If you’ve ever talked to me about horror films for more than say five minutes, you know that I love a good werewolf movie. My all-time favorite film is An American Werewolf In London, and I think Dog Soldiers might just be one of the greatest horror films of the 21st century. There’s something primitively terrifying to me about a monstrous wolf like thing full of bad intentions out there in dark trying to kill you. So, you better believe I was stoked for Steven C. Miller’s aptly named Werewolves. Cue up the Green Jelly and let’s get into this story of several big bad wolves!
The plot of Werewolves is admittedly somewhat ridiculous: a year ago, a supermoon event suddenly and inexplicably turned anyone exposed to moonlight into werewolves, with billions of people dying in the space of a night. Now, with another supermoon approaching, Wes Marshall, a tough as nails former soldier turned scientist, must find a cure for this bizarre malady before another worldwide massacre ensues. It’s an insane premise and I am here for it.
Up front I want to say that this is not a perfect movie. It swings for the fences, sure, but it doesn’t always hit the mark. And that’s fine: I’ve said it countless time before that I will always give a filmmaker credit for earnestly attempting to tell a story regardless of how ridiculous said story may be. Werewolves is a classic case of a neat idea suffering from budgetary restraints. I suspect much of the budget went to getting Frank Grillo and Lou Diamond Phillips on board, and then another chunk going towards the impressive practical effects leaving little for much else. The CGI for the transformation scenes is wonky at best, the character development is clunky and saccharine at times, and some of the editing felt hasty, giving the movie a disjointed feel at times. Aside from Grillo and LDP, the acting was what could generously be described as medium rare. There were some strange visual choices (MCU Iron Man style HUDs in the helmets of the scientists experimenting upon lycanthropes?), there were several moments that felt like the filmmakers wanted to imbue with an emotional gravitas that felt unearned, and the ending came off as rushed and predictable.
That being said, this movie is a boatload of fun. And I don’t mean that in a dumb “it’s so bad it’s good” way. Frank Grillo as Wes Marshall gives this film a solid emotional core, a grizzled badass just trying to protect his late brother’s family. Grillo’s Marshall is a Chuck Connors in a world of John Waynes, ultra-competent and resilient but lacking entirely any sort of the macho bullshit swagger that action films often place upon a pedestal. He’s the calm in the eye of the storm even when he himself is clearly terrified, and as a man for whom the werewolf apocalypse is second only to the Blob apocalypse as the worst kind of apocalypse I can appreciate seeing such a grounded response in a character. The filmmakers could have very easily chosen the time honored route of making their protagonist A Man Who Doesn’t Have Time For This Bullshit, an anti-intellectual type in the mold of Kenneth Tobey in The Thing From Another World looking down at the mamby pamby scientist types. Instead, Grillo gives us a levelheaded man of reason; someone the audience can sympathize with in a situation as batshit insane as a werewolf epidemic. He doesn’t speak softly while carrying a big stick but instead quietly reassures us that everything will be okay despite having no stick to fend offthe werewolves with. This performance carries some of the sequences that suffer from the previously mentioned budgetary seams showing, particularly a scene that can aptly be described as a parade of werewolves. Which admittedly sounds silly but Grillo’s reaction to it makes it believable.
The creature design for this film gives it a true nightmarish quality. Miller’s werewolves are hulking and inhuman, barely reminiscent of whoever they were before the moonlight changed them. They’re all crazed eyes and gaping crocodile-like maws, the last thing you’d want to see on a moonlit road at night. The CGI versions of them running and leaping leave something to be desired, but the up close practical versions of the creatures interacting with the actors are successful in invoking a sense of horror. I wouldn’t say they were as good as Bad Moon or Dog Soldiers, but they’re absolutely light years ahead of Project: Metalbeast, Monster Squad, or the 2010 Wolf Man.
If you’re expecting a cinematic masterpiece chock full of technical brilliance and flawless execution, skip Werewolves. It won’t hold up to any sort of cinephiliac scrutiny or Cinema Sins style nitpicking, and that’s fine because consuming film like that is dumb anyway. This is a super fun movie about Frank Grillo versus the werewolf apocalypse, and if you can’t find joy in that I’m truly sorry for you. It’s got a ton of heart and more than enough charm to gloss over some of its more ridiculous aspects, and ultimately I think it succeeds in telling the story it sets out to tell. See this movie in theatres with your friends and I guarantee you’ll have a blast.
