Gutsy Horror
There is a difference between comedy/ horror and horror/ comedy just compare "Shaun of the Dead" to "Dog Soldiers". "Shaun of the Dead" takes the zombie genre and has fun with it whilst "Dog Soldiers" delivers a werewolf, survival horror and throws in a lot of British humour, lashings of blood, gore and intestines. It means that "Dog Soldiers" not only delivers frights and gore but then will have you cracking up and that makes things hard for a movie reviewer because there are so many great scenes you would love to mention.
6 soldiers are dropped into the middle of the Scottish Highlands on an exercise, but as they sit around the campfire, telling stories including one about hikers and campers going missing a mutilated cow drops from the rock face above. As they explore the surrounding area to find out what is going on they discover the entrails splattered camp belonging to special ops where the only survivor is the heavily hurt Capt. Ryan (Liam Cunningham). It soon becomes clear what is going on when these soldiers come face to face with a pack of werewolves and are forced to try and survive the night in a nearby farmhouse after being rescued by zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby).
The best way to describe "Dog Soldiers" is to split it up and so the main driving force of the movie is horror and action as we have these soldiers in the Scottish Highlands coming up against werewolves. Before we get to that we have an early, typical moment of horror involving two amorous campers mutilated in a blood splattering way by these werewolves which sets the pace. But as to the horror and action well we get a mix as we have the great shock moment with the close encounter of the dead cow kind and then the entrails splattered camp belonging to the special ops team. All of which leads to various battles as these men go "Zulu" by trying to survive the night in the farm house with the added thrill of not being sure whether they can trust Capt. Ryan.
But then you have the humour side starting with these soldiers spouting some incredibly macho corny dialogue and more worried about missing a footie match. Then there is the humour of one soldier ending up with his intestines hanging out after being slashed across the gut by a werewolf which leads to quite a few jokes including a cry of "sausages!". But I could go on because there is the daftness of a soldier trying to stop a huge werewolf breaking down a door and putting the safety chain on, if that is going to stop him. What this means is that "Dog Soldiers" is a lot of daft, horror fun which has some brilliant scenes of both horror and comedy.
Part of what makes "Dog Soldiers" so good is that at the time of release the cast consisted of people you might recognize but not know their names. It allowed them to deliver the utterly daft, over the top characters with out fear of an image to protect. That means the likes of Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd and Chris Robson are all brilliant delivering humour, corny dialogue, action as well as selling the horror parts at the same time.
What this all boils down to is that "Dog Soldiers" is a brilliant British horror comedy which delivers everything you expect from some great moments of horror to some hilarious comedy as well as throwing in action as well.
