It is October the First.  We are well on our way to Halloween folks, and in case you don’t know:  all of us here at Literal Remains LOVE Halloween.  I’m not sure at what point Halloween switched from honoring the souls of the departed in our society and became synonymous with horror, but there you have it.  It has really and truly traveled far from its roots.

But the reason I’m here today talking with you, is that I thought it would be fun to have this countdown to Halloween.  I got the idea a while back from this blog Horror Movie A Day; this fan watches a horror movie every day and reviews it.  My hats off to that blogger.  So, I thought it being October, I would recommend a horror movie (or film in like vein) each day of the month.  It would, of course be a movie I adore (or at least like enough to recommend), and I thought, just to make me think a little, it would have to be one I’ve not reviewed or recommended under the Buried Treasures and Guilty Pleasures category.  I also, just probably, will include a story or book or two also on this countdown.

So lets begin shall we….

For the inaugural October Countdown to Halloween, I have to recommend Dog Soldiers.  Simply put, Dog Soldiers kicks ass.


A squad of British soldiers are in the Scottish Highlands in war games against a Special Forces unit.  They find the Special Forces unit slaughtered, all dead but their commander.  The squad rescue him, learning there is something else out and about, and they have to haul out of there right then because it’s coming for them.

The things coming for them, naturally, are werewolves.  The squad find themselves temporarily saved by a local woman and then trapped in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with the vicious werewolves circling them, trying to make the soldiers their evening meal.

Dog Soldiers was written and directed by Neil Marshall, who would go on to make the practically perfect The Descent and the silly, yet fun, Doomsday.  What Marshall and his team created with Dog Soldiers is a classic movie, timeless, fun, and thrilling.  It doesn’t get any better than this; if you’re looking for a good movie, be it action or horror, you have got to watch it.  Every horror fan should have this in their DVD library.

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