Neil Marshallhas turned out some great horror films in his career.The Descentwill forever scare you away from exploring caves, and keep you up with the disturbing imagery laced throughout its runtime.Tales of Halloweenfeatures a delightfully twisted short from Marshall that involves pumpkins coming to life and slaughtering everything in their path. He’s even recently returned to the realm of horror withThe ReckoningandThe Lair, which is more than welcome after the dismal reception to hisHellboyreboot. But Marshall’s directorial debut,Dog Soldiers, deserves a second look -especially with how it upends whatviewers come to expect from a werewolf movie.
What Is ‘Dog Soldiers’ About?
Dog Soldiersbegins when a group of soldiers are pitted against an elite guard of SAS operatives as part of a training exercise. The training goes south when the entire SAS unit is horribly murdered, with their leader Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham) as the sole survivor. Eventually, the soldiers are taken in by a woman named Megan (Emma Cleasby), and learn a horrifying truth:they are surrounded by werewolves, and must rely on their combat skills to survive the night. But further complicating matters is the antagonistic attitude that Ryan takes towards the soldiers and their commanding officer, Sergeant Wells (Sean Pertwee). It also turns out that Megan is hiding a dark secret from the group, namely thatshe’s a werewolf as well, and led the soldiers into a trap.
Part of what makesDog Soldierssuch a great watch is the werewolves themselves.Marshall wanted to avoid the trope of the “tortured werewolf”,and show that these werewolves were monsters inside and out. He elaborated on this during an interview withDen of Geek:
“I didn’t want to do the classic curse of the werewolf story, which is essentially what all werewolf films had been up until that point…I wanted to do essentiallyAlienswith werewolves, in which they’re just a ferocious enemy and really difficult to kill, and who they are as people is irrelevant.”
This approach worked, as the werewolves are shown to be immensely terrifying beasts that aren’t quite wolves, but also move far faster than humans - and tend to be stronger than them too. But what makesDog Soldiersa standout in the werewolf genre is its human characters.
Neil Marshall Explores the Horrors of War With ‘Dog Soldiers’
Dog Soldiers, like any good horror film, winds up being a way for Neil Marshall to tackle part of society through the lens of monsters. In this case,it’s the effect war can have on a person. The biggest example of this is in how Wells and Ryan interact with the soldiers, particularly trainee Cooper (Kevin McKidd). Ryan is nothing but cruel to Cooper, mocking him and forcing him to partake in the ritual where soldiers shoot a dog they’ve been caring for. Wells, on the other hand, treats his soldiers as though they were members of his own family, even telling Ryan to back off when he gets in another soldier’s face.
Eventually, Cooper finds himselfhaving to make some hard decisionswhen Ryan transforms into a werewolf and Wells is shown to be changing as well after he’s wounded by one. The rest of his squad takes a similar tactic; even if they’re facing certain death, they go out swinging. The fact that Marshall was able to use the genre as a metaphor for how war can change someone would be a tactic he returned to in other films, particularly his Roman war epicCenturion.
‘Dog Soldiers’ Laid the Path for Sequels That Never Materialized
Dog Soldiersenjoys a cult status, but it wasoriginally intendedto kickstart a franchise.David E. Allen, who served as a producer on the originalDog Soldiers, aimed to have a sequel calledDog Soldiers: Fresh Meatreleased in 2005.Fresh Meatwould flip the premise of the original film; whereDog Soldiersdealt with soldiers fighting werewolves, it would have Cooperfighting against soldiers who themselves were werewolves.Fresh Meatfell through, but Allen wasn’t deterred and threw together a trailer for a web series titledDog Soldiers: Legacy. Even though efforts on aDog Soldierssequel have stalled, Marshall is hopeful that it’ll come to pass one day. “I’m not giving up, though; there’s still a possibility. We’ve been trying to get it off the ground for the past six years,“he toldJoBlo.
Dog Soldiersis both a bona fide cult classic and a welcome shot of creativity in the arm for werewolf movies. It is more than worth a watch, especially if you enjoy Neil Marshall’s other films.
