Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers, which pitches a group of UK squadies on manouvers in the highlands of Scotland against a pack of local werewolves, doesn't hark back to the Hammer days but looks instead to more recent action horror movies for its inspiration; it is much more Aliens than Alien.
In fact the film can be likened to Aliens (sometimes a little too closely) with the former even paying homage to the latter with a 'counting the ammo' scene and call for "short controlled bursts" which again (of course) goes unheeded. Replace the colony complex with a claustrophobic farmhouse in Scotland (actually shot Luxembourg) and the aliens with werewolves. Add a non-Hollywood edge (you have a lot less idea of who is likely to be next to die), stir in couple of small twists and mix with a good amount of dark and 'military forces' type humour and you've got a fair idea of the basic outline.
Oh, and talking of humour, look out for the in-joke of the piano piece that gets played.

The characterisations are well rendered, though a little clichéd, with each of the soldiers coming across as tough, though believable, people each standing out in their own way so you actually care about whether they live or die. This was backed up by good acting by a cast that seemed to me to have been given very good advice on how real soldiers spoke and acted. Even the weapons handling seemed to be, for once, realistic (something that I, for one, really appreciated).

Of course it wasn't perfect ... many have commented on the similarities to other films, though they often disagree on which films - Aliens, Evil Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, Southern Comfort; actually it doesn't sound like a bad set of films to be compared to does it? Being an independent they didn't have the massive budget for state-of-the-art special effects, though they did a damn good job with what they had and good direction and camerawork helped add to the threat of the creatures - no CGI here though excellent use of surround sound! The background about the why's and how's of the werewolves was not investigated and some scenes didn't seem to flow as well as they could, though the latter seemed to me to be where some cuts had been made for pacing and really didn't detract that much.

The DVD (UK, Region 2)
Presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is anamorphic ... though sadly the image is not of the best quality and though some may say the gain and muted colours add 'gritiness' the over-the-top edge enhancement and poor black levels (for a movie with a lot of night sequences, unsurprisingly) certainly doesn't. Probably not the fault of the DVD makers though as the film was shot on a very small budget.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track is better though and the surround aspect is well used and though not immersive all the way through it kicks in during firefights, with shots coming from all around, and for  occasional sound effects... all the better to make you jump?

The extras are quite extensive with two commentaries (one from the producers, the other from the director, cast & crew). The former is the only one that made it to the US disc (the producers are American but the movie didn't even get a theatrical release in the US for apparently being "too British" with lots of quite strong UK accents on display) and is informative and interesting, the latter has all those UK accents on display again and is just great fun as all the participants sound like they're having a great time here, and did making the film, taking the mickey and recalling incidents on set.

It doesn't end there though with Deleted Scenes and 'Gag Reel' (8 1/2 minutes, both with an optional commentary), a 20 minute "Making of..." featurette, Storyboard comparisons and a 7 1/2 minute short film made by the director called "Combat".
The theatrical trailer and a few bonus trailers round everything off.

Purchasing Information
It should be noted that if you have a Region-free player the R1 (as reported) cuts back on a lot of the extras and should be avoided but the R4 Australian apparently has some additional interviews with the cast and crew as well as a photo gallery so is probably the best version to buy.

Final Summary
You really can't ask for much more from the disc or from the movie with a relatively low budget action horror flick like this one; a release with real bite... snap it up!