Werewolves Within: The Monster Unleashed

Forest Ranger, Fin Wheeler (Sam Richardson) is assigned to Beaverfield, a small mountain town whose quirky residents are divided over a controversial oil pipeline proposed by businessman Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall).  Finn and newly arrived mailperson, Cicily Moore (Milana Vayntrub) hit it off right away as she introduces him to the residents of Finn’s new town.  Just after arriving, a big winter storm hits and someone, or something has disabled all the generators and the dead body of Dave Sherman (Patrick M. Walsh) the innkeeper’s husband and previous mail carrier, who was thought to have left his wife and moved out of town.  Feeling that there is safety in numbers, everyone takes refuge in the Beaverfield Inn.  As the night progresses, more attacks happen, and tensions rise until no one trusts anyone and the townsfolk begin attacking each other both verbally and physically.  Is there an actual werewolf in their midst or is there someone all too human pulling everyone’s strings?  Who lives, who dies, and who survives the night? Stream now on Amazon and other streaming systems to find out!

I love werewolf movies.  I have loved them since I was a child.  From the classic Wolfman to Werewolf in London to the Underworld series of movies, I have loved the idea that right under the surface of the seemingly civilized, there is a monster clawing to get out and that good people can be monsters in the right circumstances and even more to the point, sometimes monsters look and act like good people.  This is the case with Werewolves Within.  I was a little concerned when I learned the movie was based on a video game.  Game to movie adaptations don’t have a good track record, but this is one of the better movies to transition.  Possibly because the movie bares little resemblance to the game, besides the basic premise that the goal is to guess which of the towns residents is the monster.  The most notable change is that the game takes place in medieval times and the movie is modern (maybe we need a prequel).

The film works on many levels.  The production is well done with great choices of locations adding to the mysterious atmosphere.  The story is fast paced and flows well, although some of the exposition went by very quickly and was easy to miss and the quick pace didn’t leave the audience much time to digest what was happening.  I wouldn’t say the movie was frenzied of frantic, but I think there was some opportunity to explain things a bit more.  This may have been done on purpose to make sure the audience didn’t have time to figure out who the murderer is, but it felt more like they focused on the horror aspect and not enough on the mystery “Who Dunnit” aspect.   The script is clever and well written with a lot of twists and turns but could be a bit predictable.  A great aspect is the psychological aspect of the story.  Playing on the town peoples fears, they are easily turned against each other.  How easy is it to get someone to kill.

The movie is billed as a comedy-horror and there were several moments of levity, but the comedy was more subdued and wasn’t in the same laugh out loud vein as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.  The horror portion was well done with a good mixture of startling scares and atmospheric creepiness.  The cast all play there parts expertly, most notable Sam Richardson as Finn is likeable and optimistic.  He is a good person deep to his core which makes it easy for people to take advantage of him, which is a fault that he knows of and is trying to address.  Milana Vayntrub’s Cecily is also a likeable character and the two have good chemistry together.  Both actors have a great sense of comic timing with a calm subtlety that was perfect for their rolls.  Horror movies need to have someone to root for and you really like them both in this film.  They are good people, or are they?  Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillen play a cliché’ affluent gay couple.  Both actors do a great job, but I do feel like the characters were a bit too “Stereotypical” not quite offensive but heading in that general direction.  Catherine Curtin as the Innkeeper was just the right amount of overworked jilted wife and grieving widow.  She is the perfect host to her guests, but that leaves her a bit tired and raw at times.  The rest of the cast all performed their parts well.  The hard part of playing quirky eccentric characters is to not over do it.  A good movie can quickly go bad if the actors become unbelievable in their roles.  Comedy-horror can easily become horror-farce.  Luckily, the actors all remained in control and their idiosyncrasies were played with the right amount of subtlety to give us believable yet crazy characters in an extreme situation.  A script writer once told me, there are three types of stories: 1. Crazy people with a ordinary situation, 2. Ordinary people in a crazy situation, and 3. Crazy people in a crazy situation.  And Werewoves Within is mainly a number 3.