Werewolves
review by Bobby Blakey
Director Steven C. Miller has been kicking some major ass with films like The Aggression Scale and his remake of Silent Night among my favorites. Now he is turning his attention to the horror genre once again with my favorite subject matter, Werewolves. The film features the always awesome Frank Grillo alongside Lou Diamond Phillips, Katrina Law, and Ilfenesh Hadera, but does it manage to bring some violent new fun to the Lycan genre, or will it fail to see the moonlight?
Werewolves follow a supermoon event that has triggered a latent gene in every human on the planet, turning anyone who entered the moonlight into a werewolf for that one night. Chaos ensued and close to a billion people died. Now, a year later, the Supermoon is back....
I have been eager to see this film since the moment Miller announced he was making it. With him involved I was already interested and ready to see how he kicked this genre’s ass and it did not disappoint. My love for werewolves makes me a bit pickier than I am on most things mostly in how they look and if the filmmaker understands how to use them to effectiveness and this film brings all of it with some great homages’ vibes of films like The Purge, Aliens and even Jurassic Park, but still a voice all its own.
The story is simple enough to set the stage but complicated enough to be able to build an entire franchise around and I hope they do. I loved that it has a simple text explanation set up in the opening, so we don’t have to waste a bunch of time and don’t need random reasoning, just let this crap exist and let’s have some violent fun. Even the montage sequence of Grillo prepping the
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house for the night to come is a blast to watch and reminds you we are in for a hell of a ride that once it kicks off never lets up until the end.
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The cast are all good, but this film is all about its namesake in the werewolves and if they don’t work then the whole film falls apart. First and foremost, let’s hear it for MAN IN SUIT! The practical direction is always the best and despite this film being an independent film the money was clearly all spent in the right places because the film looks like any other big screen actioner and the werewolves kick ass. Sure, there are a few CGI moments used to enhance some things that could have been a little better, but still delivers. I wasn’t sure how I felt about their face looks initially, but as the film moved along, I fell in love with them and their unique look with every one of them.
The other thing I loved about this is that it lives up to its title and there is no shortage of werewolves here. They don’t just rehash the same look, but instead make sure they all have their own look connecting with the person that turned and offers up some fun overall execution that I love. When you have this many, you know at some point we need some wolves taking on each other and Miller makes sure to fulfill every wish we need here to perfection.
I have a select few werewolf films that I consider to be the bar you set to make one being Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps, The Howling and of course American Werewolf in London in no particular order and I easily believe that Werewolves stands right up there with them in every way.
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If you like werewolves, action films, or anything that is just a violent fun ride then get out there and support Werewolves in theaters now and maybe we can not only get more entries into the franchise, but more films like this getting the big screen push they deserve.
Grab your copy of Werewolves available now on Blu-ray and DVD from Briarcliff Entertainment.
