You Likely Won’t Howl with Excitement for Werewolves (2024)
Title: Werewolves
First Non-Festival Release: December 5, 2024 (Theatrical Release)
Director: Steven C. Miller
Writer: Matthew Kennedy
Runtime: 93 Minutes
Starring: Frank Grillo, Katarina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
One year after the world was changed during an apocalyptic super moon event that transformed a large proportion of the population into werewolves, the world prepares for its second occurrence. Among those is Dr. Wesley Marshall (Frank Grillo) a scientist working on a compound called moonscreen that will hopefully block the transformation from occurring in any human that applies it. The stakes are high for their trial to go off without a hitch, including his sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece Emma (Kamdynn Gary), who are barricaded at home by themselves since the death of his brother. When the experiment is put to the test, Wesley has to do whatever it takes to get home to them when their fortifications fall.
Categorically cheap and messy, Werewolves manages few thrills despite its fun concept.
Rushing to build its world and get to the action, Werewolves fails to keep the momentum going thanks to its split perspective. After a mile-a-minute explanation of what is going on, Werewolves models itself after the first two Purge movies, with werewolves. While this pitch is great in theory, the execution leaves much to be desired. By splitting the perspective, Werewolves blunts the action of Wesley’s journey home while cutting into any tension back home with Lucy and Emma. Neither story gets the traction they deserve making both rather tedious affairs.
Despite this, it can be argued that no one can reasonably expect Werewolves to be a paragon of storytelling excellence. The silliness is baked into its DNA with its convoluted story without apology. Mixing the concept of The Purge: Anarchy with werewolves allows the film to get creative for why the protagonists would reasonably be out in the moonlight during the last dangerous night of the year. The ridiculousness of the ill-fated moonscreen test aside, Werewolves has a great concept underneath the molasses-paced chase and siege.
Littered with excessive lens flares and moderately amusing one-liners, the film never attempts to claw above its low B-movie expectations. With most of the acting falling on genre veteran Frank Grillo, the rest of the cast wade through the production, uncertain how to lean into the desired camp yet also never quite selling anything serious. The attempts at humor are welcome, even if they don’t all land or throw off the pacing. When the dialogue isn’t confounding viewers, the abnormal amount of lens flares will. A stylistic choice that both distracts the viewer and adds nothing to the film transforms from minor annoyance to sheer bewilderment with how often it rears its head in the relatively short film. Unfortunately, all these factors together make Werewolves a rather underwhelming experience.
With everything working against it, Werewolves does have a few fun moments here and there, mostly anchored by its strong werewolf practical effects. Never quite reaching the goal of scary, Werewolves manages to be fun in place of being truly horrific. Embracing its charms, Werewolves attempts to work within budgetary confines by keeping the action in rapid-fire bursts of modestly sized practical effects moments of werewolf goodness. While they never meet expectations of realism, the wolves do have personality — mostly since each wolf expands with trinkets and articles of clothing from its human side — they have a uniqueness that makes Werewolves memorable at the very least.
It’s not common for B-movies to make it to such a wide theatrical release, but Werewolves does little with its rare gift. There isn’t enough pluckiness behind the thin script to offer more than amused half-laughs and almost-thrills to hide the production’s more glaring flaws. Genre fans with a soft spot for werewolves or indie horror as a whole might find enough to celebrate. If that’s not you, the call of Werewolves likely isn’t strong enough to pull you into a watch outside a major streamer release.
Overall Score? 5/10
