Review of Werewolf: The Beast Among Us (2012) by Caleb H — 28 Jun 2016

Werewolf: The Beast Among Us is as silly a movie as one can reasonably expect from a direct-to-video werewolf feature. The film probably would have played better in the 80's, where it probably would have starred Christopher Lambert and Lance Henriksen, who wouldn't have realized how shitty the script was, a terrible teen actor who spent the whole movie looking confounded, and a werewolf who wasn't a cartoon character.

In 2012, though, Werewolf just seems like a lousy SyFy film. It's filled with silly gore, the script is absurd, and the special effects look like a third grader drew them in MS Paint. The film follows a group of "bad-ass" monster hunters into a 19th century European village that is being terrorized by a werewolf.

Young Daniel, a moony-eyed, whiny kid who works in the local hospital (for a slumming Stephen Rea) wants to join up with the monster hunters...his motivations are never clear, but it seems like he really wants to impress the local hot chick.

I'm not sure, and the script isn't either, but Daniel at least seems like a credible human being, which is more than can be said for the snarling monster hunters, who are an assortment of "Bad Ass Movie Cliches" like the solemn cowboy, the British guy with a 'stache, the crazy guy, and the hot chick with a big gun and mad karate skills.

The latter half of Werewolf is, at least, kind of amusing in a bizarre way, mainly because the writers-for some strange reason-decide they don't like the smug, British monster hunter and have him turn into a villain and a possibly rapist over the course of thirty seconds.

The identity of the werewolf will likely surprise no one who has paid at least a little attention to the film, although the filmmakers do an admirably silly job of throwing a couple lousy red herrings at the audience just for shits and giggles.

And the visual effects are howlingly bad (pun intended), especially when the werewolf is required to fight one of the characters. Also, the movie's depiction of gypsies as mystical nutjobs is hysterically awful.

The acting, to the extent that it is acting, is pretty much what you expect from this sort of thing. Accents are attempted, but usually with no success. The villains are all snarls and smirks, and there's a standard pretty girl who seems to be reading her lines off cue cards.

Stephen Rea looks about as miserable as an actor can be...at least John Rhys-Davies gamely embraces the lousy movies he shows up in. The bottom line with junk like Werewolf depends on your tolerance for cheesy, overly-gory, bargain basement horror films.

If you enjoy laughing at this kind of junk, you'll likely have fun with the movie regardless of whether you think it's good or not. Personally, I was just relieved to find a DTV horror film that wasn't about zombies, and that's worth a few stars at least.