Don’t we all just love a good werewolf movie?
Crying Wolf is written and directed by Tony Jopia (Zombie Harvest, Deadtime) with Michael Dale and Andy Davie. Cast members include Caroline Munro (Maniac, Slaughter High), Joe Egan, Kristofer Dayne, Chloe Farnworth, Gabriela Hersham, Gary Martin, Rosie Pearson, Kimberly Jaraj, Steve Sipple, and many, many more!
Crying Wolf is a horror-comedy that, “tells the story of strange and weird goings on in a little English village called Deddington. The gruesome death of local girl Charlotte by a rabid monster causes alarm and revulsion – before desperate reporters, crazy detectives and revenge seeking hunters descend on the scene! Crying wolf is a fast paced British feature that will keep you howling for more!”
I was really excited to receive an online screener of Crying Wolf, especially when I found out it was a creature-feature about werewolves. I’ve always said that the werewolf genre is an underutilized and often forgotten about subgenre of horror. Besides American Werewolf, its sequel, Silver Bullet, and Cursed, can you really remember a good movie about werewolves? Exactly. Luckily, Crying Wolf features a whole family – er, pack I guess I should say – of howlers, and that makes it all the more interesting because you get to see the hierarchy of the group and each member’s role in that group.
Crying Wolf is has a lot of cool aspects to it. I try not to describe my points as cool, but it’s honestly what I found myself saying during my viewing. I thought the book shop keeper in the beginning of the film was “cool,” only did I later realize it was scream queen Caroline Munro. I thought the opening credits were “cool,” and were a mix of spy movies, soap operas, and horror films. I thought the final battle of the movie – MAJOR SPOILER ALERT – two vengeful hunters, two hitchhikers, and an attractive blonde against half a dozen werewolves was “cool.” But, I don’t know if I would consider Crying Wolf a full fledged horror-comedy. Sure, there were some funny points, but I think the writing was just colorful and witty, much like that of “Portlandia.”
Now, I would really like to give a round of applause to the special effects team on this film – Mike Peel, Trish Pender, David Sellicks, and Neil Stevens. I’m also going to through in Heather Bradley and Kevin Mason because I’m pretty sure they contributed to the werewolf creations. The special effects department is single handedly the best thing about Crying Wolf. I was so impressed with both the full body werewolf costumes that were created as well as the gory special effects. Everyone listed above did an amazing job and added an extra layer of “oomph” to the movie by having such a professional looking werewolf suit and above average blood jobs, which is honestly what people will be looking for the most.
This brings up one of my two problems with this film, though. The werewolf suits are not utilized to their full potential at all in the slightest. They’re mostly used for close ups, featured body parts for special angles, and for shots that only last for 10-15 seconds at a time. When it comes time for the werewolves to run, pounce, or attack, the human in a werewolf suit is subbed out for a CGI werewolf. The CGI werewolf looks fake. It’s often times very pixilated and several sizes too small, like it would be a midget werewolf instead of someone who is 6 feet tall. Oh, god, I just hated it. I would rather the producers of the movie put the CGI money towards practical effects that could have been durable to use during longer scenes. I mean, fuck, towards the end of the flick one of the characters is impaled on a pipe or piece of farming equipment. As the camera zooms in on the wound, you see the wound and blood splatter moving independently from the body. The. Wound. Moves. Around. The Body. I just can’t…
My other big problem with Crying Wolf is that the audio seemed to be way off. It sounded to me like 80% of the movie’s audio/dialogue was recorded as a voice over and added in for each scene in post-production. It stuck out way to much and was so unnatural. I have no idea what happened there. It had a very Japanese monster movie-esque quality to it where the voices were omnificent and didn’t match with the lip movements. But now that I think about it… Crying Wolf was made to be a horror-comedy, so maybe it’s supposed to be intentional?
It’s hard for me to rate Crying Wolf. The plot is all over the map – from cool and action packed to boring and slow. The camera work is fantastic but the audio is lousy. I would slit this movie right down the middle, but the special effects gave it a few extra points with me. So… I’m going to give it a 5.7 out of 10.
