WEREWOLVES
***
Directed by Steven C. Miller.
Starring Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera, Lou Diamond Phillips, Lydia Styslinger, James Michael Cummings.
Horror/Action, USA, 93 mins, Cert 15.
Released in the UK on Digital Platforms on 13th January 2025 and DVD on 3rd February 2025 via Signature Entertainment
One look at the trailer for WEREWOLVES and you would be forgiven for thinking that it is going to be a rip-roaring, all guns blazing action/horror movie that knows it is a little bit ridiculous, but as long as we’re all on board then who cares, right?
And that is pretty much what you get, because the movie has one of those concepts that looks delicious on paper and would probably make a superb graphic novel, although in this case the graphic novel has been superseded in favour of a low-budget action romp that gets straight down to things in the best possible way, and that is by laying out its silly premise as if it were a totally normal thing to happen. In this case, the second supermoon in a year is about to take place and Dr. Aranda (Lou Diamond Phillips) is addressing the nation and warning of things to come if people don’t stay indoors and out of the moonlight for one night.
You see, the light from a supermoon reacts with a latent gene in human DNA and turns people into werewolves for the night. Sounds like a cool premise, and in the backstory we are given there was a supermoon the previous year that no one was prepared for, and so a mass slaughter was the result, but this time the good doctor has a solution in ‘moonscreen’ (see what they did?), and his team are testing it on a few volunteers. Naturally, things don’t go quite to plan as the moonscreen only works for an hour, and so the scene is set for our hero Wesley (Frank Grillo) to battle his way back home to his dead brother’s wife and her daughter to save them from the oncoming onslaught of lycanthropes.
In true B-movie style, WEREWOLVES drops you straight into the action and barely lets up for 93 minutes as Frank Grillo does his best Snake Plissken impression in order to get back home before the moonscreen wears off. There are machine guns going off every few minutes, obstacles he and his partner Amy (Katrina Law) have to face as the city goes to ruin and the inevitable showdown that Wesley has to have that is telegraphed in the opening few minutes (and feels very topical). Oh yes, WEREWOLVES pretty much delivers everything it promises, so why only three stars?
Because WEREWOLVES is a movie with a strong premise, a committed cast of actors and an action movie dynamic that rolls along at a rollicking pace, but unless you really like lens flare – to the point that you must have it in every frame - the second half of this movie is uncomfortable to watch without putting shades on as every detail on the screen is shrouded in blue light. To what purpose is not clear, as the movie was quite fine without it and the budgetary limitations didn’t really come into it. Yes, some of the werewolf costumes were a little hokey in a HOWLING II kind-of way, but that is part of the fun in a movie like this and they didn’t look bad at all, so what is the strange blue lens flare light trying to mask? Not sure, but it was a deliberate decision to include it and it was a bad one.
There are a few niggles here and there, and you could probably trim ten minutes off the running time to make it a little tighter, but overall, WEREWOLVES is a fun video game-style actioner that brings a sci-fi twist to the werewolf legend with a unique idea. As a midnight movie at a festival with a rabid crowd then this would be a winner, but it would have to be a late showing so audience’s eye focus wasn’t so sharp as the constant lens flare is too distracting in that second half to engage as viewing it at home would. Therefore WEREWOLVES may not be suitable for everyone as it could trigger more than a latent werewolf gene. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Chris Ward