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A bunch of British squaddies on a training exercise in the Scottish highlands encounter more than they'd bargained for in the grungey debut feature for The Descent director Neil Marshall.

Marshall felt that the angst of turning into a beast had been done to death in werewolf movies. Instead he preferred the idea of a giant, savage, super-strong feral beast purely as a monstrous antagonist.

Dog Soldiers's pitch is essentially a simple siege movie. Six soldiers have to survive in a house attacked by werewolves until morning, when the wolves revert to their normal form. It's a no frills premise that allows Marshall to play with the punchy, blood-splattered battle skills he would showcase on a larger scale at Game Of Thrones's Blackwater and Castle Black.

A game set of "always plays soldiers" character actors including Kevin McKidd, Liam Cunningham and Sean Pertwee gives Dog Soldiers a colourful, well-drawn cast who approach a horde of monsters with gallows humour.

Ultimately, Dog Soldiers is an unpretentious, gory, action horror romp. It's a basic setup, but Marshall's adeptness with managing tension, pace and audience engagement make it succeed where other monster siege movies don't.