Review – Wolf Man (2025)

If you typed “werewolf clichés” into a generative AI engine, you’d likely end up with the script for this clunker. Indeed, I’m starting to feel like I could type “Hoffman Lens 2020s movie review” into that same device and get “The cast was good, production values were high, but the story was somewhere between terrible and nonexistent.” See if desperate

Review – Howl (2015)

This is one of those movies that traps the protagonists in an enclosed space and then spends the bulk of its running time having them stubbornly refuse to either escape or successfully defend against attack. Usually this sort of thing involves zombies, but this time around it’s werewolves. So kinda Train to Busan only in the UK with lycanthropes. Occasional humor, occasional horror, but mostly just flailing. See if desperate

Review – Werewolves Within

The time-honored tradition of making terrible movies based on video games continues. This time the source was a game I’ve never heard of and definitely won’t be seeking out. Sitcom B-listers do their best to make the sitcom script seem quirky rather than juvenile. But there just isn’t enough story here to last for anything near the running time. Particularly annoying was the “who’s the werewolf?” trope, a question that was rendered almost completely moot by the high casualty rate prior to the lycanthrope’s only actual onscreen appearance late in the movie. See if desperate

Review – The Cursed

Though slickly produced, this grim tale doesn’t do anything innovative with plot elements as old as The Wolf Man (if not older). In 19th century France, villagers abuse a group of itinerant people and buy themselves a lycanthrope curse, turning some of them into beasts that prey on the rest. Mildly amusing

Review – Red Riding Hood

Amanda Seyfried does a solid job in the title role of this Ren-festy redux of the familiar fairytale. To be sure, it gets embroidered along the way with a werewolf, a love triangle, some paranoia-promoting religious fanatics and the like. But overall it’s an entertaining little horror period piece. Mildly amusing

Review – Dog Soldiers

This is an extended siege between obnoxious British soldiers inside a house and werewolves trying to get in and eat them. The result is noisy, occasionally gory but otherwise pointless. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Werewolf: The Beast Among Us

Not for the first time (and probably not for the last), I find myself wondering why productions like this bother trying to come up with plots. Just assume that the audience has come for the werewolf, and don’t feel like you need to bother so much with the non-mysterious mystery about who the shape-shifter secretly is or why he’s targeting this particular town. Or if you do feel the need to tell as story more sophisticated than “once upon a time a monster ate a bunch of people the end,” go ahead and come up with a good one. See if desperate

Review – Night Wolf

The monster here seems to be some kind of werewolf, but really it could have been just about anything. The beast’s sole function is to pin a pack of 20-somthing English assholes in an attic so they can bicker and bicker and bicker with each other. Before the halfway point I was hoping, praying, begging for the monster to dismember the lot of them, a wish that sadly took forever to be granted. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Howling Reborn

The most impressive thing about the Howling “series” is that none of the pictures have anything to do with any of the other entries. The only thing the set has in common is that the movies are about werewolves (and one of them doesn’t even manage that much). This go-around is about a lovelorn teenager trying to come to grips with his new-found werewolf identity. The ending is vaguely reminiscent of the original, but the rest is pure Twilight, in spirit if not literal interpretation. See if desperate

Review – Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning

A lot of the user reviews on Netflix complained that Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) have somehow been relocated from the suburbs of the first couple of movies in the series to the 19th century wilderness. Yeah, that’s a twist more worthy of fan fiction than serious filmmaking. On the other hand, it’s a werewolf movie. To be honest, I thought the historical setting worked much better than the contemporary setting. The girls are stranded in a fort under siege by lycanthropes, a situation that doesn’t spawn as many interesting plot twists as one might expect. Mildly amusing

Review – Wolf Moon

Title and cover art notwithstanding, for the first half hour I wasn't even sure I was watching a werewolf movie. Instead it appeared to be some kind of desert Southwestern drama about rednecks tippy-toeing up to the verge of sexual assault. Though I recognize the shape-shifting sub-genre's potential for sexual savagery, this is less The Howling and more beer-swilling assholes on any given Saturday night. Even when the fangs and fur do finally emerge, they're a bit on the lame side. The result doesn't come anywhere near justifying the two hour running time. See if desperate

Review – Werewolf: The Devil’s Hound

Low budget crapslingers strike again, this time with the distinctly non-linear (i.e. poorly conceived and assembled) tale of a special effects guy who gets bitten by a werewolf and starts to transform. In all fairness, when it’s being scary it isn’t too terrible. The werewolf makeup is ridiculous. The original beast looks like a mugato, and her victim looks like a hipster with extra-long sideburns. But at least they have the sense to use weird lighting and lots of jump cuts to partially disguise the bad effects. The real killer here is a mistake common to many pictures of this ilk: because they lack the skill and resources to make it good, they try to make it funny. I’m surprised even horror nerds are entertained by horror nerd humor, and certainly nobody else should have to sit through it. See if desperate

Review – Howling 2

After early screenings revealed that audiences thought – correctly – that this was an intensely terrible movie, the film-makers decided to take a Pee-wee-Herman-over-the-handlebars “I meant to do that” approach. Thus if you’re watching it now, it probably has the subtitle “Your sister is a werewolf” stuck on it. Unfortunately, pretending a movie this stupid was intended to be a comedy only transforms it into a stupid comedy. The twin disgraces that set this apart from other pictures of similar ilk is that it squanders the talent of Christopher Lee and the good running start it got from the first Howling, a movie with script, acting and effects as good as the same elements here are bad. Oh, and note to anyone watching this on Chiller (or similar venue): the presence of Sybil Danning alone should tell you that some cheap nudity has been excised from the print. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Wolfman (2010)

If Universal hoped to do with The Wolf Man what it succeeded in doing with The Mummy (i.e. turn it into a popular, profitable, reasonably entertaining franchise), then wow did it ever miss the mark with this picture. I loved the original when I was a kid and still enjoy it today, but this remake is inferior to it in almost every way. Rick Baker’s special effects are nearly as clunky as Jack Pierce’s without being anywhere near as innovative. Somehow Benecio del Toro manages to be even more charmless than Lon Chaney Jr., which must have taken a considerable amount of charmlessness practice. And don’t even get me started comparing Anthony Hopkins to Claude Rains, a shortfall that proved especially galling because the senior Mr. Talbot has a much larger role in this go-around. Even Danny Elfman’s score comes across as a bad Danny Elfman impression. The picture seems to be trying to imitate the look and feel of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, but instead it just turns into a drab, directionless mess. See if desperate

Review – She-Wolf of London

A-hoooo. She-wolf of London. A-hoooo. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Nor can this picture hold a candle to Werewolf of London. A young June Lockhart stars as a recently-betrothed woman who fears that she can’t get married because she’s a werewolf. Within the first ten minutes even the dimmest audience member has figured out that she isn’t really a lycanthrope but rather has fallen victim to a scheme by her “aunt” to drive her crazy in order to inherit her property. Which of course immediately raises the question, “if you’re willing to brutally slaughter innocent victims in order to do your ‘niece’ out of her inheritance, why not just kill the poor woman directly and be done with it?” The only pleasure to be had with such movies is the faint glimmer of hope that somehow it isn’t going to turn out exactly the way you think it will, a hope perfunctorily dashed by this mercifully brief outing. See if desperate

Review – Howling 3: The Marsupials

Is there anything at all I really need to write about this picture? I mean, if the title alone isn’t enough to make you flee in terror, what could I possibly say that would talk you out of seeing it? Well, let me give it a try anyway. This is one of the most disorganized messes I’ve ever seen. The filmmakers don’t possess the talent, skill or experience to tell one story, and yet they’re apparently trying to weave two together. One – a Russian ballerina who must from time to time turn into a wolf-creature – could have worked out okay. But the other is about a young woman who escapes from a cult in the Australian Outback and somehow ends up acting in a low-budget horror movie. Unfortunately she has a shape-shifting problem of her own: she tends to turn into a Tasmanian wolf, an extinct creature that was once the world’s only carnivorous marsupial. Before the final reel runs out, we get “treated” to a fuzzy heroine with a pouch, stripey were-marsupials, rubber baby were-marsupials, happy hippie were-marsupial communes, and so on and so forth. See, the title really does tell you everything you need to know. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – War Wolves

This is one of those movies in which all the elements compete with one another to see which can be the worst. The acting is terrible. The werewolf makeup consists of bad contacts, fake teeth, fake ears and oversized, brown noses, so you can imagine for yourself how well that worked. But the champion of awfulness in this crap parade has to be the script. All the characters talk in that snarky, pseudo-witty banter style of dialogue that infects the writing of many second-year college students. It’s always a shame when they don’t grow out of it before someone gives them a budget for an actual movie. After all, it’s called “sophomoric” for a reason. See if desperate

Review – Skinwalkers

It’s good werewolves versus bad werewolves, which accurately augurs that the best parts of this picture have a vague Howling flavor. Unfortunately, it also tastes a lot like the flood of recent vampire movies that come across as an awkward blend of MTV and relationship counseling. The most disappointing aspect of the production, however, is that Stan Winston’s name is attached to a picture with effects this uninspiring. Mildly amusing

Review – Never Cry Werewolf

Strike one: Sci Fi Channel “original.” Strike two: blatant “homage” to Fright Night. Fortunately, we never quite get to strike three. Oddly enough, shape-shifters turn out to be a slight improvement over blood-suckers. The folks who made this one also decided to go with a female protagonist, which allowed the main character to play both the hero and the villain’s obsessive love interest. The budget is low, so the effects are imaginative but poorly executed. Overall this isn’t a masterpiece of modern cinema, but it could have been considerably worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Hybrid

Some random guy gets into an industrial accident that leaves him blind. Ambitious scientists give him an eye transplant from a wolf. The Army is interested in him because now he can see in the dark. Some local American Indians are interested in him because somehow the spirit of the wolf has seeped out of the eyes and into his brain. That’s worth around 15 minutes of screen time, eh? Unfortunately, to stretch this out to 90 or so, the film-makers pack in tons of random footage of wolves wandering around in the woods, killing bison, wandering around some more, and so on and so on. The result is poorly assembled and almost completely effect free, one of the dullest werewolf movies ever made. See if desperate