werewolf is a film full of puzzling choices. These choices are easy to understand, but the movie never takes advantage of them. Worse, it misses the most basic point of werewolf movies: transformation.
Stephen C. Miller is no stranger to the horror genre. I dug into his 2012. Silent Nighta remake of a classic Silent Night, Deadly Night. It was an entertaining slasher with some dangerous kills, a healthy dose of self-awareness, and a solid performance by Jamie King that suggested more than two or three dimensions.
werewolfunfortunately, none of that. In contrast, it’s full of characters who lack a sense of humor, are visually unpleasant, and are so thin that calling them caricatures feels too much of a compliment. Indeed, I had werewolf None of this would have been a problem if it had been the big, stupid fun time it clearly wanted. That’s certainly stupid, but it’s also not fun.
Matthew Kennedy’s script doesn’t help matters. The movie opens with a text crawl explaining that a supermoon triggered a latent gene in humans, turning people into werewolves. This is the second year this supermoon has occurred, and the CDC and the world are working hard to prepare.
opening of werewolf It’s the first sign of trouble. Miller and Kennedy gave us a text crawl paired with footage of Dr. Anada (Lou Diamond Phillips) giving an interview about what’s going on. It shows a lack of trust in the audience and early signs that the film is constantly undermining itself in terms of mood and pacing.
Frank Grillo plays CDC scientist Wesley. When his brother dies during the first supermoon event, Wesley is left to care for his sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece Emma (Camdyn Gray). Initially, Miller spends a lot of time setting up the family’s grief and loss, but it just feels like fodder.
Grillo continues to be this generation’s Charles Bronson. He’s a more charismatic and interesting actor than most of the films he’s been hired to appear in. In a way, he’s perfect for a movie like this. werewolfwhich acts as a shortcut in the story. The movie doesn’t have to make much effort to convince us that he’s the bad guy, since he’s someone who, at first glance, at least makes you think he’s competent.
But Hadera is just as exhausted as Lucy. A stunning actress, she spends much of the film crying and screaming for help, with Miller and Cox’s cameras more awed by her beauty than anything else. It’s not sexual in any way, but she’s my sister-in-law and such an intense romance is just too funny. werewolf. At least they could have made Lucy more than just the worst thing in the world to get shot with a shotgun.
Occasionally, she tries to fight, but usually fires her shotgun and gets lost, wasting precious ammunition. werewolf It was so poorly paced that I left Lucy with about 7 shots and when we cut back to her, she fired into the room and fired until the last 2 shots.
I sometimes wondered if important parts of the film were still on the cutting room floor. Brandon Cox’s camera feels like it’s trying to create a world out of rubble and claustrophobic shadows. In particular, the camera shows inside CDC personnel in suits, their faces illuminated, making them look like the great and mighty Oz.
But in Miller’s hands, they come off as cheap visual tricks. werewolf Movies need John Carpenter, someone who can give them breadth. We meet many characters, including Wesley and fellow scientist Amy (Katrina Law), as they fight to reach Lucy and Emma. But none of them leave a lasting impression.
The most promising aspect of Kennedy’s script is how the events of the supermoon will affect everyone. In other words, anyone can become a werewolf. But don’t worry, Miller and Kennedy aren’t doing anything to ratchet up the tension in this one. werewolf It’s a movie about people who could turn into werewolves if they touched the moonlight, but the moonlight doesn’t even reach them.“The floor is lava” The most basic level of suspense.
Thankfully, werewolves aren’t difficult to kill. Yes, you don’t need a magic bullet. Any bullet will do. The problem isn’t that Miller and Kennedy are toying with werewolf lore. They don’t replace it with anything. They just rip it off. The reason there is no suspense or tension is because there is nothing wrong with it.
Anyone can become a werewolf, but if that happens you can kill them with a random gun, so it’s not a big deal. However, don’t worry, people who have lines in the movie will not become a werewolf. Anything is worse than nothing. It’s a world without stakes.
Miller and Kennedy make matters worse by making the odd choice to cut between Wesley and Amy’s kinetic action and Lucy and Emma’s static performances. home alone With a pack of werewolves. I know that on some level, Miller and editor Greg McLennan are trying to embrace an age-old “back to the ranch” form of storytelling. A storytelling style that goes back and forth between two separate stories in two different locations. But this only really works by building up to a climax and cutting to another story before getting there.
In a sense, werewolf It’s a movie that only has a climax. action in werewolf It’s memorization. It’s all busy work, so the scenes lack punch. What’s worse is that Miller and Kennedy only use Emma as a cheap and lazy way to build up tension that they never really want to build up. However, Werewolf never hints that this is a movie where anything can happen to kids.
meanwhile werewolf It’s more than that It’s more of an action movie than a horror movie, but it still needs mood and atmosphere. But Miller feels too rushed, trying to get to the next scene as quickly as possible. Except that it only succeeded in stalling what little momentum Miller’s archive had.
The less said about Wesley’s brilliant idea at the end, the better. Suffice it to say, it’s funny to me that a werewolf movie that spent so much time on like a zombie movie ended like a vampire movie.
There is a good balance between computer effects and practical effects. However, Miller denies the transformation scenes, which are one of the best parts of werewolf movies. Instead, these scenes are hacked into pieces with choppy editing, allowing us to see the beginning and a straight cut to its final form. werewolf It lacks the visceral sense of physical fragility that is so evident in werewolf movies. This is a sterile movie that’s only interested in doing the occasional murder to showcase its hard-working effects team.
Speaking of the effects team, the werewolf design feels clunky. However, I was struck by how each werewolf retained a bit of their human personality, including their clothing, earrings, and face paint. It would have been nice, though, if the werewolves had been given some sort of personality, or at least the lights had been bright enough to see them.
Director Miller turns what is clearly supposed to be a ’90s sci-fi action movie into a typical modern film that lacks tension, atmosphere, playfulness, style, and humanity, instead filling the film with lens flares. Packed.
Image courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment
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