Night Wolf
Directed by Jonathan Glendening
Starring: Gemma Atkinson, Joshua Bowman and Isabella Calthorpe
Available from Lionsgate

The Lowdown: From a producer of Dog Soldier, brought you an above average British werewolf flick.

The Story
Sarah Tyler is returning from the states on her college break, to visit her family back in England. When she arrives her step-dad is there but the mother is missing. Her younger brothers along with some other friends that are hanging out in the barn, drinking and smoking, inform her that they suspect the mother is banging some dude on the side. The full moon is out, and a vicious creature is stalking the kids through the house, tearing them apart one by one. Will anyone survive till the morning, or will they all fall victim to the mysterious beast?!?

I’m a big fan of werewolf films, even though I’ll admit a huge majority of them suck ass. I can probably count on both hands how many of the films that I would recommend. Dog Soldiers is definitely one of them, so when I saw that a producer was someone involved I got my hopes up. I mostly lived up to my expectations but in a different way. The movie does have some memorable characters, albeit it takes a little way to know who’s who because they are all introduced at one time. Normally I have to turn on subs just to understand what the hell those Brits are saying but I found this wasn’t necessary. There is a bit of slang in the film but I thought it was easy to figure out.

Instead of being just a straight up gory monster flick, the movie actually builds the story and characters and is a bit of a whodoneit film. If you didn’t ever see the cover or read the synopsis you may not even know it’s a werewolf film until the end of the film. The creature’s look is hidden with brief glimpses here and there until it’s finally revealed at the end of the film. They still manage to build some suspenseful moments with the creature running around chasing after them.

The movie is dialogue heavy which may not please a lot of fans. You find out about each character and their relationships and the drama they have with each other. Most of this was fairly interesting and I don’t think I had any “oh come on and get on with it” moments.

There’s not a ton of gore in the film but all of it looked awesome, such as a shotgun blast to the head and dead bodies ripped to shreds. The werewolf didn’t have a traditional look, but looked more human like which I thought was kinda cool. I personally wanted a little more werewolf action but what is shown was well done. The big reveal twist at the end of the film really worked and definitely bumped up my final score. I’m recommending the film but it was far from blowing me away. Definitely better than the average werewolf flick. If you are a die hard werewolf lover then you may want to add a whole point to my final score.

Final Rating: 6.5/10

One of the stars: Gemma Atkinson

Yee Haw!