And, seeing as here at BthroughZ we're all about the horror, this got me thinking about how great it can be when the action movie teams do battle with monsters. So - keeping it nice and simple - here's my personal top five Soldiers Versus Monsters movies.

5) VAMPIRES
John Carpenter
1998

It was John Carpenter's last real hit - the anaemic Ghosts of Mars best left forgotten - and while it's never going to get a glowing mention alongside Halloween or The Thing whenever anyone writes up a retrospective of his career, Vampires is still a decent bit of Friday night beer-and-pizza entertainment. And the team element is a big part of what makes it entertaining. That whole opening sequence, with the Slayers rolling up to the desert shack in their jeeps under a blazing sun; clambering out all thick with bravado, with stogies in their mouths and stubble on their chins; busting in all cool with crossbows and machine guns, taking out the vampires one at a time via that cool winch mechanism. Sure, one might ask why they don't just rip the whole damn building down rather than methodically removing each vamp, but hey, that's what being bad-ass is all about. After all, who else but an arrogant thug drowning in his own testosterone could hunt and kill vampires for a living?

Of course, within about fifteen minutes Thomas Ian Griffith's Master Vamp takes out pretty much the whole team in an amusingly excessive manner, after which the whole enterprise is considerably less interesting. But when was the last time you saw James Woods having that much fun? Looking very comfortable in the leather jacket, shades and 501's, he's one of the few Carpenter leading men to not feel like a pale imitation of Kurt Russell, bringing his own brand of vibrant, violent verbosity to the show, and never shying away from the inherent trashiness of it all.

4) LAND OF THE DEAD
George A Romero
2005

I'm compelled to mention this one, as I don't think it gets the love it deserves. No, it's not quite on a par with Romero's initial Dead trilogy, but it pisses on Diary from a great height. And the main thing Land doesn't seem to get recognition for is being a great kick-ass team movie. The zombies are in fact largely background figures, as the principle storyline follows a unit sent out to the no-man's land of Pittsburgh to eliminate the terrorist threat posed by rogue henchman John Leguizamo, who has seized the key weapon in the war against the living dead - the super-truck Dead Reckoning (which was the movie's original title, and a much better one in my estimation).

Simon Baker might be a little nondescript, but he's a sturdy enough leading man, fitting well into the role of the blue collar, world-weary cynic Riley. The interplay between him and Robert Joy's Charlie, the simple guy who feels honour-bound to stay by Riley's side, is endearing and centres on the classic team movie ethics of loyalty, duty and valour. Then, of course, there's Asia Argento - and while she may be laboured with a pretty thankless part, she's always a pleasure to see onscreen, not least in her first appearance, dressed up in leather and fishnets in a cage fight against two zombies. Woof.

Land is also one of those rare team movies in which the bulk of them make it out of there alive, the finale promising they'd live to fight another day - which, at the time, Romero said they would indeed do, proposing his first direct sequel under the provisional title Road of the Dead, which would have followed the team in Dead Reckoning on their journey to the Canadian promised land. Surely I'm not the only one would have preferred it if Romero had done that, rather than what came to pass. I'm not sure I can adequately surmise how badly Diary of the Dead broke my heart.

3) BLADE 2
Guillermo Del Toro
2002

While I'm not sure I'd say, as some have, that Del Toro's take on the Daywalker is a better film than Stephen Norrington's original, Blade 2 is a terrific sequel that really stands on its own merits - and once again, it's the team element that really makes it stand apart. The original was all about Blade, giving Wesley Snipes plenty to sink his teeth into (will the day ever come when one can write about vampires without tooth/bite/blood related puns?); but in many respects, Blade is really the least interesting part of this movie, in which he is coerced into working alongside elite vampire military unit the Blood Pack, to take on the new threat of the Reapers: vicious, bald, vagina-faced vamps on crack.

Del Toro's distinctive sensibilities are on full display here. He's better than most at transferring comic book sensibilities to the screen, which comes in handy as the Blood Pack swagger through cavernous sewers in their shiny black body armour in search of 'suck puppies.' With the team including a pre-Hellboy Ron Perlman, martial artist Donnie Yen, Red Dwarf's Danny John-Jules, The Fast & The Furious/The Transporter heavy Matt Schulze, and the very sultry Leonor Varela, there's a fun blend of personalities in there. All the while there's a lovely simmering tension between the vampires and the vampire killer, the escalating conflict between Snipes and Perlman being a particular pleasure to watch.

Sure, the reasons for bringing Blade into the fold are never particularly convincing, and you can see the third-act double cross coming a mile away. But while it lasts it's great fun to see Blade playing Hannibal to his very own undead A-Team. They're a far more likeable bunch than the ones David Goyer threw together for the piss-poor franchise killer Blade: Trinity, at any rate.

2) PREDATOR
John McTiernan
1987

Has there ever been a film so positively swimming in testosterone as this? A unit of the toughest, gruffest, biggest, burliest, sweatiest macho men ever put together onscreen, plunged into the claustrophobia of an impenetrable jungle, facing off against a formidable, invisible, extra-terrestrial adversary. It could so easily have wound up a spectacle of profound stupidity - but with that script, that director, that cast, that location and that monster, Predator is without doubt one of the most ass-kicking pieces of adrenaline fuelled entertainment ever made. And - yup - it's all about the team, the whole thing functioning as simply a great army movie for the first forty-five minutes or so, long before (the opening spacecraft in orbit shot aside) any hint of sci-fi enters the narrative. But once it does, and that giant dreadlocked intergalactic hunter starts bloodily picking them off one by one, things only get more exciting, until at last it's just Arnie and the Predator, unarmed, unmasked, one on one.

But while the action keeps us glued to our seats, it's the manly banter that sticks in our heads and keeps the quotes slipping endlessly from our mouths, be it the cocksure bravado Jesse Ventura ("I ain't got time to bleed!"), the nerdy humour of Shane Black ("Jeez, you got a big pussy! Jeez, you got a big pussy!"), or the all-knowing spiritual insights of Sonny Landham ("There's something hunting us, and it ain't no man"). On top of which, of course, there are the numerous classics from Arnie himself: "Stick around!" "Get to the chopper!" And the immortal, "You are one ugly motherfucker." Classic. And the whole thing only becomes more of masculine fantasia when you read about what an unruly enterprise it was filming the thing, the cast a rage of competitive machismo.

1) ALIENS
James Cameron
1986

Okay; let's see if I can find anything to say about this movie that hasn't been said a million times before. Hmmm... this is going to be even trickier than I thought. Quite simply, Cameron's approach here is exactly how any sequel should be approached: to treat the previous film with respect, but not as sacrosanct; to not simply rehash what went before a la Jaws 2 or Ghostbusters 2, but to contemplate the other places the story/concept could go and take it there. It's what Bride of Frankenstein, The Road Warrior and Evil Dead 2 did, and it's why they all stand as great films in their own right, films that do not in any way necessitate seeing the original. Ditto Aliens.

Anyway, to the point of the article: the team thing. Who doesn't find themselves shouting words to the effect of "Move out, Marines!" when heading out with a group of friends? Sure, some of that might be Full Metal Jacket, but the bulk of it is surely Aliens. They're the quintessential bunch of hot-headed short fuses who talk the talk but find themselves way out of their depth; yes, it's safe to say that writing Rambo: First Blood Part II put Cameron in very 'Nam-like state of mind. So many of us have watched the movie over and over, those characters come to feel like our own imaginary friends, little facets of our own personality. We snort with laughter at Hudson's quips, aspire to the effortless cool of Hicks, get strangely aroused by Vasquez. And, of course, Ripley is every bit as much a soldier, the only one who's really on a mission, attacking the Aliens not only to eliminate the basic physical threat, but to vanquish the demons they have become in her consciousness. Hence "Get away from her, you bitch!" is such a classic, cathartic moment, that pretty much invites you to applaud from your armchair.

I dare say this movie is Cameron's crowning achievement, along with the original Terminator. Those movies in particular stand apart from everything Cameron has done since as they are perfect examples of the filmmaker making the most of the limited resources available, rather than the indulgent, seemingly bottomless well of resources Cameron has been able to plunge into since. Next to the saccharine bombast of The Abyss, T2 and Titanic, Aliens feels profoundly understated and grown up. And for a film which features numerous gun battles, a fight between a giant alien and a woman in a robot suit, and a massive nuclear explosion to seem understated... that’s an achievement in itself.

So there we have it. To sum up... team movies are cool. Especially when the team do battle with a monster or monsters. Nuff said, I think.