Review: Werewolves

Digital & DVD: Werewolves (2024)

In a lycanthropic amalgam of The Purge and The Howling, Werewolves has a great premise, but just doesn’t have enough bite to be as enjoyable as either of those hairy ingredients.

Synopsis: One year ago, a supermoon event triggered a global outbreak, transforming anyone exposed to moonlight into bloodthirsty werewolves for just one night. Now, as the next supermoon rises, former marine and Global Rapid Response Team Leader Wesley Marshall teams up with scientists Dr. Aranda and Dr. Amy Chen to find a cure before humanity is lost, but as chaos and carnage unfold, Marshall must fight off killer beasts and risk everything to protect his family.

I enjoyed watching Werewolves despite its flaws, one being some very strange lighting decisions. There are far too many shots with a strobe light flashing away (and I can’t remember seeing an epilepsy warning anywhere), making lots of scenes virtually impossible to watch for too long. Now while I always laud the use of practical effects, the lighting of some of the werewolves destroys the impact they should have. Less would have been more in this case, keeping a lot of the action in the shadows.

The movie has a high “cheese factor” (something I always enjoy), but the tone of the film veers around too much and too often to fully appreciate the cheesiness of it all. Werewolves has its moments; machine gunning down a pack of werewolves in a town square being one of them, the always watchable Frank Grillo being another, but its narrative (and cinematography) keep trundling up and down too much to be a consistently entertaining experience.

Would I watch Werewolves again? Possibly.

Would I skip past those annoying strobe light scenes? Definitely.

Worth giving a try, especially if you have a penchant for werewolf movies.

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

Review by Dave from a streaming link kindly supplied by Signature Entertainment.