Thursday, June 13, 2013

A-teeeeen, HUT!

To be completely honest, werewolf movies kind of hit their peak with An American Werewolf in London.  The quality of werewolf movies after the early 80s dropped dramatically.  Until 2002.

That's when werewolf fans and furries with very specific fetishes were treated to the lycanthropic masterpiece, Dog Soldiers.






This blend of military action and bestial horror is, quite honestly, one of the best produced werewolf films, EVER.

I'm still gonna make fun of it.  'Cause that's how I roll.

So.  We begin with a young couple out camping.  The young man gives his girl a gift of a silver letter opener.  Which she should have stabbed him with because who gives their girlfriend a letter opener?  In recognition of the gift faux-pas, they promptly get attacked by something large and hairy.

Then we move on to our heroes, Private Cooper is seen running through the forest trying to escape a group of pursuers and rejoin his squad.  He fights his attackers but is overwhelmed.  Turns out this was part of a special forces exercise that he fails when he refuses to shoot a dog.  Which, y'know, is the right course of action to anyone with a conscience. 

Four weeks later, Cooper's squad is dropped in the middle of the Scottish Highlands for another exercise.  They expect to be shooting blanks at a Special Air Services unit, all they find are puddles of goo and bone.  The one survivor they find tries to tell them what did it but he's all cryptic and shit.

YAY!  RED FLAGS!

Unseen things make their presence known and in the process one of the squad is impaled on a branch and another, Wells, is attacked.  Cooper rescues him and carries him to the road where the squad meets Megan, a zoologist.  She gets them to an isolated house for cover and shelter.  Because that's the BEST place to hide.  Of course, communications are down, too.


So tense... someone needs a massage.

As they settle in, Megan reveals that the attackers, who have gathered around the house by now, are werewolves. And it's getting dark.

The rest of the movie is all Rambo.  I refuse to go any further into this because if you haven't seen it, you won't get it.  Suffice it to say that this movie is AMAZING.

Not least of which is due to the creature effects.  

I'm TRYING to SLEEP!

Seriously, this is one of the best full-body makeups I've ever seen.  I'm betting they couldn't move real well on stilts but they LOOKED incredible.

I truly appreciated how they brought werewolves into the modern day.  They took the time to explain how the superstitions were false and the werewolves have science and, it appears, a knowledge of military tactics on their side.  They KNEW how to corral the squad into what basically amounts to an abbatoir.  Brilliance.

This is a must-see for horror fans.


I kinda wish the sequel hadn't been shelved.  I'm kind of interested in how this particular mythos can spread.

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