Director – Pablo Raybould (No Words)
Starring – Laurence Saunders (Doctor Who, The Casebook of Eddie Brewer), Chris Simmons (Zombie Spring Breakers, Touching Evil), and Ben Manning (Cleavers: Killer Clowns, Hangman)
Release Date – 2018
Rating – 3/5
Tagline – “Don’t cry wolf”
October and Halloween may be behind us but horror is not. Thanksgiving is now fast approaching but I find myself still enjoying the horror marathon I put on pause as October closed out. When I picked it back up on November first I found myself just enjoying movie watching again. Sure, not all the movies are entertaining but it’s still fun to sit down with a movie I had never seen before. I recently had a werewolf double feature thanks to Wild Eye Releasing.
Sometime ago I received Bonehill Road and The Snarling. Both looked extremely fun but Bonehill fell a little short on entertainment value. After checking it out I went ahead and tossed in the fairly unheard of 2018 horror comedy The Snarling. Once again I want to thank Wild Eye for sending these my way.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows a small English town that is plagued by a series of brutal murders while a small film crew is in town filming their new zombie movie. As the bodies pile up they start to suspect that the film’s leading man is the one responsible and may actually be a werewolf after a video surfaces of him being attacked by a wolf but they soon learn that someone else on the crew is the beast.**Spoiler Alert**
I didn’t know what to expect from The Snarling and was afraid it would be another negative review like Bonehill Road but I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had with it. The movie itself is far from perfect but I really enjoyed the characters and the simple story.
The acting in this one is fun and the cast carry this entire film on their shoulders. The movie has a super simple story so the characters and their personalities are what holds the viewer’s attention. The characters are all lovable and likable which is weird considering how much of an asshole one of them is. His anger and belittling is funny which makes you like him even though you shouldn’t. The cast is great and without them this film would have fell apart.
The story for this one is painfully simple and, at times, very predictable. For a werewolf flick we don’t get enough werewolf action which is another reason the film relies heavily on the leading cast. The humor over takes the horror for the most part so people that bitch that films like Tucker and Dale and Shaun of the Dead are weak horror films will not find value in this one but fans of those will enjoy this one.
Finally, the film doesn’t focus on the gruesome side of the murders. The effects are very minimal and the werewolf itself is a little on the goofy side but I dug it. Horror fans looking for gore and The Howling (get it?) style werewolves will be disappointed but fans of indie horror comedies will enjoy the almost parody like nature of the film. Overall, The Snarling may be light on horror but it delivers on the laughs and entertainment. It was a great film to follow up Bonehill Road with and I really enjoyed it. Check it out now on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.
