‘Werewolves’ movie review: The Purge meets Dog Soldiers in Frank Grillo action-horror film

A rare supermoon causes one billion humans to transform into bloodthirsty monsters in Werewolves, a chaotic but charming action-horror movie now available on VOD. Despite the can’t-miss premise, there’s little going on in Matthew Kennedy‘s script to maintain our interest; still, campy practical creature effects and efficient low-budget filmmaking from director Stephen C. Miller (Escape Plan 2: Hades) keep this from being too much of a drag.

Werewolves stars Frank Grillo as Wesley, a former military man and current scientist who has been helping develop a moonlight-blocking substance (dubbed ‘moonscreen,’ natch) with colleagues Amy (Katrina Law) and Dr. Aranda (Lou Diamond Phillips) to help avert potential future disasters. Only, they have to wait a year for the next wolf-baiting supermoon to test out if their product really works.

And hey: maybe some people want to turn into a werewolf. Of the four test subjects Wesley and co. test out their moonscreen on, two seem pretty disappointed when they don’t transform. But interesting thematic matter like this—heck, any thematic matter whatsoever—takes a backseat after the moonscreen fails and the test-subject werewolves bust out of their cages.

Oh no: werewolves are on the loose! This threat might feel more urgent if there weren’t already millions of other werewolves causing chaos throughout the globe, a fact that is revealed in throwaway bits of dialogue but never really felt onscreen. And heck, it’s only one night: haven’t survivors of the last werewolf invasion developed a foolproof plan to wait out this new one?

For Frank’s family – sister-in-law Lucy (Ilfenesh Hadera) and niece Emma (Kamdynn Gary) – preparations include boarding up the windows, putting pepper spray in the sprinkler system, and prepping a single shotgun with, oh, eight or so shells. This ex-soldier has had a year to come up with a plan to protect his loved ones, but comes up with less than Kevin McCallister in Home Alone did in a single evening.

Wesley knows this, and Werewolves becomes less a survival movie and more of a road movie as he treks back home with Amy to rescue his family. Along the way, they encounter a group of underground dwellers who have taken to the sewers to avoid the curse of the moon, and some mercenary hunters taking out beasts on city streets with a pickup-mounted Gatling gun.

Werewolves might have been more engaging had it followed some of the side characters who represent the larger scope of the premise, but its screenplay is largely limited to protecting a single household from the lupine menace. Lucy and Emma, meanwhile, deal with gung-ho werewolf-hunting neighbor Cody (James Michael Cummings), who has inadvertently transformed and sets his predatory sights on their home.

There’s some real charm to the practical werewolf effects on display here, which include detailed masks with a good amount of puppet animatronic movement. The costumed performers feel a little too human, however, especially evident in one scene of a werewolf washing pepper spray out of his eyes with the comic pratfalling of a Looney Tunes character.

Werewolves has the feel of something that was put together quick and cheap, but director Miller does a good job of overcoming budget limitations with the use of handheld camerawork, quick cuts, and plenty of lens flares that help cover up the fact that some shots appear to be out of focus. Young Gary wears a t-shirt throughout the entire film that prominently misspells Miami as “Maimi,” an egregious typo that serves as an amusing reminder of the level of attention to detail involved during production.

While there’s some fun to be had here for sure, those sold on the premise of a werewolf pandemic may be left unsatisfied by a limited narrative that fails to exploit its core ideas in any meaningful way. Werewolves isn’t a total dud, but it’s a middling entry in the werewolf genre; here’s hoping for better things from Blumhouse’s Wolf Man, due out later this month.