Werewolves

Movie Review

Yep, the planet is going to the dogs.

Well, not to the dogs, exactly. To the werewolves. Huge, bipedal, slobbering, growling werewolves. They do not chase sticks. They do not roll over. They do not, alas, eat kibble.

No, they eat people. And they’re very, very hungry indeed.

Nor are these werewolves simply taking over the planet like some sort of alien invasion. No, these critters only turn into werewolves via, and frolic under, the light of an extra-special supermoon—when the moon is just close enough to the Earth to trigger a massive wave of lycanthropy.

But here’s the thing: Everyone who feels the supermoon’s gentle rays on their skins will become a werewolf. Everyone. During the world’s first lycanthropic supermoon, we’re told that a billion people were “impacted,” whatever that means. Plenty of romantic, moonlit walks in the park must’ve had quite the awkward end. (“Oh, Sylvester. I just love yoooooARGHARGHARGH!”)

Now, the supermoon is back. And, as you’d imagine, everyone is a bit on edge.

Wes, the most well-muscled molecular biologist you’ll likely meet, is determined to keep his dead brother’s widow (Lucy) and her daughter (Emma) safe. He’s boarded up the windows. He’s slapped barbed wire on the roof. He’s installed about 700 security cameras around the property so that Lucy can monitor exactly what those pesky werewolves will be doing. And, if worse comes to worse, Lucy has a shotgun.

And then, when he feels that Lucy’s house is sufficiently safe, Wes heads to work. Being a molecular biologist, he’s now part of a super-elite group of scientists working on a way to keep this werewolf infestation in check.

What would that solution be, you ask? Werewolf repellant? A gazillion silver bullets? A gigantic dog whistle? No. Wes and his fellow scientists have come up with, essentially, a spray-on drug that (in theory) reflects the supermoon’s evil, evil rays from penetrating a person’s sensitive skin—keeping them not just free of moonburn, but their DNA comfortably human.

You would think that just staying inside would work just as well (and, by the way, it does). But the scientists believe that spray-on moonscreen is far superior, and who are we to argue? So on the evening of the supermoon, they take a few volunteers, throw them in cages, put comically large dog collars on them, spray on the spray, and then … open the roof, exposing the volunteers to the full brunt of the full moon. (Because why roll the cages out a normal door when you can spend government money on retractable roofs, right?)

Hey, the stuff seems to work! All their volunteers seem just fine! Well, given that they volunteered to potentially become werewolves, “fine” is perhaps relative, but they’re not sprouting muzzles. They’re not growing fur. They’re not …

Oh. Never mind.

Positive Elements

Wes sure does his best to keep his dead brother’s family safe. He likes them, and that’s nice.

Lucy likes Wes. And she loves her daughter, Emma. She’ll do anything to protect her. And that’s also nice.

Lucy also feels really, really bad when a teenage neighbor knocks on her gate and begs like crazy to be let in because, y’know, werewolves. Against Wes’s strong reservations, Lucy is about to open the door to save that poor girl—until, well, werewolves. But it’s the thought that counts.

While a couple of the volunteers seem certifiably crazy, one man, the husband of another scientist, goes into the collar and cage with a much more self-possessed, sacrificial attitude. When he says farewell to his wife before the experiment begins, he reminds her, “Whatever happens tonight, it’s my choice.”

Spiritual Elements

Before the bad moon rises, Lucy listens to sort of a self-help, pump-you-up-for-Armageddon-style recording that includes the phrase, “My home is sacred ground.” She repeats this throughout the evening.

As Wes drives into work, he sees someone holding a cardboard sign that reads, “666 Only the evil turn. Repent!”

Sexual & Romantic Content

The four volunteers we meet at the beginning—those in the cages and collars—are stripped down to their skivvies. The men wear speedo-like briefs, and the one woman volunteer wears a strapless tube-top to cover her breasts. (We’re told that the moonscreen penetrates the garments’ microfibers, by the way.)

A scientist kisses her husband. Men sometimes are seen shirtless. And, of course, most of the werewolves are completely naked. (Not that it matters, as nothing critical can be seen due to their fur and the film’s literal darkness.)

Violent Content

Werewolves are notoriously messy eaters, and they tend to play with their food.

We see plenty of examples of this. One victim has some part of her body ripped open, exposing the innards underneath. Another has his face literally ripped off. A child werewolf dines on what appears to be a still-living cat. People are torn open (and bleed out), pulled under cars (leaving huge smears of blood on the asphalt) and otherwise meet their ends. Some scientists die outside a closed door, and blood runs underneath said door.

But the werewolves don’t exactly get off scot-free. Several vigilantes are at work, too (including one of Lucy’s neighbors). Some stay safely inside, but Wes and a fellow scientist, Amy, run into a bunch of marauding werewolf hunters with a mounted machine gun on their modified Ford Bronco. (When someone says, “Run to the Bronco! It’s our only chance!” one has to wonder about product placement.) That machine gun gets a lot of action, and its bullets eventually rest in several werewolves. One seems like he’s kept standing upright by a barrage of hundreds of slugs. (I wouldn’t think that that’s how gunfire physics works, but at this point, who am I to quibble?) Werewolves are not only shot elsewhere, but they’re also speared and stabbed and pepper-sprayed and shocked by electric fences. One is killed via an ax to the base of the skull. Another has its head ripped off.

We should note that these lycanthropic supermoons cause mass casualties. The first, as we mentioned, involved a billion people: How many of those were lethally impacted? We’re not told, but we can safely guess that the body count was, at a minimum, millions.

The transformation process from human to werewolf is pretty grotesque and, seemingly, quite painful. Veins start popping out underneath the skin everywhere, and limbs and faces contort and shapeshift.

Human characters run about with various bloody scratches. Wes seems to get seriously hurt a couple of times, but you can’t keep a muscled molecular biologist down: He shakes all his injuries off quickly.

Wes and Amy do crash into a bus at one juncture, though. You would’ve thought that, of all nights, they would’ve cancelled mass transit services—and one must wonder how the driver managed to drive the thing, given that he was likely a werewolf. But let’s move on.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear about 30 f-words, several of which are joined with “mother.” A half-dozen s-words are also used. We hear “d–n,” “pr–k” and “h—” as well. God’s name is misused about seven times (once with the word “d–n”), and Jesus, name is abused twice.

The werewolves growl a lot, and some might growl out werewolf versions of profanities. But we would hope that these are simply werewolves, not swearwolves. (A tip o’ the cap to What We Do in the Shadows for that.)

Drug & Alcohol Content

None, other than the moonscreen.

Other Noteworthy Elements

None—unless you would like to consider the movie’s very plot.

Conclusion

Let’s give Werewolves props for being exactly what you’d think it’d be: This is a movie about werewolves. The movie begins shortly before the sun sets. It ends shortly after the sun rises. It does not dilly-dally with pesky things like character development or underlying themes or coherent plot. If you want to see a movie about werewolves, this is, at the very least, a movie about werewolves.

It is not, however, a good movie about werewolves.

I suspect that its makers may not have been aiming for quality. From its synth-heavy soundtrack to its real-world makeup (don’t think I saw any CGI werewolves running around), this feels very much in the mold of a cheesy, gory, late 1980s horror flick that might’ve been picked up on an out-of-the-way Blockbuster shelf.

But intentional or not, this is a movie where characters standing in the pouring rain can look up and see a clear, moonlit sky. They run from building to building, moon-shielding tarps flapping above their heads like capes. Werewolves have apparently lost all their human-style thinking abilities—unless it comes to uninstalling security cameras.

If you’ve cruised through our sections concerning both violence and profanity, you will know that this is not a flick to watch for a family movie night. We need not belabor that point.

This is the sort of movie that should contain a warning label—warning of exposure to blood, guts, f-words and sheer stupidity. I wish that I had been able to have spritzed on my own version of anti-Werewolves spray before watching, as I think I left a few IQ points on the theater floor.

Werewolves, any way you slice or claw or bite it, is bad. And if you choose to watch it anyway, prepare for a ruff time.