Movie Review - Werewolves

It’s a shame that the 80s action movie is a relic of its time and likely not to be revived any time soon, because, man, after watching Werewolves, I gotta tell you, I think Frank Grillo would’ve nailed it in that genre.

Let’s just dive right into it:

One year ago, a Supermoon event turned millions of people into werewolves. With a new Supermoon event on the horizon, scientists scramble to put the finishing touches on a potential cure. Can the process be perfected in time? Or will humanity have to face another night of terror as once again the wolves come out to feed?

The first thing you have to know going into this film as this is a no-brainer. Just…don’t think. It’s a ride, just go with it. There are things they forget at first but remember later on, you know, like the fact that wolves have a damn good sense of smell. But like I said, we’re not thinking about that. The other thing you need to know is that there’s really nothing new here. It’s literally like a roller coaster, you see the next hill or loop coming but that never really takes away from your experience. Well…at least for me it didn’t. By the time we’re about 15 minutes into the movie, you’re pretty sure of who’s going to live, who’s gonna die and so on.

With all of that said, why did I love this movie? I think for me, what Werewolves gets right is its influences. Liken it to a recipe, each of the ingredients may be great on their own, but put them together in a certain way and prepare it just right and…chef’s kiss.

Let’s start with the premise itself. The Supermoon, which is little more than a simple celestial event where a full moon occurs at the point the moon is closest to the Earth. Nothing special about it, just the moon looking bigger and brighter than usual. But…what if? And that’s it. That’s all the explanation we get. And it’s not important. Like Romero’s zombies in Night of the Living Dead, brought back to life by something so ordinary as a returning space probe, given to us in one simple sentence and then the newscaster moves on. And as well he should. That’s not the threat. The threat is what’s beating on the walls and doors, trying to get in. I love that Werewolves opts for this approach. Are we told why the Supermoon event is doing this? Nope. I mean, I think they try to inject some bio-babble in there, but again, it’s at the very beginning of the film and is never revisited. It’s as if even the writers came to the conclusion that ‘You know what? This doesn’t matter, just get on with it’. They get right up to the line that would likely break the film and then they take the sensible ‘drive-in’ approach in “not letting the plot get in the way of the story”.

Since we’re talking story, let’s just get this bit out of the way. The film’s narrative is set on parallel storylines. In our first, we have Grillo’s Wes Marshall trying to get home to his late brother’s family once things go south at the lab. [I’d say spoiler warning, but come on, you KNEW something was gonna happen…something ALWAYS happens! – Ed.] Our second story then, predictably, is said family…his sister-in-law and his niece…protecting themselves from an unfolding night of terrors. And this is where we have to talk about Ben Cortman. No, no, no, there’s no character with that name in this film but instead, he proves to be an inspiration for a character. For those of you that have read Richard Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend’ (and if you haven’t, I’d highly encourage you to do so) Ben’s pretty familiar to you. You see, in that story, Ben was main character Robert Neville’s best friend and neighbor. That changed when the vampiric virus broke out. Now turned, Ben uses everything he knows about Neville to torment his former friend, either to drive Neville out of his mind or lure him out just long enough to feed on him. Here, our ‘Ben Cortman’ is the neighbor Cody. Now, it’s pretty clear in the beginning that Wes and Cody DO NOT like each other…but once Cody gets a full moonlight bath, he uses everything he knows about his neighbor to do his level best to torment poor Lucy and Emma. And like the above, while there’s nothing new in this, you do have to applaud the filmmakers to know enough to draw from this particular influence.

The titular werewolves we get in the film look to draw inspiration from those in Dog Soldiers mixed with those from the Underworld series of films. Sitting through the end credits, I have to admit that I was surprised to see that these creatures were brought to life by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., mostly known for their work on a fair share of the Alien films. Why do I say surprised? Well…unfortunately, they’re not great. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something about the snouts and teeth that just feel…cheap. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that the werewolves here are 90% practical…it looks like CG was only used to assist on the transformations…need to be commended. Too many films, both big budget and small, would’ve opted for CG any time a creature was on screen, but just like Dog Soldiers, I think practical was the right call here. Unlike Dog Soldiers though, well, that film knew enough to keep their practical wolf largely confined to the shadows. I don’t know if it was poor coordination with the cinematographer or hubris on Gillis & Woodruff’s part or some other reason, but this film really wants to show off its creatures and for reasons both narratively and effects-wise…that wasn’t necessarily the best idea. To wrap this paragraph on a positive note, the little girl werewolf was a clever play…and both the writers and the effects folks deserve props for that one.

While I’m talking about negatives, there’s one other thing to highlight…what I like to call “Denise Richards disease”. This name comes from the titular actress’s appearance in the Bond film ‘The World is not Enough’ with Pierce Brosnan. In that, she plays a nuclear weapons expert…a role she is utterly unbelievable as. The same can be said here of Frank Grillo’s Wes. You see, we’re supposed to believe Wes is a molecular biologist. No. Just…no. When we’re first introduced to him, we see him prepping his late brother’s house for the night to come. As we go inside, we’re given clues…his brother was a fire fighter and apparently they both served together as soldiers. See, now that last bit, given what we know and given the actor himself, is completely believable. If we were told he was head of security of the lab working on the ‘cure’, fine. Again, believable. But to be told that he’s one of the molecular biologists behind said cure? Uh-huh, sure. And Bruce Campbell’s Ash is the very embodiment of ‘the chosen one’ in the classic Hero’s Journey story.

There’s one last thing I want to address and it’s a fairly common criticism of the film: if this is a worldwide event, why do we see so few actual werewolves? Honestly, I think the film goes about this in a smart way: our story isn’t the worldwide outbreak…it’s Wes’s story. You see, you only know if you’re in a box if you look outward. Instead, the story is constructed in a way where we’re always looking inside the box. The movie takes place in Miami, so that’s where we focus. To bring Romero into this discussion again, he was the master of this…or at least with his early Dead films. Night focused on the farmhouse, Dawn the shopping mall and Day the military base. Yes, the zombie outbreak was a worldwide problem…but in order to get to that problem, they had to survive the immediate one. Werewolves espouses this approach as well, and as such, really had just the right amount of creatures needed for its story.

There’s the old saying that “good artists copy, great artists steal”. Werewolves falls somewhere in the middle, nothing is specifically copied and nothing is stolen, but the film does wear its inspiration from other horror classics on its sleeve. So while what we see before us offers little in the way of surprise, horror nerds will have fun picking out the ‘easter eggs’ as it were, as I’m sure there are other inspirations that I didn’t mention here. Ultimately, the film is like a roller coaster you’ve ridden a hundred times; either you find the ride fun and will always line up for another go, or you’re sick of it and you’ll sit this one out while your friends who fall in the first group go ahead and take a spin. This reviewer falls in the former and as such, we give Werewolves our Happy Cat rating. It’s nothing new, but it sure is fun.