Studio:   Universal Pictures
Director: Steven C. Miller
Writer:   Matthew Kennedy
Producer: Myles Nestel, Craig Chapman, Steven C. Miller, James Michael Cummings, Jim Cardwell, Luillo Ruiz, Sevier Crespo
Stars:    Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera, Kamdynn Gary, James Michael Cummings, Lydia Styslinger, Ian Whyte, Dane DiLiegro, Ian Feuer, Lou Diamond Phillips

Review Score:

Summary:

With the world preparing for the return of a supermoon that will turn a billion people into werewolves, two scientists race to find a cure while protecting their families.

Synopsis:

One year after a supermoon triggered a global event where over a billion people transformed into violent werewolves, the world prepares for the supermoon’s return. Due to the death of his first responder brother Sean during the previous event, military veteran Wesley Marshall helps his widowed sister-in-law Lucy and her young daughter Emma fortify their suburban home with booby traps and weaponry in anticipation of a chaotic evening.

After leaving Lucy and Emma, Wes rejoins a research team where he works as a molecular biologist. In a public address, Dr. James Aranda introduces Wes alongside his second-in-command Evan Radcliffe and behavioral specialist Dr. Amy Chen. James explains how Wes’s team will be testing a new “moonscreen” formula as part of their ongoing efforts to find a cure for the supermoon’s lycanthropy virus.

The team tests the moonscreen on a trio of subjects that includes Amy’s husband Myles, who became a werewolf during the previous supermoon. The experimental formula initially works to prevent moonlight from transforming the subjects, but the scientists realize it wears off after one hour when Myles eventually succumbs to lycanthropy. Myles begins a rampage that causes James to transform into a werewolf as the entire laboratory erupts in chaotic gunfire and bloodshed.

Amy and Wes escort Evan to an infirmary where Evan dies from wounds sustained in a werewolf attack. Instead of staying put, Wes convinces Amy they need to arm up and escape the facility so he can get back to his brother’s family.

While speeding away from the lab in a vehicle, Wes calls to check on Lucy. Lucy informs Wes that werewolves attacked her survivalist neighbor Cody, whom Wes dislikes, and they are now surrounding her young neighbor Reagan, who came to Lucy’s gate pleading for help. Lucy ignores Wes’s warning to not open the gate under any circumstances, but werewolves tear Reagan apart before Lucy can unlock it. Distracted by the commotion, Wes crashes into a bus, forcing him and Amy to continue on foot.

Wes and Amy make their way through a series of encounters that include werewolves, militia members, and vigilantes. During one of those encounters, a werewolf attacks Amy and pulls her away.

With werewolves swarming her house, Lucy and her daughter Emma defend themselves against a deadly werewolf that breaks inside. Wes joins the two of them after fighting through a werewolf horde outside.

Wes sees that Lucy’s neighbor Cody, now transformed into a werewolf, is determined to endanger the family. To combat the creature, Wes intentionally exposes himself to moonlight to transform into a werewolf. The two monsters have a violent faceoff that ends with Wes ripping off Cody’s head.

Wes begins attacking Lucy’s house. Once he breaks inside, Lucy uses a family photo to try appealing to Wes’s humanity. Lucy considers shooting Wes with her shotgun but, upon noticing dawn breaking outside, she fires at a barricaded window instead. The resulting sunlight beam causes Wes to return to normal.

Review:

Whether it was the writer, director, or one of the movie’s 21 executive producers, someone seemingly said, “What if we remade ‘The Purge’ (review here), except instead of legalized murder one night each year, a portion of the planet’s population transformed into deadly werewolves during an annual lunar event?” Voila! Through the magic of middling ambitions, the blandly titled “Werewolves” was born.

Last year, over one billion people across the globe turned into murderous monsters while bathed in an unusual supermoon’s light. With this supermoon set to make its return, experts expect another evening of similarly chaotic carnage, and they’ve been cautioning the public to plan accordingly. Yet just like “The Purge” franchise, people within the “Werewolves” world apparently wait until the last minute to prepare rather than ready themselves and their homes well in advance.

The supermoon will be back in only a few hours. Wes Marshall (Frank Grillo), a molecular biologist with the red-faced physique of a retired MMA fighter, should be at his research lab working with Dr. Aranda (Lou Diamond Phillips) and Dr. Amy Chen (Katrina Law) on their experimental “moonscreen” formula they hope will stave off lycanthropy. Instead, he’s spending the waning moments before sunset boarding up windows and stringing barbed wire around his widowed sister-in-law Lucy’s (Ilfenesh Hadera) suburban home, because everyone was presumably too busy to take care of these essential tasks yesterday.

In addition to being a scientist, Wes is also an Army vet with weapons training, which we conveniently learn when he bluntly says to Lucy’s gun-loving neighbor, “I’m not in the military anymore, Cody.” Matching Wes’s innate ability to speak in exposition, Cody unnecessarily reminds him, “You’re here to protect your brother’s family.” Good work, everyone. I appreciate finding out professional backgrounds and familial relationships via awkwardly unnatural conversations. Reminds me of a recent article about streaming executives reportedly advising screenwriters to have characters announce their actions, so viewers can continue folding laundry or looking at their phones without a dumbed-down film requiring undivided attention.

Dialogue stays dopey after the first act concludes and the main event unfolds. Wes and Amy’s lab is the first place to fall when the moon rises, putting the two of them on an escape route leading back to Lucy. As the lab erupts in gunfire and panicked screams, workers transform into werewolves, bloody bodies are thrown through windows, and Amy confusing asks out loud, “What’s happening?” like she’s suddenly clueless about the effects of the virus she’s been studying for the past 12 months.

“Werewolves” tables the problem of ham-fisted dialogue by not having anyone do much talking at all during the movie’s midsection. Swinging its focus onto the hollow noise of guns aimlessly firing at shadowy shapes, the film trades in clumsy interpersonal interactions for the jarring jerkiness of extremely erratic editing.

During their escape from the lab, Wes and Amy confront Amy’s transformed husband in a hallway. Wes shouts “Go!” and the movie immediately cuts to the two of them speeding away in a car. Did an entire sequence get axed here or did someone forget to film the connecting coverage?

Later, a group of armed vigilantes captures Wes and Amy in a strip mall market. To end the Mexican standoff holding Amy hostage, Wes tells them, “We just want to use the tunnels.” His face obscured by a black hood, the ringleader threateningly strides toward Wes and growls through his gas mask, “I’ll take you to the tunnel entrance.” The next shot of Wes and Amy is them safely exiting the market with the street gang never to be seen again. What a thoroughly thrilling sequence.

If you think either example above sounds oddly staged, wait until you see the smash cut to end credits. It looks like the power bill wasn’t paid, so someone immediately shut off the movie in the middle of its final moment.

My mind might be more open to forgiving the film’s flaws as rookie mistakes if “Werewolves” didn’t open on a Universal Pictures logo and wasn’t staffed by experienced professionals led by a veteran director. FX icons Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. deliver cool creatures, but technical accolades end right there. The rest of the movie inexplicably looks like the haphazard work of newcomers who are green to the scene.

Be it the lab, a convenience store, or average living room, every time a set explodes with werewolf mayhem, colored lights start rhythmically flickering like every location is suddenly inside the EDM tent at a music festival. Gunfire features obviously animated muzzle flashes added in post, yet no noticeable shells ejecting out of the weapons or audibly plinking on the ground.

The biggest distractions by far are ugly lens flares that forcibly draw attention to themselves every other minute. Given their frequency, “Werewolves” seems to think they are an eye-catching feature, but they’re nothing more than an annoying bug. These horizontal light rays have the persistence of J.J. Abrams spheres without any of the style. There’s nothing artful about them. They look like careless errors from the camera department, compounded by several strangely blurry shots where the focus isn’t fully soft, but it looks like cheap lens glass is oddly misaligned.

Bizarrely lit, choppily edited, and woefully written, “Werewolves” reveals itself as an under-budgeted B-movie that should have gone straight to home video, yet somehow had a theatrical release. At least the acting can’t really be criticized since there isn’t much for anyone to do besides play pretend soldier as they swing guns around while huffing and puffing their way across dark stages, which summarizes the extent of the “story.” It’s weird that it took 28 people with “producer” in their title to make this movie. Maybe they needed 29 to make it worth watching.

Review Score: 35