Director Steven C. Miller‘s latest, the action-horror creature feature Werewolves, drew early comparisons to The Purge based on its premise and its star, Frank Grillo. From its opening sequence that sees Lou Diamond Phillip‘s Dr. Aranda deliver the proper setup and worldbuilding for the madness ahead, however, it’s clear that Werewolves has more in common with the “anything goes” spirit of ’90s action horror films like Full Eclipse, Project Metal Beast, and even Blade. While Miller takes the action and werewolf effects with utmost seriousness, Werewolves just wants you to have fun. More importantly, it’s the type of movie that delivers exactly what’s promised: a whole lot of snarling, drooling werewolves.
Written by Matthew Kennedy, Werewolves introduces a world where a supermoon triggered a gene mutation that transforms people into werewolves if they step out into the moonlight. One year later, with another supermoon looming, Dr. Aranda and a team of experts that includes Dr. Wesley Marshall (Grillo) and Dr. Amy Chen (Katrina Law) make their final tests on “moonscreen,” a spray substance meant to protect human skin from moonlight, therefore preventing their transformation.
But the test goes catastrophically awry, prompting Marshall and Chen to fight their way across a werewolf-filled town so Marshall can reunite and protect sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece Emma (Kamdynn Gary) from potential werewolf danger. And they’ll have to avoid the supermoon while doing so.
(L to R) Frank Grillo as Wesley Marshall and Katrina Law as Dr. Amy Chen in director Steven C. Miller’s WEREWOLVES, a Briarcliff Entertainment release. Credit: Todd Stefani / Briarcliff Entertainment. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.
The very concept of “moonscreen” is enough to paint a clear picture of the type of fun Werewolves has in mind. Yet, if that’s not clear enough, Miller takes it a step further by delivering werewolves with personality. Tapping the endless talents of Studio Gillis to bring the werewolves to life through captivating practical effects, these feral, diseased beasts retain a semblance of their human selves in look. In other words, it’s not just their design that makes them impressive, but each one is given a unique identity through costuming and styling. One easy highlight is Law’s Chen facing off against a female werewolf, a punk rocker with a septum ring and a bright red shock of hair. Another sports American red, white, and blue face paint, a clever means that bypasses any budgetary constraints, allowing the crew to repurpose werewolf suits without sacrificing character. And these are well-designed werewolves with character.
Where Werewolves falters is in its split focus. Miller’s latest is at its best when following the scientists’ chaotic journey home, delivering no shortage of harrowing encounters and gory kills. Smart editing doesn’t just highlight the werewolf action but maintains a propulsive pace. That screeches to a halt when shifting back to the Marshall household to check in on Lucy and Emma, who don’t have much to do but sit inside and hope the werewolves don’t huff and puff and break down their door. Their lack of urgency fails to provide much in the way of stakes, either. There’s not enough characterization or plotting here to make this plot thread anywhere close to as gripping as Marshall and Chen’s survival bid.
Director Steven C. Miller’s WEREWOLVES, a Briarcliff Entertainment release. Credit: Todd Stefani / Briarcliff Entertainment. © 2024 All Rights Reserved.
Also distracting is the excessive lens flair use, a style choice that detracts from fully appreciating the werewolf carnage and Grillo’s action talents. It’s easy to forgive, though, when Miller escalates the mayhem with an ambitious battle in the rain. Also appreciable is the efficiency of storytelling. Werewolves is very light on narrative or depth, letting the action do the heavy lifting. Once the expositional preamble is out of the way, Miller and crew waste no time getting straight to the show: werewolves unleashed.
It’s not deep, nor should it bear those expectations, and it’s not dense in narrative. Instead, Werewolves is lean action horror movie that simply wants to deliver on its title. Grillo always makes for an effective action hero and is more than game to brawl with giant beasts and get doused in buckets of blood in the process, but the real stars here are the wolves. The gangly, monstrous beasts were crafted by hand with fully articulated animatronic faces. It makes for a throwback B-movie with ambition, one that offers silly, straightforward, fun, as well as awe-inducing creature work.
Werewolves releases in theaters on December 6, 2024.
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