Kismet Entertainment Group, 2002

starring: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, and Liam Cunningham

directed by: Neil Marshall

the plot: A unit of British soldiers is sent into the woods of Scotland to engage in training exercises. However, they soon find their special ops rivals slaughtered, except for their commanding officer, Captain Ryan (Cunningham), who barely clings to life and raves about his men being torn to pieces. Soon enough, the grunts find themselves being attacked by werewolves. With daybreak hours away, the soldiers hole up in a suspiciously empty farmhouse and struggle to survive a siege by the cunning monsters.

why it’s good: Look, folks, this movie has an extended sequence where one of the soldiers engages in hand-to-hand combat with a seven-foot-tall werewolf in the kitchen of a cabin—and it’s amazing. Beyond that, this is a movie that just does all the essential things right. You’re given a group of characters you can care about: the Sarge (Pertwee) and Pvt. Cooper (McKidd) have great chemistry, Spoon (Darren Morfitt) and Joe (Chris Robson) steal scenes left and right, and Captain Ryan is the perfect evil-for-evil’s-sake kind of slimy bastard you love to hate. The soldiers’ dialogue is snappy, smart, and gives you a sense of the camaraderie the characters are meant to share. And they act like soldiers; even when they’re initially skeptical that the threat they’re facing is supernatural, they still respond to it with military tactics, and, once their resources begin to run out, with ingenuity (for example, the flash of a camera is put to effective use once the group starts running low on bullets). The film does a tremendous job of giving you glimpses and snippets of the wolves, building tension, generating mystique, before finally offering the full reveal. When that reveal hits, the werewolf effects are impressive, done almost entirely with makeup, costumes and animatronics so they really hold up. The monsters are imposing, tall, lanky things that appear stronger and faster than the protagonists. The end result is the true core of horror: you can’t help but identify with the good guys, and when terrible things start happening to them, you feel it in your gut.

why you should own it: This is essential viewing for fans of werewolves, horror, and practical special effects, as well as people who like listening to Scottish and British accents. It’s been distributed in the States by a couple of companies, so if you look around, you can find it on DVD for cheap. Artisan Home Entertainment’s DVD release has a commentary track by the producer and a pretty neat behind-the-scenes featurette. But even if you can only find a bargain-basement VHS copy that sounds like a cat being stepped on whenever the soundtrack peaks, grab it; this film is a must.