Werewolves Within (2021)

[Malcolm R]

Title: Werewolves Within (2021)

Tagline: A whodunnit with teeth

Genre: Horror, Comedy

Director: Josh Ruben

Cast: Sam Richardson, Michael Chernus, Michaela Watkins, Cheyenne Jackson, Harvey Guillén, George Basil, Anni Krueger, Sarah Burns, Wayne Duvall, Catherine Curtin, Rebecca Henderson, Glenn Fleshler

Release: 2021-06-25

Plot: Shenanigans ensue when a massive blizzard isolates a small Vermont town, causing simmering resentments to boil over as the oddball townspeople are one by one picked off by a mysterious creature.

Looks like this could be fun, and is supposedly set in my home state of Vermont. EW compares it to Knives Out with a monster, but it also sounds sort of like Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None."

https://ew.com/movies/werewolves-within-trailer/

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Oh, that looks like fun. Just my kind of movie!

 

[Malcolm R]

Not sure if as a Vermonter I should be taking offense at the description of "oddball townspeople".

Though if we survived Super Troopers, this should be fine.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'll watch it because it has Lily in the cast.

 

[Malcolm R]

I'll watch it because it has Lily in the cast.

Lily?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Lily?

AT&T's Lily!

 

[TravisR]

Sam Richardson was about as funny as humanly possible on Veep.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

Huh. I was surprised to see the Ubisoft logo at the beginning. They're a video game company and I have never seen their logo on a mainstream movie before. Then after the trailer was over it dawned on me that Werewolves Within is actually a video game, (based on a popular non-video game game), so technically this is a video game movie.

 

[Johnny Angell]

AT&T's Lily!

Watching the trailer I was wondering why her face was familiar. I hope she’s good and starts a new career beyond the commercials.

Who’s the actress whose dog gets eaten? She’s familiar to me too.

 

[Malcolm R]

The director discusses the influences on the film, including The Monster Squad, Clue, and Bad Moon, and name-checks John Carpenter.

https://ew.com/movies/werewolves-within-hot-fuzz-clue-arachnophobia/

Looks like this is only getting a limited release, so who knows where it'll show up.

 

[Malcolm R]

Not too bad for a limited premiere. The film will be available for digital streaming rental on July 2.

Werewolves did well with critics and audience alike, garnering a 82% score on RottenTomatoes.com. Premiering at 270 locations, the feature grossed $223,000 and averaged $826 per screen, a decent feat in this period of recovery for the limited release space. (Deadline)

 

[Malcolm R]

Rented this through Amazon ($6.99). Great fun until the end when it kind of runs out of steam a bit, almost as if they weren't quite sure how to end things. The characters are hilarious and they do a good job balancing some tension with the comedy. And a horror/comedy film that opens with a quote from Mr. Rogers has to be interesting.

A new forest ranger moves into a small Vermont town filled with eccentrics who are divided over a proposed pipeline that would mean big payoffs to the property owners, but everyone must sign off for the project to proceed and several envrionmentally-minded residents are unwilling causing some local strife. After human and canine deaths, a blizzard moves in and knocks out the power causing a group of townspeople to gather overnight at the local bed-and-breakfast. After another incident inside the inn, an odd doctor staying there announces that the attacks are those of a lycanthrope and everyone becomes suspicious of everyone.

As far as the portrayal of Vermont (as someone who lives here), I thought the characters were pretty funny. I think I've run into most of them over the years.

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

I am going to blind buy this when it’s available and make it part of a my annual 31 Days of Halloween movie watching. The wait for that is really tough because this looks terrific!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it, Malcolm, and for making the wait a little tougher

 

[Malcolm R]

"Yeah, this town's batshit."

I still had access to my rental, so I watched this again. I think it was almost better the second time. It was definitely funnier, as you can catch up with some of the dialogue that sped by the first time.

I have no knowledge at all of the video game on which this is based, so I don't know what the connections are, if any, beyond a supernatural who-dun-it. Can't wait for the disc.

And for those into that sort of thing, you can see a very curvy "Lily" in a tight tank top dancing to "The Sign" by Ace of Base. Speaking of which, this film also has great bass/LFE (which is very prominent in this scene).

Link to the Variety review:

https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/werewolves-within-review-1234998512/

 

[spshultz]

I decided to give this movie a try yesterday and I ended up being pleasantly surprised. I'm not a big horror fan but the fact it was also billed as a comedy and more importantly it had Milana Vayntrub in it, I thought, what the hell.

I have to agree 100% with Malcolm's review above, the first 3/4 of the movie was great but the ending was just a little off.

And yes, the HVAC stuff in the walls was shaking with the amount of bass in that movie. I found it almost odd with the amount of LFE being used but it never took me out of the movie.

If I had movies I watched every Halloween, this one would definitely be in the rotation.

Definitely worth a watch.

 

[Malcolm R]

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
Touch that door and I'll shoot ... again.

I have to agree 100% with Malcolm's review above, the first 3/4 of the movie was great but the ending was just a little off.

There were definitely some oddities near the end, with the pacing and with some of the character choices:

Spoiler

When you spend 70 minutes building up the mystery and the characters, just to have most of them end up killing each other within a few minutes. The absurdity of it is kind of funny in the moment, but it seemed a very sudden end.

Trish's metamorphosis from mousy, middle-aged woman crafting soap bottle angels to cold-blooded killer seems unlikely, regardless of how "batshit" the townspeople may be or how badly she wanted to open her craft store.

I was also a little thrown by the scene in Trish's house just before she kills Devon. She's gazing out the window and you hear what sounds like growling or snarling sounds. The first time I watched, I thought she was observing the werewolf outside her house. On the second view, I'm thinking these were the sounds made by Pete as he passed away? Maybe that was the final trigger for Trish's murder spree that follows?

I'm still not really sure about the death of the Doctor. Did she kill herself, or was she killed by Parker? It seemed like maybe they were going somewhere with that, with Jeanine's comment, but then never took it any further. That she'd commit suicide seems very strange. Unless we're supposed to make the leap that the lack of any rational scientific explanation and the apparent existence of the werewolf, a supernatural being, was too much for her coldly scientific mind to take.

I'm spending far too much time thinking about this film.

 

[Malcolm R]

Just discovered this is playing at the local art house theater. I'd go see it again, but it's in their "downstairs" theater which is basically a lounge with a modest HT projector setup and a screen size which is about the same as what I have at home. If it was in the big main theater, I'd go.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Spoiler

Rented this through Amazon ($6.99). Great fun until the end when it kind of runs out of steam a bit, almost as if they weren't quite sure how to end things. The characters are hilarious and they do a good job balancing some tension with the comedy. And a horror/comedy film that opens with a quote from Mr. Rogers has to be interesting.

,I don’t think it ran out of steam, it just got more serious. It was a natural turn for this movie.

Spoiler

When you spend 70 minutes building up the mystery and the characters, just to have most of them end up killing each other within a few minutes. The absurdity of it is kind of funny in the moment, but it seemed a very sudden end.

Spoiler

My take is that pressure has been building up and up. You can see how they are all close to the edge.

Spoiler

I'm still not really sure about the death of the Doctor. Did she kill herself, or was she killed by Parker? It seemed like maybe they were going somewhere with that, with Jeanine's comment, but then never took it any further. That she'd commit suicide seems very strange. Unless we're supposed to make the leap that the lack of any rational scientific explanation and the apparent existence of the werewolf, a supernatural being, was too much for her coldly scientific mind to take.

Spoiler

I think Parker killed her. I thought it right away because there were multiple shots. Suicides with multiple shots? Considering who he turned out to be, he definitely killed her. He may have been hunting werewolves but he also wanted his pipeline and the Doctor opposed it.

Spoiler

This movie had me going back and forth between there’s an asshole killing people, I suspected Parker early on, and there’s a real werewolf. Then I just started thinking it can’t be Lily or the Ranger, don’t let it be them. Damn.

I enjoyed it. I thought the movie succeeded at what it wanted to be. Wouldn’t have minded seeing Cicely dance some more. I’ll never think of Lily the same way. What’s amazing is they killed a dog and I got over it.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Has anyone seen “The Wolf of Snow Hollow. Small town, new sheriff in town and somebody/something’s killing people. It looks like it’s going for some humor based on the preview but also appear to be more on the horror side that “Werewolves Within.” Worth a rental?

 

[Neil Middlemiss]

Has anyone seen “The Wolf of Snow Hollow. Small town, new sheriff in town and somebody/something’s killing people. It looks like it’s going for some humor based on the preview but also appear to be more on the horror side that “Werewolves Within.” Worth a rental?

Yep. Here’s what I wrote when I watched it as part of last years 31 Days of Halloween challenge:

October 28: The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020) – 4.5 out of 5 – First Time Viewing

The quiet ski-town community of Snow Hollow is rocked by a brutal murder and the small-town sheriff’s department is ill-prepared for the crime (and what soon follows). Officer John Marshall (Jim Cummings) is particularly ill-equipped as talk of the murderer turns to something not human, his worry about his sickly father (the Sheriff) on the edge of retirement seeps in, and his alcoholism rears its ugly head.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow is without a doubt my absolute favorite discovery this year. A horror comedy that hinges successfully on the lead performance by writer/director Jim Cummings, who plays Officer Marshall. Cummings manages to bring a genuine quirk-fill zeal to a man unravelling under the pressure of his circumstances. He plays a mean, tightly wound jerk and yet, despite all his unpleasant behavior, engenders no small amount of sympathy.

The script is smart and the small cast delightful, including the late Robert Forster in his penultimate screen performance. But what I really appreciated about this film is how the horror of the creature isn’t underplayed even amongst comedic moments born of personal chaos. Seriously, this was a blast and manages to have the last laugh.