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Interview: Neil Marshall on horror classic ‘Dog Soldiers’

Marshall also helmed the superb The Descent and Doomsday.

Neil Marshall is a name synonymous with British horror. He’s responsible for both the phenomenal The Descent and Dog Soldiers, the latter being his feature debut. The film follows a group of army men out on a weekend exercise who find themselves under attack from a family of werewolves deep in the Scottish wilderness. Werewolf films have a reputation as being hard to make, and for Marshall to decide that werewolves was what he wanted to feature in his debut, and to realise them so well, demonstrated an insane amount of talent. It seems only right then, given its high regard within the horror world, that it finally gets a release on 4K version digital, which is available now.

Dog Soldiers has always been a firm favourite here, and as such we were thrilled to get the chance to discuss the film with Neil Marshall. 

When you started making Dog Soldiers all those years ago, did you ever think that people would still be watching and discussing the film now? 

I couldn’t have possibly imagined that. That’s the stuff that dreams are made of isn’t it? You make a film that has a life. I think there’s two kinds of films, something that has a big splash when they open, and then they fade into obscurity, or films that have a life that just keep on going and people keep on talking about them. I think maybe what makes Dog Soldiers so appealing is not necessarily universal, but it’s kind of timeless. I think it will always hit the nerves that it hit back then. It’s not a film of its time, you wouldn’t necessarily know when it was made, because it’s not specific to when it was made. It applies now, just as much as it did then I suppose. Maybe that’s something to do with it. 

I still remember seeing it on a rainy Saturday in the cinemas… 

Also the way times have changed. Now, that a film like that would get a pretty good theatrical release in the UK was amazing. Pathe really got behind it. It was riding the cusp of that new wave of horror films that were coming in then. To get a really good theatrical release, a really good campaign behind it. A film like that probably wouldn’t get that now. 

One of the reasons it has lasted so long is that it has so many memorable moments. Which are the scenes that people always want to talk about with you?

“Sausages” (laughs), “I hope I give you the shits!” stuff like that. It’s the characters ultimately that everybody loves. They love Sean Pertwee, Darren Morfitt’s Spoon, and Cooper – Kevin McKidd – so it’s always about the characters. I mean, people love the werewolves, they say it’s a great werewolf movie, but I think it’s the characters that they prefer. People are quoting me a lot, I’m always getting quoted on it, so I think that sticks in people’s minds.

We re-watched it in our house recently and that bit with the guts still lands. I know someone who is waiting for a hernia op, if it takes too much longer we’ll have to resort to the superglue. 

Yeah, fix it up with superglue! That whole conversation came out…it wasn’t in the original script. I started speaking to Bob Keen who was making the werewolves for us and he mentioned in conversation somewhere about superglue being invented for the Vietnam war to stitch back soldiers on the battlefield. I just thought that was too interesting to not have in the script. I immediately replaced the needle and thread with superglue. That’s the kind of thing that people remember. The fact that Sean is just so hilarious in that scene… he was a little bit tipsy and it comes off. The first punch misses and the second punch didn’t, and it’s stuff like that that was kind of improvised on set as well with me and the actors. It was just the perfect combination of the right actors, the right timing and me, and everything thrown into the mix there that created cinema magic. 

Talking of Sean, you’ve worked with him a few times now. What is it about him as an actor that makes him such a good collaborator?

I think it’s maybe because he’s just such a lovely guy. He’s just such a lovely, lovely guy, and so loyal. I’ll never forget that when we first cast him in Dog Soldiers, it was maybe a year to year a half before we even made the film. He basically just said, “look I love the film, I want to do the film. If my name helps you get it made, use my name, whatever, and I’ll just be standing by when you get the money.” He was true to his word. He stuck with us all that time, we got the money together and he was, “great, let’s do it”. 

He’s just a joy to work with. Utterly professional, but at the same time, great for having a laugh with on set. I think he, in a way, became the leader of the group. As his role was as well. But off-screen, he was kind of the de facto leader of the group, and he inspired the group. There was such a camaraderie within that group of actors. I swear to God those guys would have fought and died for each other by the end of that film. They were so tight knit as a group of friends and a group of actors and colleagues. I think Sean helped create that. He was a big part of that.

Then you repaid him by feeding him to the cannibals in Doomsday. 

Working with Sean is a pleasure, killing Sean is an equal pleasure. I’m always trying to find new ways to kill him, especially after Dog Soldiers. Feeding him to the cannibals I think is the reason why he did that movie. He just thought it was one of the best death scenes he’d ever read. Thankfully I’ve just been able to work with him again, and got to kill him off again (laughs). 

Dog Soldiers has got this snazzy new 4K restoration, but am I right in thinking that it almost didn’t happen at all?

It almost didn’t, no. I was approached a few years ago by Shout! Factory in the US to do a new bluray for them. We couldn’t find the neg for the film. The negative had vanished! They searched the lab and we went through all the distributors and everything and we could not find the negative, which was fairly terrifying to think that the negative could be lost somewhere. We ended up doing that bluray based on a 35mm print that I managed to locate. A brand new 35mm print, and that was the best that we could do. So it was okay, but it wasn’t great. Then the producer, Chris Figg, informed me a year or two after, that he’d managed to find the neg – it was lost in a basement of a lab in an unmarked box somewhere. He arranged to do a 4K transfer. Then the first people to pick it up… it was a German company that did a 4K bluray the last year, or year before, and then finally Vertigo have picked it up now for the UK release. It’s like, at last we’re going to get a beautiful 4K restoration from the neg, exactly how it was intended to be. 

I think that is what’s so important about 4K releases. There are so many that tout on the box that it’s a 4K release, but it’s not necessarily a fully restored version of the film.

That’s the thing, because you could do a 4K from a really bad print. It would be 4K, but it would be terrible quality. But this is…we went back to the original material. It’s been a full restoration. It’s all been cleaned up and everything. It’s as good as it can possibly be. The only problem for me is that I don’t actually have a 4K TV to watch it on so I’m going to have to invest. 

You mentioned your new film earlier, The Reckoning. It’s screening at FrightFest on 23rd October, what can you share about that one?

It’s actually returning in a way, to my Dog Soldiers roots. Doing a low-budget horror movie, which I haven’t done for a long time. It was just a real pleasure to get back into that world. To reunite with Sean as well because we haven’t worked together for a long time, so it was just a pleasure to have Sean back and put together this wonderful ensemble of incredible British actors. Just an absolute pleasure to do a new horror movie. 

It’s just really sad with FrightFest, because I was so looking forward to seeing it on the big screen in Leicester Square. Then it’s all been knocked on the head now, and it’s an online event. I’m glad to be a part of FrightFest, I love FrightFest, but I’m gutted that I won’t get to see it with an audience. As a director you love to at least once see your film on screen with an audience. 

Am I right in thinking it’s set around the plague, so as much as it has an old world setting, it feels timely.

Yeah, by an alarming coincidence it’s set in 1665, which is the year of the Great Plague in Britain. Obviously we made this last year. We had no clue what was going to happen. It’s not about the plague per-se, that’s more of the backdrop of the story. It’s actually about witch hunts, which are equally relevant in today’s society, and that was the plan. But the plague thing is just bizarre. So yeah, it’s full of plague doctors, it’s like a medieval version of lockdown. 

It looks like we’ll all be spending Halloween indoors, with that in mind what would your horror movie recommendation be?

I think you should do a werewolf triple-bill of Dog Soldiers, The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London. I think that would be a good evening in. 

Out of all the movie monsters, werewolves are almost like the ugly sister, there are so many vampire and zombie films, but not many werewolf films. Why do you think people are so afraid to make these movies? 

I don’t think they’re afraid of them, I think it’s a practical consideration. Vampires, all you really need is a set of fangs and maybe some contact lenses. Zombies are kind of relatively easy as well. They’re both essentially still humans, but in disguise or make-up. Whereas werewolves are a lot more complicated and therefore more expensive to do. I think that’s the big reason why there’s not so many werewolves done. But there have been some really great ones over the last few years. There’s a new one coming out – The Wolf of Snow Hollow, I think it was one of Rob Forster’s last movies, that looks great fun. For me, it’s just lovely to see any werewolf movie that comes along. 

The new Conjuring is meant to have some werewolf aspect to it, and there’s a new Wolf Man in development, so I think there might be something of a resurgence about to happen.

Okay, maybe time for Dog Soldiers 2 then. 

The 4K restoration version of Dog Soldiers is out now on digital.

Kat Hughes is a UK born film critic and interviewer who has a passion for horror films. An editor for THN, Kat is also a Rotten Tomatoes Approved Critic. She has bylines with Ghouls Magazine, Arrow Video, Film Stories, Certified Forgotten and FILMHOUNDS and has had essays published in home entertainment releases by Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight. When not writing about horror, Kat hosts micro podcast Movies with Mummy along with her five-year-old daughter.

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