Dog Soldiers (2002)

A year or so ago, the Sci-Fi Channel used to play movies late at night on weeknights. On one of these particular nights, I’d just watched some atrocity that more than likely involved either weather gone amok or poorly rendered CGI monsters stalking & eating idiot characters more than likely played by Casper van Dien or John Rhys-Davies.

It was a little slice of Heaven in the middle of the week.

Anyway, on this particular night, after having watched the above described cinematic abomination, one of those annoying ads that networks run in the bottom corner of the screen popped up, saying something along the lines of “You’re Watching: Chupacabra Vs. SS Doomtrooper; Up Next: Dog Soldiers.” After rolling my eyes so far back that I could actually see my frontal lobe, I thought, “Oh, brother – this I’ve got to see.” After all, we’re talking about the Sci-Fi Channel here, probably the only network that produces movies where the title tells you exactly what you’re in for. I figured this would be some dumb flick about post-apocalyptic warriors who are teamed up with talking dogs fighting against – I dunno – their opposite number, only they’d be armed with eee-vil housecats (post-apocalyptic eee-vil housecats!) & that I’d turn it off about ten minutes in.

When I finally turned the TV off at 1a, I realized just how wrong I was.
Unfortunately for you, Loyal Readers, life intervened & I was never able to do a write-up of the movie. Fortunately for you, Loyal Readers, Sci-Fi played it again recently, giving me enough time to digest it & give to you what I know you were hoping for…

What’s that? You’re hoping that I’m announcing my retirement from the Internet?

Oh, how droll…

Anyway, like or lump it, you’re getting a review of Dog Soldiers. So there.

Our movie starts off in a forest in England. A man & woman are out camping, getting away from the hustle & bustle of life. Apparently, he’s a writer of sorts & is feeling a bit burned out. The woman presents him with a gift – no, not that…well, not yet, at least – of a letter opener.

A pure sliver letter opener. *hint, hint*

After the gift exchange, they go back to enjoying the scenery &…well, he’s enjoying her scenery, if you know what I mean, & I think you do. Don’t get excited, though, because, before anything happens, the zipper to their tent sloooowly opens. The woman is then pulled through the opening, with her husband trying in vain to pull her back. It’s here that I learned that the inside of the human body is pressurized, as, when the unseen beastie chomps into the woman, she pops, flinging prop blood all over the guy.

We next get some text indicating that we’re now about two weeks prior to the abovementioned festivities. We catch up with a man running through the woods, being chased by men with machineguns & dogs. He’s accosted by a couple of the armed men & manages to take them out, only to finally be cornered. Just when it looks like it might be the end, we learn that this was a training exercise. The man being chased is one Private Cooper & this has all been a trial to get into the British Special Forces. Here we also meet Captain Ryan, the leader of this particular unit, who congratulates Cooper on evading capture for so long & tells him that he’s made it onto the team – well, after one last little test. For reasons that I still don’t quite get, Ryan hands Cooper a pistol & orders him to shoot a dog. This scene is done for no other reason than to set up another scene later in the movie. Cooper refuses to do the deed & Ryan, after dispatching the dog himself (again, why? Well, other than IITS…), tells Cooper that he’s now out of the team.

OK, I have a slight problem with this scene. In the military, as with the police K-9 units, dogs are highly trained, considered soldiers/airmen, just as their two legged counterparts are. The shooting of the dog, one that no doubt cost the British government a pretty pound to train, is on par with Ryan pulling out his gun & shooting a human soldier. There’s no way he would’ve reached the rank of captain shooting his fellow troops left & right. A military prison would be the only thing he’d be seeing for the rest of his life.

Back to the story. We now shift ahead two months to a squad of soldiers on maneuvers in, gee, the same forest. And who should be a part of the squad? Why, it’s Private Cooper! Small world, eh? Anyway, the squad is on maneuvers as part of a training mission with the Special Forces team. Here, we meet the rest of the dead meat…er, team: the leader, Sarge; Joe, the loudmouth; Terry, the footy fan; & the rest – Bruce, Spoon &, I think one other guy whose name escapes me at the moment. He puked a lot, though, so I’ll call him Pukey. The squad sets up camp & Sarge tells a story about a friend of his with whom he served in the first Gulf War that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie.

This was one of the many little touches to the movie that I really liked & I’ll tell you why: because, in real life, not everything we do or say has a lick to do with anything else in our lives. Sure, maybe a “Butterfly Effect” kind of thing happens sometimes, but, take, for instance, me. I am a walking vault of near useless knowledge; I spout stupid trivia at the drop of a hat. I’m like Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire, just a little taller & without the lisp. Does any of the trivia that I dispense matter one wit to the world at large? Unless you’re on Jeopardy!, then, no, it doesn’t. You could probably go your entire life without knowing that, say, palm trees are more of a weed than an actual tree; you’d probably die happy & content without that knowledge. But, it may have been a little bit of trivia that added to your day. The point is (I’ll get there eventually, I promise) the story told in the story managed to add just a bit more depth & dimension to the movie, making you care a little more about the characters & what they’re about to go through.

All that to say, nice touch, movie!

Back to the movie (remember that?). As the troops bed down for the night, the calm of this bucolic scene is shattered by the arrival, via trebuchet, apparently, of a dead sheep, into the middle of their encampment. This induced flashbacks to Monty Python & the Holy Grail. All that was missing were screams of “Run away!” Cooper, being the medic in the group, looks at the carcass & notes bite marks all over it. (Hmm…silver letter opener. Bite marks. Unless I miss my guess, I’d say the monster we’re dealing with is a mummy of some sort.) Oh, & Pukey pukes.

Soon after, a flare goes up from the Special Forces encampment. The squad makes its way over, only to find the camp totally turned on end with blood everywhere & no sign of the Special Forces team. Howling is heard in the distance. (Yup, I’m sure it’s a mummy now!) Sarge orders everybody to find whatever weapons they can & load up with live ammo (they were using blanks for the training mission). He also order radio silence be broken & an extraction helicopter to come in to get them. For some reason, though, the squad’s radio can’t get through & the Special Forces radio, when it’s eventually found, is out of commission. While looking around, they find Captain Ryan, the only survivor, with a big gash across his chest. He’s barely alive & babbling on about how there was only supposed to be one of “them,” though never specifying what “them” is.

With the injured Ryan in tow, the squad makes for the forest, which proves to be a bad move. Bruce is ordered to bring up the rear & cover the rest of the group. Unfortunately, Bruce has a faulty internal compass; he gets disoriented while being stalked by some sort of monster (A mummy! I just know it!). Running blindly, he becomes a Bruce-kabob when he runs, gut first, into an exposed tree branch. Sarge fares little better, as he gets gutted by the beastie. Cooper finds him &, tucking Sarge’s innards back in, helps his NCOIC hobble off to safety.

The men make their way to a road, where help just happens to come rolling along in the form of Megan, a scientist of some sort who just happens to be out & about in her Land Rover. The troops load in with a pack of werewolves (Drat! I was certain they were going to be mummies) nipping at their heels. Megan informs them that the nearest town (&, by default, phone) are fifty miles away. There is, however, a farmhouse nearby & Megan knows the people who live there.

They arrive, only to find that the owners are out. In a scene out of what is sure to be the next Sci-Fi original movie, “Goldilocks & The Three Werebears,” the soldiers break in & find the dinner table set & food cooking on the stove, as if the whole family just up & disappeared right before supper. Perhaps they were taking a walk whilst waiting for their porridge to cool. Totally ignoring all rules of etiquette, the men settle in for what will prove to be a long night. Sarge is taken upstairs to lie down & Ryan is tied to a chair. It’s here where we find out that the training mission was actually an attempt to capture one of the werewolves to study & potentially use as a weapon (yeah, that’s always a good idea).

Soon the siege begins, as the werewolves try to gain entrance, only to be repelled by the troops. Slowly, though, the munitions run low. Cooper resorts to using a sword to take out Ryan once he starts transforming. During this time, we also find out that Sarge has been infected, as his wounds have fully healed. We also find out that - surprise! – Megan is also one of the werewolves, working with the family to lure the soldiers to them. I guess they underestimated just how much of a fight trained soldiers would put up.

The fighting continues, with Sarge taking out Megan just as she starts to transform (I guess you can kill a werewolf when it’s in its human or transitional stage – who knew?). Soon, the group is whittled down to Sarge & Cooper (but not before Spoon goes mano a mano with one of the beasties, holding his own for quite awile). The werewolves finally make their way through the team’s defenses & Sarge, beginning to feel the effects of the infection, orders Cooper into the cellar while he plans to blow the roof off the place by cutting the gas line. The house goes boom & all is well for Cooper…

…or so we think.

Wandering around, Cooper discovers that he’s actually in the werewolves’ pantry, as he runs into bodies in various states of dismemberment, including our couple from the beginning of the movie. Here we also find out that Captain Ryan wasn’t completely out of the game. Earlier, Cooper had stabbed Ryan with a sword, which was left embedded in his torso. Now Ryan, looking to exact a little revenge for the whole impertinence thing from earlier in the movie & the more recent stabbiness, pushes the business end of the sword into Cooper’s mouth, making a grating sound against his teeth which give me chills every time I think of it. Groping around, Cooper fins the silver letter opener spotlighted at the beginning of the movie & stabs Ryan with it. Exit Ryan. Cooper makes his way home. End of movie.

As I implied earlier, Dog Soldiers turned out to be one of those rare treats found occasionally on Sci-Fi: a decent movie with good acting, serviceable special effects & an interesting, well paced script. I have a feeling that the Powers That Be at Sci-Fi HQ didn’t have much, if any, input on the making of this movie. If only that applied to the movies that Sci-Fi actually produces, maybe their movies would less painful to watch.

Nah, probably not.

Dog Soldiers

4 out of 5 Full Moons