Wolf Man, from Blumhouse

Traditionally, lycanthropy victims must sharpen their time-management skills. If they can secure themselves during full moons (if so inclined), they can continue functioning normally during the rest of the month. Not so for these werewolves. They turn once—permanently. Frankly, it seems fair to ask whether werewolves are still werewolves without the lunar aspect, or just contagion-based hairy monsters. Regardless, that is what we get in Leigh Whannel’s Wolf Man, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

According to the opening titles (which cry out for John Larroquette’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre narrator voice), the indigenous people of these Oregon woods long told stories of shaggy man-beasts terrorizing the region. Young Blake Lovell’s veteran father Grady took those stories seriously. After a tense sighting, he went out hunting it and never came back.

Years later, adult (sort of) Lovell is now a stay-at-home father, largely because he is unemployed. Consequently, he is much closer to his daughter Ginger than his increasingly distant journalist wife, Charlotte. When the state finally declares the missing Grady dead, Blake convinces his wife a family trip to Oregon will do them good, but we know better.

Sure enough, the Lovell family inevitably finds itself running for dear life from a hirsute figure, barely reaching crazy old Grady’s farmhouse in time to barricade themselves inside. Unfortunately, the creature drew some of Blake’s blood, which still means what it usually means. The transformation will not be immediate, but despite his efforts to fight it, the change is inevitable and irreversible.

Blumhouse’s first re-conception of a classic Universal monster, The Invisible Man (also directed by Whannel) was a clever, high-concept genre thriller that felt very fresh and contemporary. In comparison, Wolf Man is a disappointingly small film that resembles any number of low-budget VOD horror movies. Basically, the Lovells are yet another family that allow themselves to be trapped in a strange house by monsters.

Whannel builds a fair degree of tension, but the werewolf makeup underwhelms. It is also annoying to see the Grady Lovell character initially presented as yet another emotionally distant (perhaps even abusive) disciplinarian veteran, but admittedly, the film invites some sympathy for him as it reveals more of his backstory and fate. Regardless, most viewers will ask two glaringly obvious questions as the Lovells batten down grandpa’s long-empty farmhouse: why is it so clean inside and where are all his guns?

The Beast Within

Dr. Spock always said the most difficult but necessary conversation you can have with your children is the one about: “your father is a werewolf.” Unfortunately, it is well past time for Willow’s parents to broach the subject. It has reached the point where their evasions are making things worse. Nevertheless, the truth hurts badly in Alexander J. Farrell’s The Beast Within, which releases this Tuesday on digital VOD.

Willow is not even a pre-teen yet, but she still picks up on her mother Imogen’s deceptive behavior. Of course, she can hardly miss her grandfather Waylon’s hostility towards her father, Noah. The way he disappears some nights further stokes her suspicions. One night, she follows her parents to the deserted ruin near their isolated cottage, where she witnesses her mother chaining up her father—and not in a fetishistic kind of way.

Soon thereafter, Noah reluctantly explains how he inherited his grandfather’s curse—the one that caused him to murder Noah’s grandfather in the prologue. For a while, all their honesty is therapeutic, but Noah remains a ticking lycanthropy bomb.

The Beast Within is definitely a moody, slow-builder, but the tense third act compares favorably with most of the studio-produced horror movies released this year. Farrell and co-screenwriter Greer Ellison also effectively employ a scale-model as a visual motif.

Fessenden’s Blackout

Charley Barrett wants to be the righteous amateur investigator fighting the evil real estate developer, like in China Town, or thousands of other movies. Instead, he is a werewolf, like Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man. Heck, he even lives in Talbot Falls. Since cleaning up, he no longer gets blackout drunk, but he still has no memory of full moon nights. A serial killer has been stalking Talbot Falls and Barrett knows he is the beast in Larry Fessenden’s Blackout, which releases today on VOD.

Even though his old man was Hammond’s lawyer, Barrett has long crusaded against the local real estate tycoon. To make things even more awkward, he was dating Hammond’s daughter, Sharon. He cleaned himself for her, only to break things off for her protection when he became a lycanthrope. Compounding Barrett’s guilt, Hammond has been accusing an innocent immigrant of his werewolf murders, to demonize the local Mexican community. Yes, Blackout is really that in-your-face didactic.

Blackout starts slow and craters towards the end, but it has some decent werewolf stuff in its bloody mid-sectiont. Much to Barrett’s horror, he learns it is not just the full moon that transforms him. The moon is also sufficiently luminous to do the trick on the nights before and after. Of course, he seeks a tragic but necessarily final solution like Lon Chaney Jr. in the Universal Monster movies, but his plan crumbles into a comedy of horrors.

Horror genre diva Barbara Crampton looks half her age in her all too brief scene as Kate, an attorney advising Barrett. However, horror dabbler Joe Swanberg is largely wasted as Sharon’s bland new boyfriend. Yet, arguably the most memorable “cameo” comes from the late William Hurt, lead actor Alex Hurt’s real-life father, who is pictured in photos of Barrett’s deceased dad.

Sung Kang’s Shaky Shivers

Considering how many slashers were set in the 1980s, both back then and in recent retro homages, some Millennials might wonder how anyone managed to live through the Awesome Decade. Yet, the 1980s and early 1990s felt so much safer and more rational than our current times. Technically, this horror mash-up takes place in 1993, but its roots appropriately go back to the Eighties. All kinds of monsters get in on the act in Fast & Furious thesp Sung Kang’s feature directorial debut, Shaky Shivers, which has a special nationwide Fathom Events screening this Thursday.

Obviously, things are bad, judging from the in media res opening. Lucy seems to think she is a werewolf and we will have reason to suspect she is correct. It all goes back to the previous day. First, an incredibly annoying customer tried to redeem a coupon from 1987 at kindly old Bob’s ice cream shop, where she works at with her best friend, Karen (you could have a name like Karen in the 1990s, without feeling any irrational shame). Then a sinister hippish Earth Mother cultist demands free ice cream out of a sense of entitlement. When Lucy refuses, something bites her.

Fast-forward back to the prologue—and she’s a werewolf, but that will be the least of their problems during the sunlight. Lucy had Karen drive her out to the local summer camp that was closed under mysterious circumstances, to put an end to her lycanthropy, but her friend was not prepared for the madness in store for her. Before night falls again, they must contend with zombies, big foot, and a black magic cult.

Shaky Shivers often feels like a monster-themed Mad Libs that was accidentally adapted for the screen, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Kang definitely leans into the mayhem and embraces the messy joy of practical effects, but somehow, he manages to downplay and minimize actual physical violence.

Scream of the Wolf

This film crew has made a horrible mistake with their props. They thought they were filming a vampire movie, so they are well-equipped with wooden stakes, but they will be stalked by a werewolf instead. As horror specialists, they should be able to pivot quickly, but their bickering and disorganization makes them easy prey in Dominic Brunt’s amusing werewolf comedy Scream of the Wolf, which releases tomorrow on VOD and DVD.

The shoot is almost over, but the alcoholic star, Oliver Lawrence, would hardly know it. He looks a lot like fellow vampire thesp Jonathan Frid, but his drunken eruptions into Shakespeare soliloquys also suggest a good bit of John Carradine too. Fiona the 1^st A.D. somewhat indulges him, because she is a fan—at least she was—but she and Derek, the director, constantly scramble to keep him away from the bottle. Two “journalists” from a horror magazine are expected for a set-visit, but they will not arrive in one piece. Instead, the crew stumbles over their severed limbs and a dying corpse.

Frankly, none of them should have been there. The production was supposed to vacate the rented manor before the full moon. Of course, the slimy producer wanted had to stretch out the shoot, to accommodate the publicity event. That kind of shameless, self-centered Hollywood-wannabe behavior constantly makes the situation worse for everyone.

You can tell from the opening credits Brunt and screenwriters Joel Ferrari and Pete Wild love a lot of the Hammer and Universal monster movies that you and I do. Admittedly, it starts a little slow, but the werewolf design is pretty cool. There is also a terrific extended stinger that explains the origin of the wolf.

James Fleet (from Bridgerton and Four Weddings and a Funeral) is very amusing as the hammy, drunken Lawrence. Fans will see a lot of their favorites in him, especially the aforementioned Carradine. Frankly, Fleet outshines just about everyone, but Stephen Mapes is also spectacularly sleazy as Peter, the dirtbag producer.

Werewolf by Night, on Disney +

Believe it or not, Marvel’s dirty little movie secrets are mainly horror films. In the 1970s, they integrated many public domain movie monsters into Marvel Comics, with titles like The Tomb of Dracula. Subsequently, licensing the Marvelized monsters to Japanese anime producers might have seemed like a good deal in the early 1980s, but now they pretend Dracula, Sovereign of the Damned and The Monster Frankenstein never existed. Later, Man-Thing premiered as a Syfy movie in 2005, just as the MCU franchise was about to take off. Since then, Marvel has been gun-shy with respects to its old monster characters. However, for this year’s Halloween season, they have produced a one-hour special featuring two of their 1970s era monsters. The good news is Man-Thing gets some redemption in Michael Giacchino’s Werewolf by Night, which premieres today on Disney+.

Ulysses Bloodstone is dead, so his custody of the mystical Bloodstone must pass to another. It should have been his estranged daughter Elsa’s birthright, but she must also participate in the ceremonial contest devised by her spiteful stepmother Verussa, along with the other monster hunters. They are mostly a nasty, sadistic lot, except Jack Russell, but he doesn’t really belong there. He is actually a monster (the original “Werewolf by Night” and friend of all terriers), who infiltrated their ritual gathering.

We soon learn Russell’s good friend Ted Sallis, a.k.a. Man-Thing, was abducted by Verussa to serve as the quarry in their competitive hunt. Russell does not want to kill anyone—and he shouldn’t have to since the moon is not yet full, but the other hunters are perfectly willing to slay their competition, including him and Elsa Bloodstone, for the sake of the prize.

Somewhat counter-intuitively given the title, Bloodstone is the focal protagonist of Werewolf by Night, rather than Russell. Maybe they should call here “Elsa the She-Wolfhunter of the MCU,” to attract Nazisploitation fans. Regardless, throughout most of the special, the aloof, mercenary Bloodstone is much harder to root for than the loyal and affable Russell.

In fact, the screenplay credited to Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron has several conceptual problems. Most fundamentally for a Halloween special, it refuses to be a satisfying monster-hunting horror movie, instead becoming a deadly Kumite/Most Dangerous Game-style thriller, with supernatural characters involved. After watching the special, we’d really like to see Russell and Man-Thing take on a demonic Jack the Ripper in New Orleans and the surrounding bayous (Disney+, email me if you’d like a treatment).

Alas, Werewolf by Night is never scary, but the opening sequences designed to evoke vintage Universal monster movies are very cool. The black-and-white cinematography (with spot-red for the Bloodstone) is nostalgic in the right kind of way. Depicting Russell’s transformation in silhouette is a similarly clever through-back device. The detailed design work of the Bloodstone trophy hall is also terrific. Everything looks great, the story is just underwhelming.

The Cursed, A New Twist on Lycanthropy

Thanks to Maria Ouspenskaya, werewolves have been closely associated with the Roma people in the popular imagination, especially fortune-tellers like Maleva, whom she played in the classic Universal monster movies. A group of French landowners will murder a woman very much like Maleva when they massacre her caravan. However, by doing so, they unleash something very sinister in director-screenwriter Sean Ellis’s The Cursed (a.k.a. Eight for Silver, a much more intriguing title), which opens this Friday in theaters.

They local populace call them “gypsies,” but they might have a legal claim to the land their caravan is currently parked on. Of course, the real law is the lord, Seamus Laurent, who hires a band of mercenaries to “remove” them, with the approval of his fellow landowners and parish priest. What unfolds is brutal, but it does not bother him. However, the children of the culpable parties start dreaming about the silver fanged dentures that were buried with the old defiant Roma woman.

Acting on a mysterious compulsion, one of the disturbed teens digs them up and uses them to take a bite out of Laurent’s young son Edward. Initially, the boy falls deathly ill, but then he mysteriously runs off into the woods during the night. As strange stories start to circulate, the Van Helsing-like pathologist John McBride arrives to investigate. He is not shocked by the brutality of the beast attack and immediately suspects there is a connection to the Roma, but nobody wants to acknowledge the atrocity.

Eight for Silver really was a better title, because it references the heavy Biblical significance of silver. Ellis (whose last film was the gritty Filipino caper movie Metro Manila) digs deep into lycanthropy lore and mythic archetypes. It is those weighty themes that make it so creepy. Frankly, Ellis has a radically different conception of werewolves, but if you get bit by one, you’re just as doomed. Plus, a particularly disturbing scarecrow adds a touch of folk horror.

This is also a terrific period production. Serving as his own cinematographer, Ellis makes everything look torch-lit, which instills the perfect vibe. Cursed might run a touch long and the wrap-arounds do not tie everything up the way they should, but in general, it slows burns in the right way.

Werewolves Within

Don't think of it as a movie based on a video game, even though it is. Consider it a “werewolf mystery,” like the Amicus-produced The Beast Must Die, which even featured a “werewolf break” to give the audience a chance to guess the lycanthrope. There is no werewolf break here, but there is an unruly cast of suspects stranded together in an isolated location. As a result, they provide plenty of food for the predator in Josh Ruben’s Werewolves Within, which opens today in theaters.

Forest Ranger Finn Wheeler is a tragically nice guy, who has just been transferred to a small Vermont mountain post. He is still in denial regarding his girlfriend dumping him, until he meets wise-cracking Cecily Moore, the local mail carrier. Of course, he kind of blows it with her, but he might get a second chance, when the road to civilization is buried in a blizzard, isolating the small, eccentric community. Unfortunately, there is also werewolf stalking them.

As in a good Agatha Christie mystery, Wheeler and about a dozen of his gun-packing new neighbors must hole-up in the town’s tourist inn. To make matters worse, the powerlines are down and the stand-alone generators have been sabotaged. Naturally, they are going to get picked off, one by one. Yet, Wheeler, the eternal optimist still thinks they can work together to survive.

The setting of Werewolves is similar to that of Ruben’s first film, Scare Me, but the humor is funnier and more consistent. There really isn’t all that much blood and gore in this lycanthropic cat-and-mouse game, but genre fans will still get a big kick out of the way it plays with werewolf conventions.

Bloodthirsty: The Vegan Werewolf

For years, one-named indie pop star “Grey” has been plagued by nightmares that she is a wolf tearing into flesh. She has probably wasted all her time in therapy with Dr. Swan. If the longtime vegan would just eat a cheeseburger, her cravings might disappear. Even if she really is a werewolf, they would probably still simmer down a bit. Instead, denial leads to danger in Amelia Moses’ Bloodthirsty, which releases in select theaters and on-demand this Friday.

Grey is facing a potential sophomore slum that could possibly render her a one hit-album wonder. Fortunately, the ultra-selective producer Vaughn Daniels agrees to produce her follow-up. He might be a little weird, but he was acquitted of murdering his girlfriend, so how bad can he be, right? Of course, Grey’s girlfriend Charlie intends to keep a close eye on her while she is recording in Daniels’ secluded country manor-studio.

Frankly, Charlie is troubled by (maybe even jealous of) their intense working relationship. He pushes her hard, which results in good music (or so everyone says), but he also exerts a dark influence over her. Does he really know what he is asking for when he tells her to turn her true self loose?

Bloodthirsty is sort of an alternative-rock Whiplash crossed with When Animal Dreams, with a thin veneer of LGBTQ-drama layered on top. None of these elements really work well, especially the relationship between Grey and Charlie, which always feels shallow and strictly by-the-numbers.

Of all the Trilby-like singer-songwriters who grew up in foster-care and might just be a werewolf, Grey absolutely must be the dullest. Somehow, Charlie makes even less of an impression. The most interesting work by far comes from Greg Bryk, as the ambiguously creepy Daniels. Unfortunately, that also means the legendary Michael Ironside is shamefully wasted in two brief and largely inconsequential scenes as Dr. Swan.

Into the Dark: Blood Moon

Parents of "problem children" with severe mood swings and behavioral issues could very well feel like they are raising werewolves. Leave it to Blumhouse to take the metaphor to its most macabre extreme. Esme’s son Luna (notice his name) is a good kid, except for one night out of every month. However, the devoted mother will do whatever it takes to protect Luna and his secret in Emma Tammi’s Blood Moon, the season conclusion of Blumhouse’s Into the Dark, which premieres today on Hulu.

Luna can be a handful, but it isn’t his fault. He inherited his lycanthropy from his father. Esme tries not to talk about him much. Instead, she does her best to home-school Luna, while constantly moving from one remote southwestern town to another. She has strict rules to prevent the outside world from discovering Luna’s therianthropic nature, but he understandably yearns for a more normal life. It is hard for her to get by, but Miguel, the sympathetic hardware store owner, is willing to offer her credit. Unfortunately, she also attracts the attention of the local harassment-inclined sheriff.

Frankly, Blood Moon is so realistic, both emotionally and aesthetically, it arguably does not even feel like part of the horror genre. This is nothing like the Howling direct-to-DVD sequels (which might disappoint some werewolf fans). However, Tammi’s execution is impressively tight and economical. Maternally-themed horror is becoming her thing, but Blood Moon is fresher and more fully developed than her prior Into the Dark film, Delivered.

ND/NF ’18: Good Manners

Sleepwalking is something we expect to see in the English country estates of gothic romances, not the stratified urban jungle of São Paulo. However, the somnambulism of Clara’s pregnant new employer certainly seems to hold gothic implications, especially since it only happens during full moons. You’d better know what that means. Exploitation evolves into affection and love turns deadly in Marco Dutra & Juliana Rojas’s Bad Manners (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Clara never finished nursing school, so she really isn’t qualified to be a live-in maternity nurse. On the other hand, she is poor and desperate, making cheap and willing to perform menial household chores. That suits disgraced plantation heiress Ana Proença Nogueira to a “T.” Weirdly enough, she also feels reassured by Clara’s taciturn presence. She is an exploiter, but she still stirs up all sorts of protective feelings in the nurse-maid. Soon their ambiguous mutually shared attraction, become less ambiguous. However, Clara still cannot help noticing odd things about her lover-employer, like her insatiable appetite for red meat and her somnambulism when the moon is full.

Buckle up, because Dutra & Rojas take a radical ninety-degree turn at almost precisely the one-hour point. Frankly, it takes a while to get acclimated to the narrative shift. Regardless, it becomes clear Clara will be forced to manage some form of lycanthropy. In a way, this sexually-charged film is the lesbian werewolf film Bradley Gray Rust’s Jack & Diane promised, but failed to deliver.

Dutra and Rojas sparingly indulge in gore, but when they do, they really get their money’s worth. Clearly, they are more concerned with using lycanthropy as means to examine sexual, racial, and class dynamics under extreme stress. Yet, they still take care of the genre business, loading the film up with eerie foreboding. As a result, Manners represents a quantum step up from their previous feature collaboration, the frustrating in-betweener, Hard Labor.

Isabél Zuaa and Marjorie Estiano really are fantastic as the nurse-and-patient lovers. Their relationship evolves awfully fast and quite dramatically, but they totally sell it. Young Miguel Lobo is also pretty solid as the seven or eight-year-old bundle of joy in part two. Plus, the werewolf effects and makeup are surprisingly cool and somewhat different from what we have seen before.

This is definitely socially conscious, character-driven art-house horror, but it never looks down on the genre. In fact, it deliberately riffs on the archetypal climax of nearly every classic Universal monster movie. The upshot is this take on werewolves is smart, subversive, and entertaining. Highly recommended, Good Manners screens this Thursday (4/5) at MoMA and Friday (4/6) at the Walter Reade, as part of ND/NF 2018.

Another Wolfcop: Lupine Lou Garou is Back

You can tell a lot about a country by the anxieties that surface in their genre films. For instance, Canada is gravely worried someone might be tampering with their beer. In the 1980s, Bob and Doug Mackenzie foiled an attempt to contaminate Elsinore Beer with mind-controlling drugs. This time, officer Lou Garou will challenge a villainous mastermind’s scheme to control humanity through the newly launched Chicken Milk Stout. Fortunately, Garou is not just a cop—he’s Wolfcop. He is also no stranger to alcoholic beverages in Lowell Dean’s looney sequel Another Wolfcop (trailer here), which opens in select U.S. cities this Friday and in Cineplex theaters across its native Canada on December 5^th.

Do not let the title scare you. This is not like Teen Wolf Too, with a never previously mentioned cousin discovering he too is a werewolf. This is true blue Lou Garou. He hasn’t changed much. He still guzzles beer, scarfs on donuts, and turns into a wolf each full moon. He also still carries a torch for his colleague (now boss) Tina Walsh, but her contemptuous disinterest has evolved into Tracy-Hepburn-esque ambiguity.

While wolfed up, Garou stumbled across a mysterious shipment intended for Sydney Swallows, who is supposedly the town’s new benefactor. He reopened the mouth-balled brewery to churn out Chicken Milk, but it causes some nasty side-effects. Garou’s lowlife buddy Willie Higgins knows all about it. He was kidnapped and forced to serve as their guinea pig, so now he has what you might call an odd growth coming out of his stomach.

Another Wolfcop has all the lunkheaded attitude of the first film, but there is at least ten times more gore—all in good fun, of course. As Garou, Leo Fafard is just as endearing as ever, in a degenerate, shaggy dog kind of way. Amy Matysio’s Walsh gets considerably less screen-time this go-round, but she scores some of the biggest laughs with her acidic one-liners. Jonathan Cherry’s shtick as Higgins gets a bit tiresome, but Serena Miller steals numerous scenes as his lycanthropic sister, Kat. Yes indeed, there is more red-hot wolf loving in Another Wolfcop.

If only the DC Universe were as consistent as the Wolfcop franchise. It is not hard to see why Lou Garou is the pride of Saskatchewan. These films have heart—and also blood and intestines. But wait there’s more, including Kevin Smith playing the drunken mayor, at no extra cost to you the consumer. Wildly entertaining, Another Wolfcop is one of the rare sequels that darn near equals the first film. Very highly recommended, Another Wolfcop opens today in select U.S. cities and next Tuesday (12/5) in Canada.

(Poster: Tom “The Dude” Hodge)

The Last Wolf of Ezo: From the Early Meiji Era to the Old West

There is a long tradition of supernatural felines in Japanese ghost stories. There is also extensive shapeshifting lore about kitsune fox-spirits, but Japanese lycanthropy typical does fit the lupine mold. Nevertheless, a Japanese werewolf wreaks havoc on an American frontier town in Eduardo Castrillo’s The Last Wolf of Ezo (trailer here), which releases today on DVD from Maverick Entertainment.

Karukan’s clan was honor-bound to hunt down and kill the savage werewolf, but when it hopped a steamer for America in human form, the Emperor was content to leave it be. However, Karukan was still obligated to follow it on his own. It is not exactly a great time to be Asian in the Old West, but Karukan forges an alliance with Langdon, a gunslinger-cardsharp that evolves into a bickering friendship. When they hear of a beast terrorizing River City (honest, that is what it’s called), they make haste, but find a dodgy band of bounty-hunters has been retained to dispatch the beast. Of course, they have no idea what they are getting into.

The pitch for Ezo practically speaks for itself: Kung Fu meets The Wolfman. However, it needs to do better than a C-level execution, given its budget constraints and the recent mini-boomlet of weird west competition. In fact, it has pretty terrible timing, releasing the same week Bone Tomahawk hits theaters and not long after Jeremy Wooding’s over-achieving Blood Moon launched on DVD and VOD. Although Wooding’s resources were probably just as limited as what was available for Castrillo, Blood Moon’s vivid characters and dynamic energy make it a B-movie delight. Unfortunately, the same is not exactly true of Ezo.

There are a few laughs in the right places and the Japanese flashback scenes look better than you might expect, but the entire film basically feels like everyone is trying to get from point A to point B with the least amount of fuss. Professional kickboxer Daniel J. Kim has the right strong, silent presence, but here he is working with sub-standard fight choreography. Alex Renteria probably makes the strongest impression as Langdon, playing his roguishness to the hilt. However, there are simply too many bounty hunters and outlaws, washing in and out and blending together. Still, Lexy Gama (as Karukan’s young love) and the rest of the Japanese cast are surprisingly solid. Maybe Castrillo should have kept that wolf off the boat.

On paper, Ezo sounds like a blast, but it is not nearly as nutty, inventive, or twisted as its microbudget requires. That is frustrating, because it has a number of elements in place. Nevertheless, if you want to see an Old West werewolf movie, check out Blood Moon, you know, the British one. Regardless, The Last Wolf of Ezo is on-sale today (10/20), from Maverick Entertainment.

Blood Moon: the Latest British Werewolf Western

During the early days of Hollywood, Poverty Row studios like Republic, Monogram, and PRC relied on western oaters to pay the bills. These days, horror films are the low budget staple genre, so you could consider this a case of something old and something new. The fact that yonder werewolf western is also a British production makes it all the more eccentric, but we appreciate that. The bodies will pile up when a skinwalker hunts its prey in Jeremy Wooding’s Blood Moon (trailer here), which launches today on DVD and VOD from Uncork’d Entertainment.

Mud Flats was a stagecoach stopover already well on its way to being a ghost town, but the skinwalker hastened the process. Unfortunately, when the next stage pulls in for chow, they are taken hostage by the twitchy outlaw Norton Brothers (half-brothers technically). Amongst the passengers are Jake Norman, the new Marshal for the next town over, Sarah, his new wife with a checkered past, and Calhoun, the mysterious bad ass. There was also a priest, but the Nortons killed him almost immediately.

Even the profoundly unintuitive Nortons soon accept the idea something big and bad is prowling around outside, but they are still determined to have their fun inside. Meanwhile, the sheriff and Black Deer, his hard-drinking Native American frienemy and potential hook-up, follow the trail of the Nortons and the beast.

Like so many westerns before it, Blood Moon looks a little cheap, but it was filmed in Kent, so cut it some slack (after all, it is the first UK western since Carry On Cowboy). While the premise sounds like a dubious mash-up concept, it kind of works thanks to the strength of the characters. Frankly, Shaun Dooley is pretty darned awesome as the steely, super-together Calhoun. Yet, Anna Skellern is even more awesome as Marie, the franchise-minded, derringer-packing Miss Kitty. Wearing the black hat, American ringer Corey Johnson is charismatically loathsome and contemptuous as the more stable Norton. Eleanor Matsuura’s Black Deer also nicely provides the film’s required mysticism and defiance of authority.

Blood Moon is definitely a low budget wonder, but it deserves props for its energy and attitude. According to the laws of nature it should be a complete train wreck, but if you enjoy B-movies, this is the sort that will remind you why you developed such idiosyncratic tastes in the first place. Regardless, if you want to see a British werewolf western, Blood Moon is the only game in town, when it hits VOD platforms today (9/1), via Uncork’d Entertainment.

When Animals Dream: A Danish Werewolf Coming of Age Story

Female shape-shifters in the movies tend to be highly sexualized, like Nastassia Kinski in the Cat People remake or Sybil Danning in Howling II. In contrast, Marie is pretty repressed, but she is a product of her coastal Danish environment. You could easily imagine John Calvin preaching in their wooden church. However, she will undergo some dramatic changes in Jonas Alexander Arnby’s When Animals Dream (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

As the film opens, Marie is rather concerned about a persistent rash and strange tufts of hair growing in places where they shouldn’t be. Her elevated stress level will not help. She has just started work at a fish cannery, which is even less glamorous than it sounds. She makes fast-friends with a couple of the cool kids, including Daniel, who might even be potential boyfriend material. Unfortunately, she also quickly finds herself on the wrong end of the sexual harassing “pranks” of the sociopathic Esben and his cronies.

Frankly, the entire village is rather standoffish towards Marie. They fear she will turn out to be her mother’s daughter. For some time, her father has kept her formerly wild and beautiful mother zoned out on tranquilizers and anti-psychotic medication. Of course, when her werewolf nature starts to assert itself, the village doctor inevitably prescribes the same treatment for her, with her father’s acquiescence.

WAD is a wildly moody, thoroughly hypnotic, revisionist feminist take on lycanthropy. There will be plenty of painful deaths down the stretch, but it is more a riff on the mad-woman-in-the-attic trope than an exercise in gore. Nevertheless, when the film gets down to snarling business, it is unabashedly cathartic.

Lycanthropy as feminist survival strategy is all very good, but it is Sonia Suhl who really sells it as Marie. Beautiful, but in a freakishly ethereal way, Suhl’s very presence is unquantifiabaly disconcerting. Yet, she still gives an impressively real performance in her feature debut, viscerally expressing all of Marie’s social awkwardness and pent-up resentment. It is her movie, but the other Mikkelsen (Mads’ brother Lars) adds further layers of anguished ambiguity as Marie’s father, Thor, who will slowly strangle his loved ones to ostensibly save them from the potential mob with pitchforks that constitute their village.

Hollywood could conceivably remake WAD, but it has a distinctly dark, Scandinavian soul. There is a Nordic chill in its bones. Northern Jutland native Suhl also could not possibly be anymore Danish. As horror films go, WAD is definitely a slow build, but it is also a steady build that pays off handsomely. Recommended for adventurous werewolf fans, When Animals Dream opens this Friday (8/28) in New York, at the Village East.

Late Phases: There’s a Wolf at the Door

The security around Ambrose McKinley’s new gated retirement community is not very effective, considering there is at least one fatal animal attack every month, like clockwork. It takes him all of one night in his new home to figure out it corresponds to the full moon. Putting two and two together, the blind Vietnam veteran will count down the days until the next fateful moon in Adrián García Bogliano’s Late Phases (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

It is debatable who has a keener sense of smell, McKinley or the werewolf stalking Crescent Bay. McKinley would seem to be at a disadvantage. Soon after moving into a new environment, his service dog Shadow is killed by the lycanthrope. Since McKinley never owned a cane, he prowls around the neighborhood with the help of a shovel. However, he is still handy with firearms and his bad attitude is a heck of an equalizer. Just ask his put-upon son Will. His new neighbors are even less charmed by McKinley, especially the one he is hunting and being hunted by.

Phases is being billed as veteran character actor Nick Damici’s breakthrough performance and they’re not kidding around. He finds new ways to be awesome as the spectacularly surly McKinley. He is often funny, genuinely touching in key dramatic scenes, but one hundred percent hardnose, through and through.

Damici rules the roost, but Phases is also brimming with a cult-friendly supporting cast, most notably including Tom (Manhunter, House of the Devil) Noonan as Father Roger. Somehow he simultaneously makes the good Father a refreshingly sympathetic man of the cloth, as well as a compelling suspect. The Last Starfighter’s Lance Guest sure looks a lot older as Griffin, Crescent Lake’s resident community organizer, whereas Glass Eye Pix founder Larry Fessenden always looks like someone you might buy a headstone from. Add in Tina Louise from Gilligan’s Island as one of McKinley’s catty neighbors and Twin Peaks’ Dana Ashbrook as an ammo salesman and you have yourself an ensemble.

For his first English language production, Bogliano went 1980s old school. He takes plenty of time for character development, showcasing screenwriter Eric Stolze’s sly dialogue and Damici’s grizzled presence. While the slow build is moody and suggestive, the werewolf effects are a little cheesy, but in an appealing retro gross-out kind of way. Frankly, it all comes together in a satisfyingly nostalgic package. Highly recommended for werewolf fans, Late Phases opens tomorrow (11/21) in New York at the IFC Center.

Wolves: Jason Momoa Smells Fresh Blood

Evidently, werewolves can be as snobby as anyone. Sure, some humans are turned through bites, but hereditary lycanthropes look down their snouts at then. You will find a large concentration of pure-bred wolves in Lupine Ridge. It might look like hill country, but it is the Philadelphia Main Line for werewolves. It is there that Cayden Richards will go searching for answers in David Hayter’s Wolves (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Richards never knew he was adopted until he heard it on the TV news. Having discovered his parents ripped apart wolf-style after an inconvenient black-out, it is now too late for him to ask them any questions. Resigned to live as a fugitive from justice, Richards simply roams the highways, trying to keep his inner beast in check. However, a chance encounter with Wild Joe, a fellow pure-bred werewolf outcast, points him towards Lupine Ridge.

As soon as he blows into town, he seems to rub Connor, the town’s alpha-male-alpha-wolf, the wrong way. However, a wiry old farmer by the name of John Tollerman offers to take him on as a farmhand, no questions asked. Even the television reports about Richards’ previous misadventures do not seem to throw the good-hearted Tollermans. Nor does it scare off Angelina Timmons, who ought to be too young to tend the bar she inherited if she roughly as old as Richards, the high school senior-dropout. Of course, the authorities never come to Lupine Ridge, because aside from a few humans like Mrs. Tollerman, they are all werewolves.

In terms of tone, Wolves aims to be something like the lycanthropic equivalent of The Lost Boys, with hit-or-miss results. On the plus side, Jason Momoa’s Connor makes a terrific hairy heavy and Stephen McHattie has the perfect Lance Henriksen-esque weather-beaten gravitas for Tollerson. Both come into Wolves with genre cred that they only further burnish.

The problem is Lucas Till is horribly dull and awkwardly light weight as Richards. It is hard to see him as a high school quarterback—drama club president, maybe. Hayter had to notice how much verve Momoa and McHattie brought to the table (which they then proceeded to chew) and how slight Till’s presence is in contrast. Granted, dull horror movie heroes are a tradition dating back to mild David Manners in the original Dracula. However, in this case, the film depends on Richards’ fierceness, but it isn’t happening.

Despite the weak vanilla lead, there is a lot of fun stuff in Wolves. The werewolf makeup is not bad and the southern rock soundtrack nicely amplifies Momoa’s super-bad attitude. Unfortunately, too many of Till’s scenes feel like something out of Twilight instead of a werewolf movie with hair on its chest. If only there were less of him and more McHattie, but it is still kind of entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Recommended for fans of Momoa and McHattie, Wolves opens this Friday (11/14) in New York at the AMC Empire.

Fantasia ’14: Wolfcop

Usually, it is the police who expect the crazies to come out during a full moon. Now it is the criminals turn to worry. Lou Garou was never much of a cop, but he has been changing lately. He still drinks like a fish, but he lays down a lot of law during the night shift. However, there might be more nefarious reasons for his lycanthropic state in Lowell Dean’s Wolfcop (trailer here), which screened during the 2014 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Garou is a drunk, who apparently only holds his job on a small Saskatchewan town’s police force out of respect for his late father. The captain hates his guts and his hard-charging colleague Tina thinks he is a loser, but Jessica, the hot barkeep, values him as a regular customer. After responding to a report of teenagers engaging in some sort ritual in the woods, Garou wakes up in bed with a pentagram carved into his chest. He also just cannot shave his persistent stumble anymore.

Yes, he is a werewolf, but he exercises a fair degree of control. He actually starts busting the meth gang that needed busting. Of course, he still swills whiskey and binges on donuts. He ought to be more concerned about the forces that caused his metamorphosis, but anticipating the long-term is not his forte.

How can you dislike a town that is home to the Liquor Donuts store and holds an annual “Drink & Shoot?” It all sounds very over the top, but Wolfcop is actually more of a movie-movie than the collection of gags it might look like. This sounds ridiculous, but Garou the Wolfcop has a fairly satisfying character development arc and it nicely brings a lot of the town’s history full circle.

Most importantly for werewolf fans raised on Rick Baker’s American Werewolf in London, Emerson Ziffle’s Wolfcop makeup is terrific. His transformations are satisfyingly gross, but the full wolf still has all kinds of personality to latch onto. It is not hard to see a franchise developing around him.

A game lead, Leo Fafard absolutely feasts on Garou’s degeneracy and revels in the Wolfcop’s fierceness. Clearly, he was also a good sport enduring Z’s make-up. Sarah Lind vamps it up quite entertainingly as Jessica, while Amy Matysio brings unexpected verve and attitude to the straight-laced Tina. Considering all the madness going on, the whole ensemble plays it rather impressively straight, scrupulously refraining from winking at the camera.

Never fear, there is still plenty of outrageous gore, plus the sex scene Universal never gave Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfcop is a tough titular concept to live up to, but Dean pulls it off. Good, gruesome, goofy fun, Wolfcop is likely to take on considerable legs following its screening at this year’s Fantasia.

Fantastic Fest ’13: She Wolf

She is the horndog’s natural predator and she is racking up quite a body count.  It will be a tricky matter determining exactly who or what she is, but she is definitely out to teach the slimier men out there a permanent lesson.  The gender war hits the streets of Buenos Aires hard in Tamae Garateguy’s She Wolf (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 Fantastic Fest.

Just for the record, she is not affiliated with the SS.  She is a werewolf, who shifts her appearance, alternating between three seductress personas, or maybe she is a serial killer with multiple personalities.  It is hard to say definitively.  Sometimes people recognize her in her different guises and sometimes they don’t.  Either way, foreplay typically leads to a gruesome death for the men she ensnares.

The She Wolf is not out to kill all men—just the scummy would be players.  This will include the Tom Sizemore-esque undercover cop investigating her killings.  After their first encounter, he becomes rather obsessed with her, for several reasons.  However, the She Wolf falls for the punky punk who rescues her.

If you are easily offended by explicit sex, blood-spurting violence, gritty drug use, and black-and-white cinematography, then good luck with She Wolf.  There should definitely be an audience for it at Fantastic Fest, but it clearly appeals to the artier end of the cult film spectrum. Yet, despite some head-scratching moments, it somehow never feels pretentious. Frankly, it has a similar vibe to the sort of indie provocations that were filmed on the Lower East Side during the early 1980’s.  There are also plenty of naughty bits.

The raw ferocity of three actresses playing the She Wolf elevates the film well above seedy exploitative fare.  We see their rage and their vulnerability, often simultaneously.  Waifish Guadalupe Docampo’s every kill is shocking, whereas the voluptuous Luján Ariza certainly looks like she could be some sort of man-eater.  However, it is the more mature Mónica Lairana who really lays it on the line, especially in her bracing scenes with Edgardo Castro’s effectively sleazy copper.

There are rough edges all over She Wolf, but they are often (if not always) part of its aesthetic. Not nearly as didactic as it sounds on paper, She Wolf is an intriguing (and mostly successful) variation on the werewolf and serial killer genres.  Recommended for more sophisticated horror fans, it screens again this coming Tuesday (9/24) at the Alamo Lakeline, as part of this year’s Fantastic Fest.  For patrons in Austin, The Apostle, Big Bad Wolves, Confession of Murder, R100, and Timecrimes are also recommended, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

KCS Korean Movie Night: A Werewolf Boy

Chul-soo is either Korea’s Kaspar Hauser or its Teen Wolf.  He is old enough to be a war-era orphan, but even for a wild child he seems a little odd.  Yet, a sickly teen-aged girl forms a deep connection with him in Jo Sung-hee’s A Werewolf Boy (trailer here), which screens this Tuesday night as part of the Korean Cultural Service’s ongoing free Korean Movie Nights in New York.

Soon-yi, her mother, and her younger sister Soon-ja have moved to the countryside in hopes the clean air will improve her health.  Unfortunately, the big move was facilitated by Ji-tae, the entitled son of her late father’s business partner, who now feels at liberty to pop over whenever he feels like it.  He assumes Soon-yi will eventually marry him for the sake of his wealth and social status.  However, Soon-yi is not impressed.

She does not think much of the feral Chul-soo either when she and her mother first find him snarling in the garden.  With the relevant social welfare agencies passing the buck, Soon-yi’s mother reluctantly takes him in.  Slowly, he starts to grow on the family, once they clean him up and curtail his rougher instincts.  Soon-yi even starts teaching him to read with the help of a dog training manual.  However, a rich jerk like Ji-tae cannot help making trouble, especially when his ego is bruised.

Chul-soo’s true nature is quite strange and uncanny, but Jo de-emphasizes the genre aspects of his story to focus on his young tragic love for Soon-yi.  Told in media res as the decades older woman returns to the fateful country house, Werewolf Boy has all the elements of a good weeper, so it is not surprising it was a monster hit at the Korean box office.

In truth, the film is at its strongest when portraying the innocent ardor of Chul-soo’s relationship with Soon-yi.  In contrast, the ridiculously vile Ji-tae is little more than a clumsy class warfare tool that quickly grows tiresome.  When the shoot-first military finally arrives on the scene, they at least have the virtue of being considerably less cartoony and more fully dimensional than the silver spoon villain.

Still, Song Joong-ki and Park Bo-young develop rather touching chemistry as Chul-soo and Soon-yi, respectively.  The former shows both tremendous physicality and sensitivity as the young wolf-man, in an almost entirely nonverbal performance.  Likewise, Park is radiantly expressive as Soon-yi.  Jang Yeong-nam is also memorably charismatic yet down-to-earth as her mother.  Unfortunately, as Ji-tae, Yoo Yeon-seok is stuck with a flimsy character and takes it embarrassingly over the top in every scene.

Werewolf Boy demonstrates how genre elements can be shrewdly repurposed to tell a highly relatable story rooted in human emotions.  Frankly, Soon-yi and Chul-soo’s impossible love would resonate without Jo Sung-hee so conspicuously stacking the deck against them.  Nonetheless, A Werewolf Boy is recommended for those who enjoy a shaggy-haired teen-aged romance, especially when it screens for free this Tuesday (6/25) at the Tribeca Cinemas, courtesy of the Korean Cultural Service in New York.