Dog Soldiers is a 2002 British action horror film written, directed and edited by Neil Marshall in his feature directorial debut.
Starring Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby and Liam Cunningham, the film follows a squad of soldiers fighting to survive an attack by a pack of werewolves during a military training exercise in the Scottish Highlands.
The woman gives the man a silver letter opener as a present; shortly afterward they are killed in their tent by unseen assailants.
It is revealed that Cooper is trying to join a special forces unit but fails when he refuses to shoot a dog in cold blood.
Four weeks later, a squad of six British soldiers, including Cooper, are dropped into a remote area of the Scottish Highlands to carry out a training exercise against a Special Air Service unit.
He is rescued by Cooper and carried to a rural roadside where the group meets Megan, a zoologist who takes them to a lonely house belonging to an unknown family.
The soldiers maintain a desperate defence against the creatures, believing that if they can make it to sunrise, the werewolves will revert to human form.
Under interrogation, Ryan reveals that he was sent on a government mission to capture a live werewolf for study and exploitation as a weapon; Cooper's squad was supposed to be the bait, and considered expendable.
The soldiers try blowing up the barn – where Megan told them the werewolves must be hiding – using the Land Rover and petrol to create a bomb.
Wells and Cooper shoot through the floor upstairs to elude the werewolves and drop into the kitchen, where they find Spoon's remains.
As he begins to transform into a werewolf, Wells orders Cooper to take shelter in the cellar and gives him a roll of photographic film (which was in a flash camera used to stun the werewolves) to prove what has happened.
[9] In addition to the credits in the infobox, the costume designer is Uli Simon, the casting directors are Jeremy Zimmerman and Andrea Clarke, the special makeup, animatronic and digital visual effects are by the company Image FX, and the physical-effects supervisor and stunt coordinator is Harry Wiessenhaan.
[14] Principal photography was originally scouted and planned to commence in the Isle of Man due to its tax rebates but the idea fell through.
The site's consensus reads, "Frightening, funny, and packed with action, Dog Soldiers is well worth checking out for genre fans -- and marks writer-director Neil Marshall as a talent to keep an eye on.
"[19] Jamie Russell of the BBC gave it 4 out of 5 and called it "A rip-roaring comedy action fest that'll put hairs on your chest.
[21] Reviewing the 2020 rerelease, The Guardian gave it 3 out of 5 and noted that despite the limitations of the film the talent shown by Marshall in his debut feature that "You can easily draw a clear line through this to his later work".
[35] Producer David E. Allen said in January 2004 that a sequel, Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat, would begin a 35-day shoot that April in either Luxembourg or Canada with a budget of $5.5 million.
Andy Armstrong, a second-unit director on films including Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Nightbreed, would direct from an Eric Miller script, with Allen and Brian Patrick O’Toole returning as producers.
Allen said the plot would involve Private Cooper being "picked up by an American team who, we find out, were the real opponents for the war games for Sgt.
Neil Marshall stated in an audio commentary for Dog Soldiers, that the moment in the film when Megan cuts her hand on a shard of glass was meant to be a setup for a second sequel about werewolf DNA, which would complete a planned trilogy.