Yeah, Dog Soldiers is just cheesy campy fun. Some lines just cracked me up. "Sausagessssss"

Yeah,yeah,yeah...I know my"ending" was stolen from "Night of the Living Dead". Thanks for paying attention. So, in other words, nothing in the movie really happened?
Does anyone remember "Jacob's Ladder"...the last episode of "St Elsewhere"?...I could go on, but if you only saw the American version of the movie, you assume she got out alive, only to end with Juno sitting next to her. What a crock of you know what! Like the DVD Talk reviewer said, they made a movie & didn't know how to end it. She's alive...she's dead...it really happened...it didn't happen. So far, no one has given me a satisfying answer. And, OK...change my "Night of the Living Dead" ending to something else...say the heroine is racing down the mountain highway...sees Juno pop up next to her... screams & swerves into the path of that semi hauling the cut down lumber... crash..explosion... mangled beyond recognition SUV in flames... fade to black...then show the snapshot of the 6 women standing by the cabin. In other words, you're rooting for the sole survivor to make it out but...NO ONE SURVIVES! C'Mon,it would have been different. Somebody always lives to tell the story. Anyway, anything would have been better than either ending I saw.

Where are you drawing that conclusion from? Everything happened, but in the US ending

I gotta tell ya, your ability to analyze a film is pretty dreadful. The group of women are British. The opening scene takes place in England (notice the left-handed driving position). They come to America on an adventure trip. Not real complicated. And Seantn has addressed the second part.

Also, some of us like unhappy, aka "realistic", endings (I prefer the UK version).

Jesus H Christ! I know the beginning takes place in England! I stayed to the bitter end of the credits to see where it was filmed & virtually everything was filmed in England. Technically,for 6 British women to come to N.C. & master driving American vehicles & going by American traffic rules just amazes me( there were 2 drivers & have you been in the backwoods of N Carolina?I have). I just can't picture 6 American women going to Britain doing the same thing by British rules. I am seriously trying NOT to read so much into this film. I really LIKED most of the film, except for the ending(s).Can ANYONE tell me what their interpretation of the ending is?? US = she makes it out alive...sees real( imagined Juno??).. Fade to black.. OR...
UK = imagines she got out...sees dead daughter blowing out B-Day cake...Fade to black.
Forget all my so-called "endings" to the movie. When I told my son of the UK ending, we both STILL said " WHAT???" The UK ending negates the US ending. Everyone who saw the US version thinks she got out, however unbelievable it turned out. But the UK version puts her back in the bottom of the cave...end of story.
You say Seantu addresses the second part, but on my computer, it's all blacked out, so I don't know what he said. All we want is some kind of ending that makes sense. I don't think I'm asking for too much. Maybe a director's commentary?

Scroll over the blacked out text and it becomes visible. I put it in "Spoiler text" so that someone who hasn't seen the film and is just wanting some info on the movie won't have the ending spoiled. At this point, it actually doesn't matter since a lot of the thread is about the ending.

Maybe the "spoiler" ending I saw( UK) version isn't what all of you have seen. I didn't get the impression that she died after seeing her daughter at a birthday cake. It's "implied" that she died? Sorry,I didn't feel that way. Anyway, I've spent WAY too much time on this subject. I'll wait for the DVD to come out.

Maybe you should stick to coloring books?

You can't be serious...lol

Wow.

I think all that Triplem is asking is why set the story in America when it could just as easily be set in England (where it was filmed)? Nothing about the women's ordeal was specific to the USA. And nothing about these women struck me as globe-trotting adventurers. It was a simple question. I'm not sure why it provoked such animosity.

As for the ending, I'm still surprised that people are still bickering over end ending sucked less, but nobody seems to care the the "hero" basically murdered one of her friends. That's why I prefer the British ending - I'm glad that bitch didn't make it out either.

I wonder if the film was set in the Appalachias to really drive home the "Deliverance" allusions?

The British ending, while not providing a terminal explanation, implies rather strongly that Sarah killed everyone... not just Juno.

And what kind of friend is Juno, after all? Not only did she have an affair with Sarah's late husband, but her efforts to coax Sarah out of the deep funk she feels from her husband and daughter's death is to trick her and all her friends into going spelunking in a completely uncharted cave? And,then, after they're all completely lost and desperate and freaking out, Juno accidentally slits the throat of one of her "friends"... and then leaves her there to die? (But fortunately not entirely dead so that later she can confirm to Sarah that Juno really did have an affair with Paul.)

Man, I think that bitch Juno deserved to die. The rest of Sarah's friends? Not so much. But in Sarah's defense, she was more than a little crazy!

Bought this film while I was over in the UK a few weeks ago. Since it opened in the U.S. the day I left. And watched in my hotel over there (I have an all regional player as well back here in the states). I thought the movie was good, not great. But HEAPS better than any of the slasher/horror films released within the last few years. I also agree with those who said it took way too long to get to the action. The "acting" is not what people go into this movie for. And the bonding/set up scenes with the women seemed to drag on forever. However, once in the caves, hot damn. I'd give this film a solid *** out of ****.

Because she's sitting alone hallucinating about her daughter with not a monster in sight? Maybe they attacked 2 min after the credits rolled.
Seriously, I don't believe there's enough evidence to support the "it was all a hallucination" theory.

You think Sarah killed everyone? I think some people are looking way too deeply into this. I don't see where you would gather that she killed anyone but Juno (and the mercy-killing of her dying friend).

And as for Juno- she killed Juno not only because Juno was sleeping with her husband, but because Juno had stabbed their friend in the throat, and even though it was an accident, she left her to die alone. Juno got what she deserved, even though she was heroic when fighting the monsters.

Remember, Sarah doesn't know that Juno's "killing" of her friend was an accident. Based on what she learned ("Juno did this to me"), she most likely assumes that Juno stabbed her intentionally. She was, in her mind, delivering some payback.

Not to mention the fact that you can clearly hear the monsters as the movie ends.

That's what I was thinking.

The following points are derived from a discussion from the criterion forum (w/props to D1YE for starting the list):
When Sarah awakens in the hospital, her susceptibility to hallucinations is made clear as darkness pursues her down the hospital corridors, though she is in fact conscious through this episode as Becca catches and embraces her while Juno looks on. (In the Director's commentary, he notes that he originally wanted Sarah to hallucinate a crawler at the hospital, but decided that would be too obvious).

Sarah frequently hears her dead daughter Jessica giggling while mentally conscious and is haunted by constant nightmares about her and the accident in her sleep.

We see Sarah taking medication in the cabin, likely an anti-psychotic to battle her hallucinations. When the girls leave to go caving, the camera lingers on the forgotten bottle sitting on Sarah's nightstand.

As they hike to the cave, the med student sister (name?) ticked off a litany of possible psychological problems that can arise while caving, from anxiety and claustrophobia all the way to full-on hallucinations and psychosis. At this point, Sarah's weakened psychological state is foremost in our minds, and we already know from the scenes at the hospital that she's susceptible to hallucinations. And we had just seen her forgotten medication.

Sarah is the first one to see the crawlers.

After a few big scares and a near-death episode (the cave-in), the group discovers that Juno has tricked them into exploring an uncharted cave - they either find their own way out or die. Many cuts to Sarah growing more an more anxious and unstable as events continue spiraling out of control.

The crawlers' behavior is unusual around Sarah, as though they might be delusions accompanying a psychotic episode. Note how often the crawlers seem to have Sarah dead to rites, only to be beaten back by the seemingly weaker Sarah. Implication is that she is fighting off her own delusions... not real monsters.

Sarah screams in the blood cave the audience hears her scream, through Marshall's editing, cuts to Juno, Becca, and Sam, the fading echo of the scream is that of a crawler. I forget if its the same scream or a different scream, but there was also a jump cut "morph" at the moment of Sarah/the Crawler's scream where Sarah's head turns into a crawler's (round about the 58:50 mark on the UK PAL dvd).

After Sarah falls down the hole and knocks herself out, "dreaming" of her escape, she "awakens" on her belly in a crawling stance with one limb twisted oddly behind her back in a way that calls to mind the movements of the crawlers. The director alludes to this in the commentary as more indicia that "sarah = crawler".

Finally, she "awakens" to the further delusion of her daughter, Jessica, and a birthday cake, the very cake that had only five candles until the final scene where it now has six candles. Sorta perplexing... Could it be five candles for the five doomed cavers, and then six when Sarah accepts her own demise, joining her daughter in death on the one-year anniversary of the accident?

"The Descent". Merely a descent into a cave? Or a descent into madness?

Not to mention the fact that Juno is also responsible for all the other deaths as well since she deceived everyone by taking them to a dangerous/unexplored cavern.

In the commentary track the director mentions the continuity error here, so I think this one's a bit of a stretch. And while so far I'm going with just the end part being the hallucination, it will be fun to re-watch this one with your other ideas in mind. Got a link for the discussion you're talking about?

Lots of good stuff in this flick, especially once they get into the cave a bit. I really love the final shot:

I liked lion's gate ending the ending on dvd is just too confusing. To be honest i'm still not sure what it all meant.

They both work about the same, the US ending



the original/dvd ending



That said, it's still up in the air if

I just watched this last Sunday night, and I was convinced at the end that I saw it as a little like High Tension that

Loved the movie. Saw it about a week ago. Very cool with lots of thrills. Loved the confinement of the caves. Not sure I understand why they couldn't release the UK version here though. Teh remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a done ending as was Burnt Offerings but those were in the 70's.
I do like Liquid Sky's ending suggestion too though.