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Werewolves Review

REVIEW: Werewolves (2024)

Werewolves is a new action horror starring Frank Grillo and directed by Steven C. Miller, landing on streaming services today and on DVD from 3rd February. Imagine The Purge, but with werewolves, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

One year ago, a supermoon event transformed anyone exposed to moonlight into a ferocious werewolf for the night. One billion people were affected, with many lives lost. Tonight, a new supermoon will rise, and humanity is a bit more prepared for it. Well, just a little bit…

Wes Marshall (Frank Grillo) is helping his sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and her daughter Emma (Kamdynn Gary) to fortify their house ahead of the upcoming sunset. Boarded-up windows, an electric perimeter fence with pepper spray that can be deployed from indoors, CCTV cameras and some last-minute shotgun training for Lucy. Lucy’s husband Sean, who was Wes’s brother, was a first responder who died during last year’s event, so Wes is doing all he can to protect his brother’s family. This year, all emergency services will be suspended for the night, so it’s going to be every man for himself, as highlighted by Lucy’s neighbour, who is casually carrying out target practice with some heavy firepower out in his front yard.

Werewolves Review

Unfortunately, Wes isn’t going to be staying with Lucy and Emma tonight. He’s a molecular biologist and former marine, so will be spending the night with other scientists and old military buddies as they carry out experiments in a bid to find a cure for the werewolf transformation. Those experiments involve chaining up some volunteers in cages and spraying them with a newly developed ‘Moonscreen’ product, before opening up the roof and exposing them to moonlight. The scientists will be wearing protective clothing to stop themselves from turning and plan to monitor the volunteers, collecting blood samples for analysis and hopefully coming up with a way of stopping tonight’s events from ever happening again.

Werewolves Review

However, they soon discover that in the same way that sunscreen doesn’t last all day, moonscreen doesn’t last the whole night either. After just one hour the effects wear off and the subjects begin to transform, with the cages proving to be pretty useless as all hell breaks loose. Among the chaos, Wes finds Dr Amy Chen (Katrina Law), whose husband was one of the unfortunate volunteers in the cages. She’s the old military buddy of Wes that I mentioned earlier, so the pair of them are pretty good at taking care of themselves and handling big guns. With the research facility a wreck, Wes and Amy spray themselves with moonscreen, set an alarm on their watches for one hour so that they know when to reapply, then they head off across town back to Lucy and Emma, who are preparing themselves to deal with a number of werewolves currently gathered outside their house.

Werewolves Review

As I mentioned right at the start, this is very much like The Purge movies, with werewolves out on the streets, trashing cars and buildings while looking for people to tear apart. The werewolves themselves are actually very convincing for the most part, with some CGI depicting the transformations and a lot of nice practical effects thereafter. They’re huge, clever, formidable and pretty terrifying too. But aside from Lucy and Emma, and a brief glimpse at a couple of their neighbours, we don’t get much of a chance to see how ordinary people are trying to survive or battle them, which I would have liked.

There have been a lot of times recently where I’ve really disliked or loved a movie, only to find online that I’m in the minority. I had a great time watching Werewolves. But it turns out that a lot of people haven’t! Yes, some of the dialogue is cheesy, and yes, some of what happens is pretty dumb. But I really liked the concept. I liked the execution of it, the werewolves themselves and I really enjoyed the ride. Give it a try, hopefully you’ll feel the same way!

Werewolves is available on Digital Platforms 13 January and DVD 3 February. Distributed by Signature Entertainment.

Where to Watch

Werewolves | December 6, 2024 (United States) 4.5

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