Silver bullet for a howler

Movie Review by SHANNON HARVEY
23 mar 03

Dog Soldiers (MA)
Stars: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby

Rating: Three and a half stars

There’s a groovy opening scene in the new werewolf movie Dog Soldiers. Two campers in the woods settle in for the night during a full moon. They retire to the tent and start making love, oblivious to the fact that it’s the fastest way to a grisly death in horror movies.
He slowly unzips her pants. Hearing the sound of a second zipper coming down, he shines the flashlight on a claw that’s slowly unzipping their tent. Hey there kids, nice to eat you!
Welcome to Dog Soldiers, the dumbest entrant in the embattled werewolf genre since they tried An American Werewolf in Paris.
Two squads of British soldiers are playing war games in the lonesome Scottish wilderness. One is an elite special forces unit, the other a rag-tag bunch of low-ranking grunts.
It becomes a game of survival when the grunts – led by Wells (Sean Pertwee, Event Horizon) and Cooper (Kevin McKidd, Trainspotting) – discover the elite force has been torn apart by a mysterious beast.
One bright soldier suggests it might be the work of “a psycho escaped from the local nuthouse who’s forgot to shave or cut his nails”.
Oh yeah, that must be it.
They are rescued by sympathetic zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby), who just happens to be driving by, and she takes them to a remote house where they barricade themselves in for the night, making a brave and bloody stand against not one – but an entire family – of clawing, salivating, ill-tempered werewolves.
Silly instead of suspenseful, Dog Soldiers features people dressed up in deformed bear suits, sausages that stand in for human entrails, and more growling and howling than you can poke a silver bullet at.
Pretend it’s a werewolf itself by avoiding eye contact and walking slowly away. It’s fun, but it’s a real howler.