head & shoulders over most recent British horror. Kevin McKidd gives a surprisingly excellent performance in the lead, which helps raise the bar considerably, although considering the strong results director Neil Marshalll got with his female leads in The Descent it's surprising just how poor leading lady Emma Cleasby is here.
Great fun & with a strong selection of extras too.
These soldiers show great strategy and determination - By: Jenny J.J.I., 02 Dec 2007 There are great classics related to werewolves, The Howling, Wolfen, & the superior American Werewolf in London. After watching "Dog Soldiers" it can easily be part of this pack. I fine this movie to be very exciting & pleasant B movie. This was recommended to me by Caesar M. Warrington, who is also a great reviewer, during the month of Hallloween. Werewolves fascinate me more then Vampires so I couldn't wait till next Hallloween to watch this. You will not a fine a major city, silly people or unneeded love story involved in this film. Just a couple of cool soldiers who are willing to do anything to survive. In here we have a group of six British Soldiers spend time on the Scottish highlands to do a special training but one Soldier is whining about missing a soccer game between England versus Germany, a little like the tension you get when America versus Canada or something! Apparently Story goes that where the soldiers are standing, they hear about gruesome "true" tales of people go missing but savage & gory murder scenes are simultaneously found as potential evidence. A leader, Captain Ryan happens to be the sole survivor of another team that becomes a 'dog's breakfast'! Is he hiding a secret that the remaining team should know about? Who knows?
That is when Luna-loving furry doggies with rabies come into view, & they look like muscular, mutant gerbils in mink coats, with Freddy Claws. The Team have to drop their blank bullets for real ones as a locallly rural girl, Megan, comes in as GI Jane to save them by escaping out of the woods by a Jeep, taking the remaining Soldiers with her, & sheltered into a remote Country Farm House. Trouble starts brewing because the Soldiers are running out of Ammunition, Howlings are drawing nearer, & how long will sunlight come before people die like flies?
"Dog Soldiers" does start slow & is a bit predictable but the humor is wicked. I also give credit to the gory scenes where the Sergeant's guts were exposed & the sheep dog was toying with it; thinking they were sausages. There are flaws with the film, but it is still fun & entertaining. Influences from other movies stand out here, but they still don't take away from 'Dog Soldiers', I feel that they've just used an idea & modified it to produce something new. Much better than the current Hollywood mentality of making a horror - take a half-good idea & drive it into the ground with continuous knock-off after knock-off. The best part is when the Sergeant shares a chilling camp fire story about "Eddie Oswald"; a private he once knew in Kuwait 1991, & then raised a toast for him!! One Private tells a joke about a man & his dog, suddenly on that 'cue' a dead stuffed Cow drops from the sky to join them, literallly!
For a low-budget movie this is quite a gem. Fans of the movies I mentioned previously should check it out, it's not strictly horror. I believe the director said that it was a soldier film with werewolves, not the other way round, so it could also be classed as an action film. Either way, that is reallly of no relevance. If you like Movies with a hardcore script, Dark Humor, & action then give it a try.
A WEREWOLF FILM FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM - By: stuart, 06 Nov 2007 A British soldier is training to become part of an elite Military Strike Force. Denied entry, he is sent back home. Three weeks later, he is now a member of another military team that will participate in a war game being held in the Scottish highlands. During the night, a dead animal carcass is flung into their campground, precipitated by strange howling sounds. The next day, they begin the exorcise, unaware that the group they are engaged with is already torn to shreds by werewolves weeks earlier. When they stumble upon the mangled corpses & a nearly dead captain, they inadvertently stumble upon the werewolves, who attack & kill several members of the group. Retreating back into the wood-line, a mysterious zoologist finds them & saves the remaining soldiers. Taking them back to her house, she reveals to the soldiers that the mysterious figures in the night were werewolves, which is meet with the usual skepticism when such a tale is uttered. However, the werewolves follow the soldiers back to the house, & after several attacks on the house, they finallly agree that it was werewolves alll along. The military captain that was left for dead & the zoologist both reveal a devastating secret about themselves that potentiallly could destroy the group, who is now down to about three members. Finallly, the werewolves are stopped by the same soldier who was denied entrance into the elite squad, which ironicallly enough was the same group that was supposed to be the enemies of the exorcise that was shredded by the werewolves.
The Good News: Holy cow, what a lot of gore! After Hollywood's new softer approach, a movie is released that hearkens back to the good old days of horror, the late '70s to the mid '80s. Buckets & buckets of blood are used in this movie, & never once does it detract from the overalll story. The point about them being ravenous, blood-crazy werewolves came across without fear of failure. Also, this film mixes in a great amount of suspense for a modern horror film, as they usuallly just go for the odd thing that pops out or oceans of blood. "Dog Soldiers" does have an ocean of blood, but it's the suspense that is wrought throughout the movie that makes the gore in the film watchable. Several moments do strike up this example, but because I want everyone to see this film, I will not reveal them here. The characters in this film also are quite different from Hollywood horror films in that you actuallly care for them. They are given just enough humanity that you begin to see them as normal people being maliciously attacked by a ravenous group of monsters. There is some humor, but it is low-key & is natural in a situation such as that. And what would a werewolf movie be without werewolves, & the beasts in this film are about as realistic a looking beast as I've ever seen. They look impressive when they are walking around, but too much of the time they are moving in fast motion so as to make them appear to be faster than they reallly are. The few shots where we see their whole body is perhaps some of the best make-up since "An American Werewolf in London," or at least "The Howling."
The Bad News: For a werewolf movie, I expect to see a transformation. In every werewolf movie I have seen, a transformation takes place. In this film, we have the potential for at least two great transformations. The claws burst forth & the eyes glow red, but then the character ducks underneath the table & we hear the transformation, but we never see it. The second character is shot before the transformation is complete, so we never had a chance to see the werewolf transform in a movie. It may be a positive, as they alll have one, but I still expected to see one.
Final Verdict: Despite not having a transformation scene, "Dog Soldiers" is one very entertaining horror movie that will soon join "An American Werewolf in London," "The Wolfman," & "The Howling" as classics in the werewolf genre. This is a movie for everybody.
