“I’m not your grandmother’s werewolf.” —Vince
Today’s quick review: Neowolf. Tony (Michael Frascino), a talented guitarist and songwriter, returns from a music competition to win back his girlfriend Rosemary (Heidi Johanningmeier). But his attempts to impress her hit a snag when Vince (Agim Kaba), the leader of the rock band Neowolf, takes an interest in his music. As Tony spends more of his time with Neowolf, Rosemary begins to suspect that Vince and his band are actually werewolves.
Neowolf is a budget horror movie about a rock band of werewolves. Although the premise works well enough on paper, Neowolf doesn’t have what it takes to make its vision a reality. Bottom-of-the-barrel special effects, a half-baked script, and acting that ranges from poor to distracting all stand between Neowolf and its aspirations. The result is a horror movie crippled by weaknesses that are too pervasive to ignore.
Neowolf is the kind of film that takes one step forward and two steps back. The camerawork shows basic competence until it starts abusing fades and shaky cam. The soundtrack’s acoustic guitar parts are fairly good, but its rock is disappointing. Tony’s fall from grace should be a cautionary tale about the dark side of stardom, but the film never puts the pieces together, opting instead for an abrupt, meaningless downward spiral.
But Neowolf’s greatest failing is its action. Where other aspects of the movie show glimmers of potential, Neowolf’s action brings almost nothing to the table. The werewolf makeup is cheap and inconsistent. The kills consist of smeared-on gore and careful cuts to avoid any difficult special effects. The few proper fight scenes are clumsy, plagued with slow motion, and governed by the film’s needlessly specific rules about how werewolves work.
Ultimately, Neowolf is a horror movie that fails to deliver. Horror fans may want to give it a watch just to dissect what it gets wrong, but its scant merits are too thinly spread to give it much appeal at all. Try one of the many other horror movies out there instead, or try Blade or Underworld for actual supernatural action. For a horror drama that offers a more thoughtful look at temptation, check out Devil’s Advocate.
2.3 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 3.0 for low production values, weak special effects, and empty writing.