Bark at the moon
No Guts No Glory
Looking for some film recommendations for Halloween? 31 Days of Halloween exhumes some of our favourite horror films, giving all you film-hungry ghouls a brief run-down of some of the most frightful film classics to shamble onto our screens. So grab some treats, fire up your cauldron, and join us as we celebrate some of the best fright flicks of all-time this Halloween.
Dog Soldiers (2002)
Yesterday we looked at one of the best zombie movies to ever grace the silver screen, today, though, we're taking a break from zombies to indulge our wild sides and get freaky under the full moon with Neil Marshal's wild werewolf film Dog Soldiers.
A boisterous mix of Predator and Night of the Living Dead, with a little bit of The Howling thrown in for good measure, Dog Soldiers takes a lot of familiar horror tropes and turns them on their heads. First off, our heroes aren't a bunch of promiscuous co-eds, but a battalion of embattled soldiers. Granted, in the end they seem to pose as little of a threat to the werewolves as your average teenybopper does to Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13th movies, but the squaddies' presence does give the film a unique flavour that's all its own.
Their bickering and good-natured banter imbues the cast of rough and ready commandos with plenty of character, and Sean Pertwee's Sgt. Wells - who at one point seals up his ruptured guts with a tube of superglue - is a particular highlight.
While horror comedies are dime a dozen nowadays, Dog Soldiers is one of the few films in the sub-genre that completely nails the balance between scabrous humour and gruesome chills. The humour doesn't feel forced, and Marshal maintains a good balance throughout, nimbly switching gears as the werewolves come out to play and the tension begins to mount.
The way the film handles werewolves is unusual, too, with Marshal opting to keep the hulking beasts in the shadows for much of the film's runtime. Here they're much more of an external force, used in a similar way to the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. Anyone hoping for a full-on creature-feature will be disappointed, as Dog Soldiers is more about the characters, and their reaction to this bizarre situation, than the beasts themselves. That's not to say the movie skimps on the action, though, as there's plenty of blood-letting, and inventive set-pieces to keep horror-hounds happy. The films also earns a few bonus points for its old-school practical effects, as well as for giving the world the phrase "glam rock werewolves".
Just be warned, after watching Dog Soldiers there's a good chance you'll never look at sausages in the same way ever again.
Their bickering and good-natured banter imbues the cast of rough and ready commandos with plenty of character, and Sean Pertwee's Sgt. Wells - who at one point seals up his ruptured guts with a tube of superglue - is a particular highlight.
While horror comedies are dime a dozen nowadays, Dog Soldiers is one of the few films in the sub-genre that completely nails the balance between scabrous humour and gruesome chills. The humour doesn't feel forced, and Marshal maintains a good balance throughout, nimbly switching gears as the werewolves come out to play and the tension begins to mount.
The way the film handles werewolves is unusual, too, with Marshal opting to keep the hulking beasts in the shadows for much of the film's runtime. Here they're much more of an external force, used in a similar way to the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. Anyone hoping for a full-on creature-feature will be disappointed, as Dog Soldiers is more about the characters, and their reaction to this bizarre situation, than the beasts themselves. That's not to say the movie skimps on the action, though, as there's plenty of blood-letting, and inventive set-pieces to keep horror-hounds happy. The films also earns a few bonus points for its old-school practical effects, as well as for giving the world the phrase "glam rock werewolves".
Just be warned, after watching Dog Soldiers there's a good chance you'll never look at sausages in the same way ever again.
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