Dog Soldiers

Posted by Vicki on 14.07.05

'Dog Soldiers' was heralded as being the saviour of British horror films in much the same was as 'From Dusk til Dawn'was widely acclaimed to have given new blood to both horror and crime genres. All this really means is both films were overrated and, relatively speaking, done on a low budget.

Far from being a saviour 'Dog Soldiers' was rather a bad monster movie in the style of 'Bats'. Except somehow a swarm of generically modified fruit bats that feast on human flesh is scarier than werewolves concentrated in a small region of Scottish moor land: this may be largely due to the lack of documented werewolf migration patterns.

All plot and suspension of disbelief issues aside 'Dog Solders' did have some funny lines, and most importantly squelching noises upon assorted people's untimely demise. This reminded me of other memorable deaths in film, noticeably the initial death in 'The Virgin Suicides' where a fence is utilised accompanied by a disturbingly blunt thud. Possibly this is such a strong focal point, despite that lack of visuals because the similar scene in 'Ginger Snaps' does show the impaled body but lacks both the sound and momentum.

Gratuitous death in film is rarely meaningful or necessary: rather a handful of well done coffin fillers will provide lasting impact. For example many of the circumstances surrounding Laura Palmer's demise in 'Twin Peaks' was overwhelmingly a mystery (depending which version of the film or TV show you've been exposed to), similarly the fate of the money in 'Fargo' after the incident with the wood chipper had the lure of the unknown which ensure it's survival in people's memories.

Ophelia's death by drowning in 'Hamlet' proved that an untimely death acts as a convenient excuse for the ensuring bloodbath, similarly in the 1931 version of 'Frankenstein' Boris Karloff kills a young girl after mistakenly thinking she will float like flower petals. Both of these could be construed as tragic, unlike Samuel Jackson's fate in 'Deep Blue Sea' were in the midst of an inspirational speech about everybody working together a giant DNA-enhanced super-intelligent shark leaps out of the water and swallows him in one, and a girl starts crying. Sadly the film went downhill after that.

Whilst 'Beetlejuice' proved the death didn't have to be the end the one film in which gratuitous death with no after life would have significantly improved the film has to be 'Jersey Girl': instead the audience had to settle with watching the unfolding drawn-out demise of Ben Afflick's career come one step closer to being beyond the reaches of modern medicine.