A lean, mean werewolf machine of a movie that lacks the girl-power snarkiness of GINGER SNAPS (2000), but compensates with sheer, relentless beast action. A camping couple, snuggled in their tent in the Scottish wilds, is slaughtered by something bestial enough to rend them limb from limb, yet capable of unzipping the tent flap. A six-man platoon of British soldiers doing training exercises in the same area finds the remains of a special forces camp where everyone is dead except grievously wounded Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham), who refuses to tell them what laid waste to his unit. "The exercise is well and truly over," tough-but-fair Sergeant Wells (Sean Pertwee) tells his men, Cooper (Kevin McKidd), Terry (Leslie Simpson), Joe (Chris Robson), Bruce (Thomas Lockyer) and Spoon (Darren Morfitt). But the squad's radio cuts out, and they're well and truly stranded. Unexpected help arrives in the form of comely zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby), who has a four-wheel drive vehicle and knows something about what's prowling the woods. Wolves, she says, but not just any wolves. Some kind of hybrid beasts — werewolves, for want of a more scientific term. The men don't exactly believe her, which doesn't stop them accepting her offer of shelter in an isolated house belonging to some friends. But Megan's friends are missing — recently, to judge by the food bubbling on the stove — darkness is falling and soon the wolf is at the door...make that wolves. To be sure, this is basically NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) with werewolves, but there are far worse things to be. Screenwriter Neil Marshall's directing debut covers its familiar territory with ruthless efficiency: Characters are established early, the werewolf ground rules revealed piecemeal and to good dramatic effect, the dialogue is sharp and the night-long siege cleanly staged and briskly edited. The werewolves, which owe a distinct conceptual debt to Rob Bottin's designs for THE HOWLING (1981), are shown sparingly and the violence is effectively gory without being excessive. Released theatrically abroad, DOG SOLDIERS debuted in the US on the SciFi Channel before being released on video. --Maitland McDonagh
