Dog Soldiers finally hits blu-ray this week. Check out our review.
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| "Dude. I told you I'm not into beasts. No means no." |
In 2005, Neil Marshall seemingly came out of nowhere and took
audiences by complete surprise with a brilliant horror film, The Descent,
which quickly became regarded as one of the finest of its decade. But
unbeknownst to a large chunk of The Descent's American audience, that
film was hardly Marshall's first strong work in the horror genre. Just three
years earlier he had delivered a very impressive debut with Dog Soldiers;
it just didn't get him the attention in the U.S. that it really should have.
Released straight to video in America with cheap, uninspired, low-budget cover
art that screamed “Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie” (and indeed, it did
debut on Sci-Fi in advance of the home video release), Dog Soldiers got
lost in a sea of bad horror flicks on the DVD market, and viewers could be
forgiven for taking a look at the box art and assuming that it would be bad.
Eventually it did at least manage to gain some word-of-mouth buzz – especially
after The Descent briefly made Marshall a known name – and it turned
into a modest cult classic. Now for the first time it is getting a special
edition release that actually treats it like a worth-seeing cult film instead
of just another generic horror flick, thanks to the excellent team at Scream
Factory.
Like Hatchet or House of the Devil, Dog
Soldiers is an enthusiastic love letter to the horror genre that takes
elements of the classics that we grew up with and blends them into a
deliciously geeky genre brew with some first-rate suspense sequences. However,
this same description is also why marketing was such a huge part of Dog
Soldiers' failure upon its release: if you didn't know that this was the
film's intention, its uninspired advertizing would have lead you to assume that
it really was just generic and cliché. And actually, the film starts off
seeming a little generic, which wouldn't inspire any extra patience from
already-skeptical viewers: it doesn't have the visual panache of House of
the Devil, and it has a pretty weak first act that prevents you from seeing
the film's intelligence and sense of humor for the first few minutes. But be
patient, and don't be put off by the underwhelming opening: the payoff is great
once Marshall unleashes his dogs of war.
Marshall set out to make the ultimate werewolf movie; one
that really makes full use of what fierce and frightening creatures they should
be. And he largely succeeded, pitting the beasts against equally fierce
characters to fight them. The set-up seems simple enough: a group of military
recruits on a training mission in the Scottish Highlands come up against a pack
of werewolves; carnage ensues. The recipe is also very conducive to the type of
genre homage that Marshall wanted to make: right from the start, he almost
makes a game out of working in as many classic 60s, 70s, and 80s horror
references as possible. The soldiers-vs-monsters-in-the-woods premise is pretty
much a Scottish spin on Predator, the major setting is an isolated
farmhouse right out of Night of the Living Dead, the film makes use of
steadicam shots flying through the trees just like in Evil Dead, and
there's even a gory variation on a gross-out running gag from Bad Taste.
It almost feels like Marshall is challenging viewers to see if they can spot
all the quick references and inside jokes. Genre fans will have a good time
with it. Unfortunately this does somewhat call further attention to the weak
first act, as picking out the references becomes the most fun thing as the
script gets off to its shaky start. But again, stick with it: it doesn't take
too long for the film to find its balance, and get very good quite quickly.
Taking thriller cues from the tense siege dynamics and gritty action of Assault
on Precinct 13, Dog Soldiers finds its strength in its ability to
balance intense suspense and genre homage quite well.
The film obviously has a low budget, but as it gains steam,
it actually uses this as a stylistic advantage. The action scenes are shot with
a rough, kinetic, handheld urgency which really makes these moments pop, and
keeps the adrenaline flowing. The action is also shot with a higher frame rate
to give the scenes a raw, hyper-realistic edge, as was done in 28 Days Later
around the same time, and more recently in Mad Max: Fury Road. It is
in these sequences – which comprise much of the latter part of the film – that
Marshall really shines as a director, and shows the skill for suspense and
terror that would make him famous with The Descent. As a writer, he
certainly had more to learn when he made Dog Soldiers (the script for The
Descent is much more refined), but he shows his strengths in a few key
areas: particularly his dialogue. While the soldier characters are never all
that well developed, the dialogue he writes for them is great. It is snappy,
funny, tough, and has a great rhythm reminiscent of the banter between the
Space Marines in Aliens. The script certainly has its flaws, but it
compensates for them with a strong personality that really helps to tie it
together.
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| "We called first shower!" |
But the real stars of the movie are the werewolves, and they
are the film's greatest success. Marshall wanted to give us the ultimate
werewolves, and he succeeded: I'm prepared to say that the beasts in Dog
Soldiers surpass their forefathers in American Werewolf in London and
The Howling as the coolest, most effective cinematic werewolves ever
designed. The film has no CGI to speak of, and entirely uses practical effects;
really, really good practical effects. An expertly-crafted combination of
actors in very realistic suits (trained dancers, actually, to achieve those
wolf-like movements) and lifelike animatronic facial features, these dog
soldiers are a perfect example of how well-executed practical effects can be
more impressive than overused CGI any day. The werewolves look genuinely real,
and they make very formidable and intimidating villains.
Not surprisingly, these special effects get a lot of
attention in the impressive new extras that Scream Factory has assembled for
the special edition blu-ray. The short featurette from the original release has
been replaced by an hour-long documentary about the making of the film, and
there's another new 15-minute featurette just about how the film was shot on
location. There is also a new audio commentary by Neil Marshall, who was
conspicuously absent from the previous disc's producer commentary. Add in an
early short film by Marshall and some other small goodies and you have a pretty
impressive special edition package. And best of all, Marshall himself
supervised a new HD transfer of the film for this release. It's all a definite
upgrade over the previous, now out of print, non-special-edition blu-ray, which
was every bit as apathetic towards the film as the original DVD. The film was
shot on 16mm, so don't expect the most pristine quality ever, but it is
undoubtedly the best possible transfer. As always, I must sing Scream Factory's
praises for the work that they do on their releases.
-Christopher S. Jordan