Main cast: Sam Richardson (Finn Wheeler), Milana Vayntrub (Cecily Moore), Wayne Duvall (Sam Parker), Catherine Curtin (Jeanine Sherman), Michaela Watkins (Trisha Anderton), George Basil (Marcus), Sarah Burns (Gwen), Michael Chernus (Pete Anderton), Cheyenne Jackson (Devon Wolfson), Harvey Guillén (Joaquim Wolfson), Glenn Fleshler (Emerson Flint), and Rebecca Henderson (Dr Jane Ellis)
Director: Josh Ruben
Due to a rather embarrassing social media incident, forest ranger Finn Wheeler is transferred to the small, isolated town of Beaverfield to basically lay low. A very nice guy, it takes him awhile to realize that his girlfriend back home has basically dumped him, heh. Still, he meets the mail carrier Cecily Moore and they get along very well. In fact, in a town full of rather eccentric and over the top folks, she seems like the lone sane person that he can click with.
Alas, if only Finn’s problem is simply his love life. Tycoon Sam Parker is trying to buy up the properties in Beaverfield so that he can build a pipeline in the area, and the residents are currently divided into those that favor the pipeline and those that don’t. Both parties don’t get along. Then, a blizzard hits one evening and the power goes out, causing everyone to seek shelter at the local boardinghouse owned by Jeanine Sherman. Finn discovers that all power generators in town have been sabotaged. Who could have done such a thing, and why? If that’s not tiresome enough, someone or something has eaten Trisha Anderton’s dog, and something, maybe the same thing, attacks and gnaws off her husband’s hand the next day. What is happening? Is the local ecologist Dr Jane Ellis right when she states, after studying extensively the hair left at the scene of crime, that a werewolf is out there, clearly preying on them all?
Werewolves Within shares the same premise as the video game that it is loosely based on: there’s a werewolf on the loose, and one has to figure out whom that is before it gets them all. However, the movie takes place in the present day, and ups the small town kooky people comedy that there is actually very little horror here. Half the movie passes without anyone killed unless one counts the dog and the obligatory dude that dies in the opening scene. Instead, it’s all about Finn having to deal with his new neighbors as they slowly turn on one another due to their ingrained prejudice and dislike of one another inflamed by their paranoia and fear. Even then, most people just bicker. The horror stuff with the werewolf is all packed in the last fifteen or so minutes and, while the werewolf effects are okay for an obviously low budget flick, I doubt this movie will satisfy folks looking for werewolf chomp-chomp fun first and foremost.
For the most part, Sam Richardson and Milana Vayntrub are perfectly fine with their roles, and Mr Richardson manages to make Finn a somewhat optimistic but endearing fellow. This movie relies more on comedy than horror to drag itself to the finish line, however, and for the most part, the humor hits as much as it misses. The townsfolk are clichéd types that don’t feel well developed or real, hence it’s hard to take them seriously or even care whether they live or not.
As a result, while this movie isn’t particularly awful or anything, it’s also not the most interesting werewolf flick around. The fact that it spends so much time trying to be a small town comedy also means that there is no sense of palpable danger or urgency. The werewolf just shows up in the end as if to remind me that it is supposed to be in here since the title of the film has “werewolf” in it.
All in all, this is a middle of the road film that suffers from an identity crisis. Maybe it’s due to the lack of budget, but they really kept the werewolf in cold storage for way too long.
