Werewolves Within
I’ve never played the video game, “Werewolves Within,” but I enjoyed the film Josh Ruben made of it immensely. Part horror comedy, part Agatha Christie mystery, “Werewolves Within” downplays the horror a bit, but only because it’s setting up the characters in this town as they are faced with a life-changing possibility in a pipeline going through their town, and then a life-taking one in the attack spree of a werewolf. It’s a fun ride of a movie.
Finn (Sam Richardson) is a new park ranger for the town of Beaverfield, and immediately, it’s a unique experience. There is division within the town about a proposed pipeline, with a businessman (Wayne Duvall) in town hoping to seal the deal. Add him to a town of quirky personalities, which includes an isolated big game trapper (Glenn Fleshler), and Finn is in for a trip. His tour guide around town is Cicily (Milana Vayntrub), a mailwoman, and things seem to start reasonably well. When the dog of the town’s hotel owner disappears, and an unusual hair is left behind, there are a number of possibilities, but if you guessed werewolf, you guessed correctly.
The screenplay by Mishna Wolff has a juicy premise, and gives the actors plenty of absurd humor and dialogue to sink their teeth into while Ruben sets the atmosphere for us. While I wouldn’t put it up to the likes of, say, “An American Werewolf in London” in terms of werewolf-based horror comedy, it has a personality all its own that is fun to watch for fans of movies such as that. What works best about “Werewolves Within” isn’t necessarily the horror or the humor, because there are personality tics in some of the characters that start to grate on you, but the way it’s structured as an Agatha Christie mystery, with Finn having to figure out all the clues, and whom it might be. What happens when Finn isn’t really that quick on the draw either? (I mean, he didn’t exactly catch on that he and his girlfriend broke up.) That’s where this film gets its goofy and (sometimes) creepy energy from, and I enjoy Richardson and Vayntrub as the detectives in this mystery. By the end, the mystery ends up resolved in a strange way, but one that I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing continue if they figured out a way of doing so. “Werewolves Within” is a satisfying genre hybrid to spend time with.
