Don't get me wrong, I love a cheesy werewolf flick. But I do expect actors to, you know, actually act? And the writing to be somewhat indicative of the actual flow of normal human conversation?
This movie was unbearable, and with an almost 2 hour run time, I had a lot of time to gather evidence.
It's like aliens trying to mimic humans wrote this movie. The dialogue is (at the very least) unnatural, and the acting leaves me hating every character. I was mostly hoping they would all just get torn to shreds so I could be done with it. What's the plot? Why should I care about Guy with Bad American Accent and his half-brother, Spirit Halloween Werewolf Mask? I get that making movies is fun, but save this for your high school art project. Run away, friends.
Werewolf Cabal
2022
Comedy / Horror
Plot summary
An American author travels to a small rural town in the UK. During his stay, he uncovers a cabal who worship Lycanthrope.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
...what?
A fun comedy horror... or is it?
There's a lot going for this indie movie and, given the limited budget, I feel the filmmakers did a great job. The acting was, for the most part solid. The sound effects were great and the ambient background music very effective. Additionally, the werewolf transformations were simple, yet effective.
There were a few well known actors that I felt were, perhaps underutilized such as one of my personal favorites, the great Vernon Wells, himself.
Without spoilers, the movie started with some great comedic dialogue and this light tone continued throughout most of the movie. It didn't take itself seriously and it had a light and fluffy tone that was hilarious while still maintaining some horror elements. This silliness continued to the actual werewolf itself. The transformation was fun and effective while the actual werewolf costume was ridiculous but intentionally so. The comedic timing of the actors was great too. Antonia Whillans (Charlotte) and Derek Nelson (Michael) did well, individually, as the main protagonists. Although, I could not fault their individual acting chops in any way, I was unconvinced by the forced chemistry required of the plot. Mostly this is because the character of Charlotte was demonstrated to clearly be in love with someone else. However, it wasn't made clear if she was toying with the Michael character or had genuine feelings for him too. Jon-Paul Gates did a phenomenal job as a struggling priest and his part was definitely a show stealer and epically hilarious in a "did he actually just do that?" kind of way. I absolutely loved the light comedic tone throughout most of the movie.
Then, for the final quarter of the movie, it changed from it's previous comedic tone to trying to be a fairly serious slasher movie. Again, other than the werewolf costume itself, the serious part of the movie was filmed and presented well. Essentially, we ended up with two different movies. A light and fluffy comedic horror and a serious attempt at a slasher movie. Both parts worked well individually but put together was a rough transition and I really wish it had maintained it's comedic tone throughout the entire movie.
On the whole, I enjoyed the movie a lot but it was tainted slightly by the jarring change of style at the end. On the whole though, entertaining and worth watching at least once.
Yikes
Genuinely don't understand the positive reviews on this. It was a movie that really didn't know what tone it was trying to set, acted out by the most cardboard actors they could find, with a script written with no concept of actual human interaction.
It was kind of fun watching for obvious continuity errors and trying to guess character motivation, but the script, vfx, acting, etc. Fell well short of delivering a cohesive plot. I can understand the low budget of the film and excuse the poor visual effects on that note, but there are so many movies on similar budgets that stretch the budget so much further with better script writing and acting.
I'm mostly just confused because it's not funny enough to qualify as a "horror-comedy," nor is it serious enough to qualify as a true "slasher." I'd generally recommend avoiding this movie unless you're planning on laughing at something silly.