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This spooky Season I think I will attempt to alternate between media I have already seen and enjoyed with pieces that are new to me and one I had not seen before is 2021’s Werewolves Within, a horror/comedy.
IFC Films
Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) a U.S. Forest Ranger recently reassigned to the tiny Vermont town of Beaverfield. A man with a deficit confidence Finn possesses a surplus of charm and congeniality. Befriended fellow newcomer postal worker Cecily More (Milana Vayntrub – you’ll recognize her from her spokesperson work for AT&T) Finn in introduced to the eclectic and farcical characters of the town. A snowstorm blocks all access into and out of the community just has a series of grisly attacks and murders begin and it is not long before the residents of the idyllic mountain village turn accusing each other of being the monster that stalks them in the cold winter dark.
It was not until the movie’s closing credits that I learned this was adapted from a video game of the same title, where the player is in a medieval village trying to uncover the secret of who is the werewolf. If they had approached this property as a serious film intent on being scary, I believe it would have failed utterly. I slotted this in the sub-genre of horror/comedy but more accurately it is a comedic horror. Each scene chooses comedy over shock or horror and the characters are drawn broadly with a decidedly farcical bend to their nature. If the choice was between playing it big for laughs or ‘realistically’ the consistent choice here was ‘go big.’
The cast, particularly Richardson and Vayntrub are charming and likable though What we do in the Shadows Harvey Guillen was given too little to do given his own comedic talent. Director Josh Ruben keeps the pace fast, never slowing down to let the audience question the choices either the characters or his own. Matthew Wise’s cinematography works witho9ut being flashy but lacks any deep style that might have elevated the movie.
Overall, it was an enjoyable but ultimately empty film that passed its 97-minute runtime without giving offense or earning great praise.
Werewolves Within is streaming on Shudder.
