2024 hasn’t exactly been a banner year for werewolf movies. Outside a few tiny, little-seen indies and Z-grade junk (Cocaine Werewolfanyone?), significant releases in the genre have been limited tothis summer’sThe Beast Within, a flimsy domestic abuse allegory that keeps forgetting it’s a werewolf movie, and nowWerewolves, a new action-horror film that starsFrank Grilloand releases in theaters this coming weekend.Werewolvesis the better of the two, as it wisely eschews any deeper meaning in favor of being a straight B-movie romp. But B-movie romps also don’t get free passes because they plainly state their nature. They still need to bring the goods, whether that’s via colorful characters, an exciting plot, or just by presenting a world that feels uniquely bizarre.Werewolves, unfortunately, fails to provide any of these things, ultimately offering up little beyond a neat premise.
What Is ‘Werewolves’ About?
At the least, directorSteven C. Miller’s film has a killer logline:The Purgebut with werewolves. Seriously! InWerewolves, the most recent supermoon (a full moon that’s the closest possible distance to Earth) awakens a dormant gene in human beings that turns every single person touched by moonlight into a snarling, fanged monster. Anarchy obviously ensues. Cut to some time later when the next supermoon is about to rise into the night sky, and humanity is bracing for a second werewolf outbreak.Grillo plays Wesley Marshall, history’s buffest CDC scientistwho’s part of aLou Diamond Phillips-led team to find a cure for humanity’s sudden werewolf problem.
They’ve invented “moon screen,” a spray-on treatment that they hope will shield anyone who applies it from the supermoon’s effects, and plan to test it on some caged volunteers at a government research facility. Unsurprisingly, things don’t go as planned. The moon screen only works for roughly one hour, and their facility really could’ve done with better security measures. After the movie’s first bloodbath, Wes and a fellow scientist named Amy (Katrina Law)attempt to cross a werewolf-infested city to make it back to his widowed sister-in-law(Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece (Kamdynn Gary), who are under attack back home. All everyone needs to do is stay alive until sunrise.
‘Werewolves’ Doesn’t Make Full Use of Its Interesting Plot Idea
It’sa cool set-up for a werewolf movie,but that’s exactly what makesWerewolvesso disappointing, asMatthew Kennedy’s script does little with it. For starters,the film is extremely small in scope. Now, maybe that’s a budget issue more than anything else, but when I say “Wes and Amy attempt to cross a werewolf-infested city” what I really mean is “Wes and Amy attempt to cross a couple of desolate city blocks where the occasional werewolf or two pops up.” This setting screams for an overhead shot of packs of werewolves roaming the streets, but the movie never provides it.
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It also doesn’t bother to really examine what happens to society as it exists in this new world. How tough is it for folks to stay out of the moonlight on supermoon night? Where do those without homes go? Are there people whowantto become werewolves and wreak havoc until the sun comes up? On that last question, the movie hints that there are … but only barely. WhatWerewolvesneeded to do was blow out its ingenious concept in every direction. (Where’s the quasi-religious group who couldn’t wait to be out in that moonlight?) But, instead,it narrowly focuses on Wesley’s uninspired journey back to his sister-in-law and her kidin a city that seems mostly empty.
Even the motivations of the werewolves remain unclear, as their behavior is often dictated by what the scene needs. Sometimes they’re just killing machines; other times, they retain some of the humanity within. Their intelligence levels fluctuate wildly. While sometimes they pack up together in groups, when it’s convenient, they’re just as much a danger to each other as they are to any unchanged humans nearby.There’s little to no consistency in how the wolves interact with the world around them.
‘Werewolves’ Is Light on Thrills but Heavy on Lens Flare
Werewolvesisn’t terribly interesting on a technical level either. The wolves themselves appear to be mostly a practical effect with a heavy CG assist on the transformations.Their design feels too clunky, with a large wolf’s head on furry, stuntman-sized bodies. A few of them are designed to stand out, including a “punk rock” werewolf with a nose ring and an ooh-rahing gun fanatic whose red, white, and blue face paint remains applied even after he transforms. (Gremlinsfansmight appreciate that the latter guy essentially becomes the “Stripe” of this movie.)
But even they don’t separate themselves from the pack as much as they should, and the movement of the wolves, perhaps restricted by the practical FX, feels clumsy and unthreatening. Early on,Werewolveshas a bit of a local funhouse vibe, with strobe lights flashing through its first big action sequence. But that gives way to the non-stop lens flares that blanket the rest of the film. (EvenJ.J. Abramswould take one look at this and say, “Okay, let’s go ahead and dial those flares back by at least half.")There are a few seconds of decent gore, earning the film its R rating.
Frank Grillo Doesn’t Have Any Interesting Characters to Bounce Off Of
Grillo, who also starred ina couple of actualPurgemovies(which have a bit more going on under the hood), is his usual, reliable self,despiteWerewolvesbeing devoid of fun or interesting characters for him to bounce off of.Everyone else in the movie feels completely disposable, and characters who seem like they should be important are quickly removed from the board in ways that aren’t emotional or gnarly enough to resonate.Werewolvesis stuffed with overwrought inspirational speeches that read like mantras you might find on a police or fire department’s wall. (“Always ready!” is a repeated battle cry.)It all leads to a final fight that should feel epic but ends up being more disappointment.
For some genre fans, the inventive premise here might be enough. And if watching Grillo yell “Bite me!” at a werewolf before unleashing a hail of bullets from a machine-gun turret is your kind of thing, there are certainly some small pleasures to be had. But those pleasures are far fewer than they should have been, and the “super” part of “supermoon” is really overselling the B-movie thrills thatWerewolvesis able to provide.Leigh Whannell’sWolf Manis coming soon, so maybe 2025 will be more of a howling success when it comes to werewolf flicks.
Werewolvesopens in theaters this Friday in the U.S.
Werewolves
Werewolves certainly has a neat premise, but, sadly, the movie fails to ever fully live up to it.
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