First a bit of background into my affinity for werewolves. The first classic movie monster that earned a sweet spot close to my heart was Lon Chaney Jr.'s The Wolfman. Made back in 1941, his hungry-beast-trapped-within-a-man's-tortured-soul always registered with me more than Boris Karloff's Frankenstein or Bela Lugosi's Dracula, or even Karloff's Mummy. The Wolfman is a damn fine piece of film, one I can still watch with enjoyment to this day, and I first watched it when I was like nine or ten years of age. The beast resides within a kind-hearted fella, a guy who wants nothing more than to live a normal life, but has been cursed with wolf-ishness after being bitten by one. He didn't ask for it, and Chaney Jr. played the character with such vulnerability and compassion. Plus, the wolf attack scenes were pretty raw for '41's standards, with a blonde cutie running through the woods as Wolfy was on the prowl. And the creature makeup always impressed me.
So you can imagine my excitement with next year's modern-day telling of The Wolfman, if not only for the fucking-brilliant casting of Benicio Del Toro in the Chaney Jr. role. I mean, Del Toro looks like a wolf on any given day, and he's a great thespian, so odds are certainly in the movie's favor. And I managed to catch that camera phone version of the footage shown at Comic Con that four minutes it was available online, and it kicked uber ass.
So yeah, werewolves have always held a strong spot in my lifeline. Meaning, when I discovered that Neil Marshall, the writing/directing mind behind one of my fave horror joints in the last five or so years, The Descent, made his debut with a werewolf-filled action horror movie, I was ecstatic. It's been a long ass time since I've seen werewolves done some justice. I'm still wiping the shit-stain of 2004's fecal Van Helsing off of my eyes. Man, that's literally one of the worst movies ever made. Frankenstein as a crying, pussy bitch? Blasphemy! At least Kate Beckinsale looked piping-hot in it.
But, alas.....Dog Soldiers.
Made in 2002. It's about a ragtag British army outfit from sent into the woods of Scotland on a "routine training exercise," one that of course goes to complete wolf shit. A tenacious and starving pack of at-least-7-foot-tall werewolves lets loose on the troop, picking a few soldiers off before the fatigue-laden fellas are rescued by a mysterious chick who brings them back to af friend's empty farmhouse. Once there, the hairy-sons-of-bitches wage war on the soldiers, smashing through windows, breaking down doors, feeding on dumbass soldiers who step foot outside. All that good stuff.
But I have to be honest....I didn't really like this one. I totally wanted to love it, and I've read pretty much nothing but praise from my trusty horror sites (really, in terms of horror movies, don't read mainstream reviews. Trust the critics on horror sites, because they're the real "fans.") But it mostly bored me. Sure, the wolves, or "lycanthropes" as science refers to them, are very kick-ass, and many of the attack setpieces are good bloody fun. It's just that, I couldn't give two shits about any of the soldiers. They're all annoying, disposable, poorly-constructed. Horror characters can be little more than soon-dead cattle, of course, but what I loved so much about Marshall's insanely-superior The Descent is how he fully developed the female protagonists so well. So when they started dying, you actually felt a bit of sympathy and remorse. In Dog Soldiers, you're rooting for the wolves. Maybe that's the intention? I don't know.
It opens up with one of those pointless, not effective scenes where anonymous characters are killed by an unseen threat, which of course turns out to be our wolves. So right off the bat, I wasn't impressed. And then it goes into about 20 or so minutes of idle banter between the soldiers, and it's pretty lame stuff. I'm sitting there thinking, "If the fucking wolves don't show up, fangs out, in about five minutes, I'm going to sleep." But fortunately, a mangled cow flies into their campsite, disrupting the chit-chat, and then it's on. But as the movie progressed, I found myself more and more disinterested. If the creatures had been on screen the entire time, just fucking shit up, I'd have been a happy camper. But that's not the case. You have mostly our soldiers discussing survival tactics, which sucks when you want them to die, not endure. And backing these scenes is a sweeping score, one that'd be better suited for a medieval times adventure, or a swashbuckling pirate show....not blood-soaked horror.
On a positive note: there's a cute white-and-black Lab dog in the film, and you know how much I love pooches. Always bring a smile to my grill. Our lead soldier, "Cooper," who looks like Dolph Lundgren minus steroid usage, finds the mutt inside the farmhouse, a scene that I welcomed. And much to my pleasure, the dog survives! Within the first ten minutes, a dog is shot in the head at point blank range, which I was quite pissed about. So imagine my satisfaction when the farmhouse canine makes it out alive, even saving the day during the last attack sequence. Very much like The Hills Have Eyes dog. Well done, canine community.
In all, I'm glad I finally got to see Dog Soldiers, but wish it grabbed me more. I can't say I'd suggest anybody else watch it, unless you're in the mood for some werewolf-caused carnage and tongue-in-cheek humor. The Descent was deliciously dark and bleak; Dog Soldiers is violent yet light-hearted. I prefer the former, because I'm twisted like that.
**As an added bonus, here's a great Wu-Tang song off their last unfairly-hated-on album, 8 Diagrams.....track is called "Wolves" (connection explained):
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