It seems like once again our theatres are being swarmed, TV screens filled and of course DVD shelves and bargain buckets everywhere overflowing with various vampire and werewolf horror treats. Today we take a look at one of the latter offerings which arrives on DVD here in the UK this week. Louis Morneau’s ‘Werewolf: The Beast Among Us’ brings us a mixed bag of mutilations and unexpected twists and turns in the tale making it one of the more ‘interesting’ direct to disc releases this Halloween season.
The story echoes the recent Catherine Hardwicke helmed ‘Red Riding Hood’ remake whereby a small group of villagers during the 19th Century are constantly threatened by a big old scary werewolf. Some locals decide to put together a hunting pack of their own to track down the furry killer and put a stop to his full moon bloodlust.
The wolf itself which preys on the locals at every opportunity sadly only manages to come to life on screen in a characteristic CGI form. It’s considerably more meticulous than that of a typical SyFy shark or equally tame and inexpensive looking underwater hybrid and doesn’t spoil the tone too much.
Unfortunately there was a seemingly excessive amount of little irksome moments and plot holes that frustrated me as a viewer which sadly I can’t go too much into detail about in this spoiler free review. Thankfully, however, this plethora of twisted mythology and strained Eastern European accents does manage to entertain enough to help see past most of it as long as you’re a non-committed geek unlike myself who just wants to see some werewolf action.
OVERALL SUMMARY
After a long week at work and getting ready to unwind just forget about watching your freshly rented bamboozling time-travel sci-fi epic, your complex mystery thriller or your overly twisting courtroom drama and reach for this. ‘Werewolf: The Beast Among Us’ is a good old Friday night no-brainer action horror flick and is appreciatively slightly more effort filled and production valued than many of today’s typical direct to video releases.