WEREWOLVES WITHIN – Review

Since Summertime is the movie season for both horror flicks and rowdy comedies, how about a new addition to the growing genre subsection that’s best known as (duh) the horror-comedy? Of course, it’s changed quite a bit since Hollywood’s Golden Age in which a popular comic actor, or team, would scurry away (usually in “undercranked” fast motion) from a billowing sheet or, often, a crook in a rubber “fright mask”. As monster flicks have become more gruesome and graphic, the “comic takes” have followed suit with the comic heroes frequently covered in gore and viscera by the final fade-out. This week’s new release harkens back to the older days as it involves a “new take’ on one of the classic monsters. But, it’s also based on a fairly recent video game, one that tosses in another element: mystery. In the tradition of TEN LITTLE INDIANS, the viewer, along with the characters, must figure out which of them is “offing” the others. Imagine, you’re stuck in a spooky mansion, during a “dark and stormy night” when you discover the shocking fact that there are WEREWOLVES WITHIN! Get to the kitchen and scoop up that silver!

The setting is tiny Beaverville (really), Alaska (best guess) as things are beginning to pop in the sleepy burg. The weather service is warning folks of an approaching “mega-snowstorm” while the town is deeply divided over a proposed gas pipeline that would uproot many homes (but many are hoping to be “bought out”). Oh, and there’s a newly transferred park ranger arriving. Finn (Sam Richardson) checks into his new digs at the Beaverville Inn, meeting the accommodating owner Jeanine (Catherine Curtin) whose hubby is AWOL (gossip has it that he ran off to warmer climes with a waitress), brusk oil-company rep Sam (Wayne Duvall) and the fairly new (four months in) postal carrier Cecily (Milana Vayntrub). She takes him on her route where they encounter many of the locals. There’s ditzy craft-store owner Trisha (Michala Watkins) fawning over her tiny toy-like dog as her “touchy-feely” hubby Pete (Michael Chernus) tries to swoop in on Cecily. Across the way are big-city transplants, longtime married couple Joaquim (Harvey Guillen) and Devon (Cheyenne Jackson) Wolfson who run a new age spa. Further down is an auto repair shop run by “herb enthusiasts” Gwen (Sarah Burns) and Marcus (George Basil). Later, as they enter the wooded secluded outskirts Finn and Cecily run afoul of local unsociable “mountain man-hermit” Emerson (Glenn Fleshler). Finn’s peaceful first night at the inn is shattered when Trisha bursts through the lobby screaming that someone has grabbed her adored pooch “Cha-Cha”. Worse, while searching for the pet, Finn stumbles upon the eviscerated body of a prominent citizen. A research scientist staying there, Dr. Ellis (Rebecca Henderson) takes some fur samples, and after some testing concludes that the killer is a man/ wolf hybrid. Can werewolves be on the hunt? When the powerful storm takes out the town’s power, most of the villagers gather at the inn, believing it to be a “safe spot”. But as the killings continue, Finn tries to figure out who might be the shape-shifting lycanthrope lunatic before he becomes its next meal.

Richardson makes a goofy, but likable everyman hero as Finn, a slightly more capable riff on his best-known role Splett on HBO’s “Veep”. However, as the story progresses, Finn’s anxieties ‘amp up” making him distractingly manic, and a bit of a “motor-mouth”, spewing dialogue too rapidly to comprehend. It’s a compliment to his skills that we’re still rooting for Finn by the ferocious finale. And he’s got some nice, easy-going chemistry with Vayntrub whose Cecily is the snarky “cool girl’ of anyone’s dreams, delivering withering insults under her breath while taking no “guff’ from any of the leering locals. Most of the town citizens embody several social and cultural cliches, often “screeching” over each other’s lines and squelching any charm of the “old-fashioned” mystery elements. It’s a shame that so many terrific talents from other projects are so underused. Watkins is a true double threat, at ease with comedy (an SNL vet) and also adept at drama (Hulu’s “Casual” and as Ben Affleck’s sis in THE WAY BACK), but she has little to work with as her missing critter sends her into constant shrieking hysterics. Ditto for Guillen, so good as the vampire familiar Gullermo in the FX series “What We Do in the Shadows”, as Joaquin camps it up as he sneers at the “hayseeds” while waiting to be either a “red herring” or a “dead duck”. These two deserve a script as witty and sharp as their small-screen work.

But that’s certainly not the case. as director Josh Ruben films the cliche-filled script from Mishna Wolff (for real) based on the Ubisoft video game of 2016 with a leaden hand and little style. Gags are foreshadowed, while an overload of “jump scares’ pummels us into slumber. Ah, but we’re soon kept alert by the constant scenes of the many characters, crammed into the frame, and shouting over each other like a junior college improv group (“I heard Alaska…and mutilations…and…go”). Despite the caterwauling, none of the many comic “tope” stereotypes dominate or even capture our interests. My annoyance with them caused my mind to drift back to a much more enjoyable twist on the same premise, 1974’s THE BEAST MUST DIE, which has a “low-rent” almost “grindhouse charm, though I doubt it’s 30-second “Werewolf Break” (to figure out the killer) would help this clucnky mess of a movie. And if you’re looking for some nifty tranformations or monster make-ups, well rent those early 80’s classics. The final “reveal” looks like something you’d pick up at one of those Halloween “pop-up” stores that occupy empty retails spaces in the Fall. Yes, there are WEREWOLVES WITHIN, but there’s also very little wit or whimsy. More of a dog than a wolf.

1.5 Out of 4

WEREWOLVES WITHIN opens in select theatres on Friday, June 25, 2021.