When a movie begins with Lou Diamond Philips talking about a supermoon that activates a dormant mutation that turns regular folk into werewolves, you know it’s not a serious film. Steven C. Miller’s Werewolves is absolutely ridiculous, and that’s the whole point. It’s a movie where a bunch of werewolves go on a rampage and the main characters try to survive – basically it’s The Purge but with werewolves.
The movie begins with Wesley (Frank Grillo), his sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece Emma (Kamdynn Gary) prepping the house to withstand the supermoon event later that night. Wesley’s brother Sean passed away during the previous supermoon event, so things feel more emotionally charged for the family, especially since Wesley is not going to be hunkering down with them. Instead, he’ll be on duty at the CDC as they test their moonscreen, which is meant to prevent those with the mutation from turning when exposed to the moon. However, things go horribly wrong – as expected – and now Wesley and colleague Amy (Katrina Law) need to leave the compound and take their chances outside if they wish to stay alive.
The best part about this movie is Frank Grillo. As Wesley, he’s cool under pressure and spewing punny one-liners that will leave you chuckling under your breath. Also, I love that we get such attention to the female gaze in an action movie. The framing of Grillo’s body and character – from the opening scene to the film’s climax – is meant to instill a sense of awe in audience members; or maybe it’s just me.
Grillo and Law have ‘we’re-just-trying-to-survive’ chemistry, which is insane considering that we barely know anything about each of their characters. Their intimate forehead touches and wordless stares at each other will have viewers rooting for them, and chanting for them to rain absolute carnage down on these werewolves. Hadera’s pretty good as the devoted mother who will do anything to protect her child, and it is to Miller’s credit that he’s able to make the three of them believable as a family unit, especially when Lucy and Emma spend most of the movie separate from Wesley.
The human to werewolf transformation scenes are fantastically gnarly and hellish. It also made me guffaw when I realised that some of the werewolves still retain some items of clothing they were wearing before the transformation, which is a fun little detail that makes the creature design feel even more camp. If you’re looking for realism in the werewolf design, you’ll be disappointed because that’s not the intention here. It’s very reminiscent of images of wolves in fairytales or children’s stories – The Three Little Pigs is referenced at one point in the film, so I think that’s the whole vibe the team was going for.
The film has some interesting colour palette choices, like red glow sticks in a corridor of blue flickering lights, and I like the warm tones of Lucy and Emma’s house before the terror of the werewolves intrude. There are some plotlines that are underdeveloped, like I would have loved more insight into Lucy’s neighbours besides their obvious set-up as kill bait or more information on the mall quarantine folk, but I guess the tight budget probably led to certain restrictions.
Nonetheless, Werewolves is campy, dramatically gonzo, and a whole lot of fun.
Review screener provided.
REVIEW SCORE: 3.5/5
