Where An American Werewolf in London eases you into the fog and folklore of the Yorkshire countryside and an insular community, Dog Soldiers hurls you straight into the fight. From the opening scene, the werewolves aren’t mindless beasts but something more calculating. A tent unzipped rather than ripped apart tells us a lot with just a single movement, and the splatter of blood sets the pace for what’s to come. This is a story that doesn’t leave much room to breathe, and instead builds itself a siege.

At the heart of it is Cooper, a soldier whose early refusal to shoot a dog for his entry to a potential new squad defines him long before he faces anything monstrous. It’s a small act that plants a larger theme of conscience against command and compassion against perceived gain. When his unit is dropped into the Highlands, their supposed training ground becomes a wilderness cut off from escape, a place where the old cover stories of escaped lunatics and beasts on the moors no longer soften the truth.

What gives Dog Soldiers its edge is how it treats the werewolf not as a solitary figure but as part of a pack. That choice makes the story a mirror. A band of soldiers bound by loyalty under siege from predators just as tightly knit. The dialogue has a lived-in quality, blunt but darkly funny at times, the kind of lines that sound familiar if you grew up in certain parts of Britain as I did. It keeps the film grounded even as the body count rises, until the difference between men and monsters narrows into a single truth.