Available on DVD Tuesday, June 22
Cast:
Ginny Weirick as Amy
Chris Divecchio as Dan
Chris Mulke as John
Sid Haig as Crazy Louis
Maria Conchita Alonso as Sheriff Sam
Directed by Dana Mennie
Review:
So this is what it has boiled down to on the direct-to-DVD front. A freaking rip-off of the Twilight Saga, complete with the word “Moon” in the title for good measure.
But instead of good and bad vampires, it is the battle of good and bad werewolves (granted, the Twilight Saga also has those, go Team Jacob!). Wolf Moon is not a horror film. It is a romance with some horror elements sprinkled in. And as far as romance films go, this one sucks ass. And unfortunately, it is missing the high-priced special effects that the aforementioned Twilight Saga has in spades due to a big budget.
Loner Amy (Ginny Weirick) meets a mysterious stranger â who apparently likes to date 17-year-olds â working at an auto repair shop and the two quickly develop a storybook romance. He saves her from a potential rapist, they go swimming in a gnarly pond and he has dreams of ripping her to shreds â you know the stuff most great romance novels are made of. But most of all, they like to spend nearly every night and the first 40 minutes of the film, making out on top of the stranger’s cool car.
See, the stranger, Dan (Chris Divecchio), is a werewolf and that does terrible things for a relationship, especially when you have an arch-nemesis in Bender (Max Ryan) following your footsteps because that’s how the plotlines of these craptacular films go. Seriously, the only reason we get for Bender tracking him down is some cockamamie idea that since Bender turned him into a werewolf, they are family. And that explains it how?
It isn’t a matter that Wolf Moon is directed poorly or that the acting is terrible or that the sets are cheap. Wolf Moon is boring. I’d re-watch Twilight before watching this. Yes, I know, that’s amazing statement. But literally it is 90-plus minutes of a short, emotionless romance, people standing around talking, a dude in a lame costume howling and running around like an idiot and pretty much everyone smoking. Even Twi-hards aching for something to tide them over until Eclipse would have a difficult time making it all the way through this one.
It is a shame too because they actually have some decent actors in the film, although granted why they would sign up for such a shitty production is a consideration. Sid Haig as Crazy Louis is simply wasted with him running around a farm with a shotgun or in a bar cracking jokes about Viagra. Journeyman actor Chris Mulkey is also wasted as Amy’s father uniquely named John. He’s a placeholder. There’s nothing special about him and the script gives him nothing to be special besides a stereotypical overly concerned father. And Lin Shaye looks ridiculous as an over-the-top, highly-emotional dreadlocked fortune teller/werewolf expert.
The film is downright hilarious at times. Amy comments on Dan’s smoking (about it killing him), yet throughout the first 45 minutes of the film (even when they first met) she’s smoking like a God damn chimney! The sheriff comes to visit Crazy Louis after his farm is attacked by a werewolf and after examining the dead dog, cow and various other animals, tells Louis that she’s “tired of his bullshit.” I guess there wasn’t enough evidence that ole Crazy Louis didn’t go on a Viagra/booze bender and destroy his only source of income himself. Also, the whole premise of the film â the romance between Amy and Dan â goes away after spending the first 40 minutes showing us how much in love they are. Instead it bogs down in other characters having the same conversations about werewolves and other strange shit over and over again.
Plus, is there even a need to mention that the werewolf costumes make Swamp Thing look like fine art?
If you really, really need your supernatural romance fix, perhaps you could watch the first half of Wolf Moon but beyond that, avoid. As stated before, you might be better off watching Twilight for the 101st time.
