Werewolves
Mixed bag creature feature is fun enough.
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Full Disclosure: I’m an online acquaintance and Facebook friend of “Werewolves” director Steven C. Miller.
“Werewolves” (now in theaters) is a throwback to the practical effects-driven creature features that proliferated the 1980s, which is both a good and bad thing. Good in that there’s a tactility to the proceedings; bad in that it brought the abundant cheesiness that’s inherent to this subgenre.
Frank Grillo stars as Wesley, a scientist/soldier who’s keeping an eye on his deceased brother’s widow Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and daughter Emma (Kamdynn Gary) after his firefighter/soldier brother Sean died during a supermoon-fueled lycanthrope outbreak the previous year. (Talk about a multitasking family! These dudes remind me of contestants from the ill-fated “American Gladiators” rip-off “Battle Dome” – “Bryce is a construction worker and a bouncer. Chad is a bouncer and a construction worker. Trevor bounces and works in construction.”)
Wesley and his colleagues Dr. James Aranda (Lou Diamond Phillips) and Amy (Katrina Law, she played Nyssa al Ghul on The CW’s Arrowverse) are attempting to quell the latest werewolf epidemic on the eve of yet another supermoon with moonscreen, a topical solution applied to the skin to block the moon’s transformative rays … no, I’m not making this shit up.
There’s a lot I dug about “Werewolves” and a lot I didn’t. The film should probably have a warning for epileptic viewers as there’s a ton of flashing/strobing lights. I like a good lens flare (Lord knows my favorite Christmas movie “Die Hard” has a ton of ‘em), but there are way too many of them here. Miller’s usual cinematographer Brandon Cox has shot a good-looking flick, but it almost plays as a J.J. Abrams parody. No joke, the stock backdrop image for “Werewolves” on Letterboxd even has a lens flare in it! I suspect a lot of these techniques were employed to obscure what was surely a limited budget.
Speaking of a limited budget, special effects legends Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. and their legion of assisting artists deserve huge props for creating their practical and radical werewolf designs with meager funds. The CG transformations by Serbian effects house Crater Studio aren’t half-bad either, but they don’t hold a candle to Rick Baker’s revolutionary work on John Landis’ “An American Werewolf in London.”
The acting and writing are a bit of a mixed bag. Grillo, who’s having a busy week between this and Max’s “Creature Commandos” and at 59 looks incredible shirtless and in a tank top, is more believable as a smartass badass as opposed to a smart-ass scientist. He seems far more comfortable saying motherfucker as opposed to molecular.
Hadera is a lovely woman and Gary’s a cute kid and they’re certainly likable enough on screen, but they’re often saddled with laughably bad dialogue from Matthew Kennedy’s stilted script (he also penned the recent and fairly putrid Kate Beckinsale Prime Video action vehicle “Canary Black”).
Phillips (of whom I’ve been a fan dating back to the “Young Guns” days and was super-fun in the recent actioneer “Get Fast” – my review here) and Law are grossly underused. I need more LDP in my L-I-F-E!
I was amused by James Michael Cummings as the appropriately-named Cody, the militant next door neighbor of Lucy and Emma. He’s a “good guy with a gun” who probably would’ve loved to throw his weight around on Jan. 6 and it’s delicious to see him get his just desserts.
Being friends with Miller on Facebook I did get a real kick out of spotting his kids in the flick. His daughter especially had a rad, little role.
“Werewolves” is like an amalgamation of Neil Marshall’s “Dog Soldiers” and “The Purge” flicks … and not just because Grillo was in the second and third installments. I wish it were cheekier and gorier, but I had enough fun with this flick that I’d check out subsequent installments should there be any.