October has arrived. The leaves fall from the trees, the
nights grow long, and Halloween approaches. Every year around this time I watch
a slew of horror films; I watch them all year, to be truthful, but I really ramp up around Halloween – ghost stories and monster movies and an occasional
slasher flick. This year I’m starting early and I plan to stretch it out a bit.
It's cool in my house and I'm under a blanket with the dog at my side, so
it’s a good time to begin.
Tonight I watched Neil Marshall’s 2002 Dog Soldiers.
I’d seen it before, a few years back, but I wanted to revisit it because I've come to really appreciate Marshall's films since then. This is his first, three years before he made the The Descent, one of my
favorites and a film I watch every few months. Centurion is good as well, a fun comic bookish
film.
Dog Soldiers is,
of course, a werewolf film. Lycanthropes
don’t get much appreciation, being less romantic than vampires and less of an
easy vehicle for social commentary (like mindless consumerism) and modern
anxieties (like pandemics) than zombies. Still, there are some gems in the
genre. I love John Landis’ An American
Werewolf in London, and you should, too. It’s funny and scary and has likable
characters, both dead and alive. And it has Jenny Agutter, who is charming and really should have been in way more movies. I really like Joe
Dante’s The Howling as well. Both are
1981 movies. Ginger Snaps, a nice
twist on the dangerous trappings of burgeoning teenage sexuality (most horror
is metaphor, right?), is another good one.
Dog Soldiers is a strong debut. The roots of Marshall's atmospheric style show in the shadowy woods and craggy hollows. It certainly has enough gore, and the
monster effects work well enough, though I like them better during the dimly lit early scenes. He makes good use of his budget – instead of a full werewolf transformation we get instead a few Lon
Chaneyesque drop-out-of-frame-and-emerge-as-a-monster scenes, which I kind of like, and lots of hairy, taloned arms punching through windows. A
solid cast, especially Kevin McKidd (Rome) and Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) deliver good performances. There's a lot of wit and the dialogue is natural. So it’s fun and it has some genuine tension, especially early on. A good start to the
season.
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