The filmmakers were introduced to the Victor Film Company as a sales agent, who introduced them to producer Christopher Figg. It might seem odd that a film released just over 20 years ago has required a restoration, but Dog Soldiers’ original negative was missing-in-action for some time before resurfacing in the last few years, in need of some fairy dust. The results are a dramatic improvement, to say the least, though there are still some limitations due to the source. Digitally there are no compression issues, the source is clean and bright, and that beautiful grain structure give a wonderful filmic presentation. A teaser trailer for the series was filmed in northwest Arkansas over the last weekend of August 2011.

The US blurays were based on cinema prints with the 2009 First Look Studios release being very rough while the 2015 Shout release was marginally better but screwed by changes to colour temperatures and brightness in many day for night shots. There have been previous Blu-ray releases (only available here as US imports), but these were limited by the inferior source materials available at the time.This horror comedy may seem a mile away from where Marshall next went, but there is a reason Dog Soldiers works, and it is in fact a bloody entertaining film.

Just look at the only other lycanthrope film of that period - An American werewolf in Paris - to see how everybody was using the new technology, and how bad it looks now.

He admits that he got carried away with the references in the film, though he does helpfully identify some of them. The 16 mm camera negative was scanned at 4K resolution by Silver Salt Restoration in the UK, with an interpositive being used for several effects shots. Interestingly the character of Spoon wasn’t originally named that way as a setup for the reference to The Matrix; that was a brainstorm that Marshall had later on during the production.

On a routine training mission in the Scottish Highlands, a small squad of British soldiers come across the bloody remains of a Special Forces team with a sole survivor. Sean Pertwee’s Cockney babble played so full-on it hurts, and football considered life or death - not merely a game. The score makes good use of the surround environment, there is good separation throughout; in all a top notch track. It would have been nice to see a brief featurette about the film’s extensive restoration, which appears to have been quite an undertaking, but that’s a minor gripe from a techy anorak. With the exception of the Photo Gallery, the rest of the extras date back to the 2003 DVD from Pathe that was released in the UK.

She also reveals that she unlocked the back door to the house, allowing the other werewolves to get inside. Soldiers: The Making of Dog Soldiers is an hour-long documentary about the production, produced and edited by Aine Leicht.

The newly-recorded commentary track features Allison Peirse, who is an associate professor at the University of Leeds, as well as the author of four books including Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre. Wells and Cooper shoot through the floor upstairs to elude the werewolves and drop into the kitchen, where they find Spoon's remains. Thankfully, Second Sight films was able to track down the original elements to produce this new digital restoration.Produced at a time when massive strides in digital film-making were just around the corner, the film (like contemporaneous releases Dark Water and Donnie Darko) marks the end of era for independent horror films, as expensive celluloid was eschewed for the new technology and, if it had been produced just a few years later, Dog Soldiers would likely be a very different looking film. The contrast range has been greatly improved, not by expanding either of the extreme ends of the spectrum, but instead by increasing all of the gradations in between. During a routine training mission in the Scottish Highlands, a small squad of happy-go-lucky British soldiers, including Cooper (Kevin McKidd – Trainspotting), led by Sergeant Wells (Sean Pertwee – Event Horizon, Gotham), plan to join a Special Operations unit… but when they arrive all they find is bloody remains – and only one survivor, C. She pauses a few times, and she also describes the action on the screen occasionally, but this is still a fantastic commentary track, since it examines the film in a different light. There are some lovely effects on show: the helicopter in the beginning, the various gunshots, the howling, upstairs footsteps, bullets whizzing past your head, etc.