In America, popular culture from other countries tends to have little effect unless it’s produced here. Films like Braveheart and Brave are two of the more popular films that focus on Scotland and are respectful of the country’s history, whereas other icons such as The Simpsons’ Groundskeeper Willie or Star Trek’s Scotty, tend to cross over into parody. Scotland’s current fight for independence is virtually ignored here in the states, where it’s far more important to cover the Kardashians and football players beating women.
Fortunately, there is plenty of commentary online including satire in the form of Lotto Land Scot-Pop Posters and celebrities are also voicing their opinions, with Sean Connery, Gerard Butler, Alan Cumming and Brian Cox siding with Scottish independence and Helena Bonham Carter , Simon Cowell, Judi Dench, Mick Jagger, J.K. Rowling, Patrick Stewart, Sting and David Tennant supporting that Scotland remain united with the rest of the U.K.
Whatever the decision winds up being, here are five of our favorite movies set in Scotland.
I know what you’re saying. I don’t remember Hellboy taking place in Scotland. Listen, friend, you’d be wrong. As a matter of fact, it’s the setting of the prologue that brings Hellboy to Earth in 1944.
The Nazis have built a dimensional portal off the coast of Scotland and have enlisted Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin to help them free the monstrous entities known as the Ogdru Jahad to aid them in defeating the Allies. An Allied team is sent to destroy the portal, with Trevor Bruttenholm guiding them and ultimately not before the portal is destroyed and something from the other side came through the portal. An infant demon with a stone hand who Bruttenholm adopts; a baby “Hellboy”.
Highlander
Connor MacLeod, an immortal Highlander finds himself facing off against the Kurgan, a mercenary who has been tracking him since 1536. We follow Connor back and forth from different eras of his past to the present (1985), where the Scottish warrior applies the centuries of knowledge given to him by his mentor Ramirez to fight and defeat (by beheading) the Kurgan with his katana.
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
The great Billy Wilder co-writes and directs this fantastic film about the latter days of Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson, which finds the pair investigating a case that takes them from Baker Street to the Scotland Highlands, where they are looking for a missing engineer. An adventure, which has them encounter some midgets, a group of monks and at least as witnessed by Watson, the Loch Ness monster.
Trainspotting
Based on the cult novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting is set in the late 1980s and follows a group of heroin addicts in a economically depressed area of Edinburgh. The film was a critical and commercial success and further established the careers of director Danny Boyle and stars Ewan McGregor, Ewen, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kevin McKidd and Kelly Macdonald.
Dog Soldiers
Written and directed by Neil Marshall and starring Kevin McKidd and Sean Pertwee, Dog Soldiers is set in the Scottish Highlands where a soldier and his training troop face off against unseen predators, which ultimately reveal themselves to be werewolves.
