They Might Be Werewolves

Amazon Prime time! Which usually means a horror movie that no one has ever heard of and never will again.

My favorites. 

Quick Plot: Rich girl Sarah and her friends are partying at her dad's secluded home on a Chumash reservation. 

Yes, they're white.

Ex-boyfriend Alex brings along a card game variation on Werewolf, the perfect campfire-and-hot-sauce-spiked-tequila activity. Also on board are Sarah's older half-siblings Jacey and Tala (thankfully not white), party girls Connie and Liz, and the band "Potheads" (no, really) who respectfully do not subject us to their music. 

A few hours later, everyone wakes up with massive hangovers and lost time. 

Also, lost people. Band member Nick's little Instagram-obsessed sister Julie is missing, most likely from their trip into town for drinks and bars (and no, I don't mean "drinks at a bar"; it's 2023, OBVIOUSLY I'm talking about cell phone reception). Is it a coincidence that she was also the first victim during the gang's game? What can we make out of the pair of glowing eyes just over her shoulder spotted in that fateful last selfie? 

It doesn't take long for a few players to disappear, though it takes a whole lot longer for those remaining to stop drinking (these kids are VERY SMART). Eventually, they piece together some messy facts: the game is real, which means Nick and Connie might be morphing into their werewolf card counterparts when no one is looking.

Written by Chloe Bellande and directed by Terry Spears, As the Village Sleeps has an interesting idea at its core, and calls to mind a few other similarly low budget parlor game-based horrors, including Dead Body and Witch-Hunt (a movie I'm still begging SOMEONE else to see that wasn't me or the director's immediate family). It's a good idea for a horror film, especially when resources are clearly strained. Spears keeps virtually all of the violence offscreen, building the entire threat through situation and dialogue alone. It's admirable.

I just wish it were also entertaining. 

My biggest problem with As the Village Sleeps is that it's centered on aggressively dull to awful people. Nobody seems to actually like each other, let alone care much when they vanish. There's a kernel of an interesting relationship between Sarah and Tala, but it ends as quickly as it's introduced. It also took me a good half hour to figure out whether Tala and Jacey were siblings or lovers. I know I've read my share of VC Andrews and am therefore always looking for both, but still.

High Points

I almost didn't realize just how little action is actually onscreen until I started to think back to the film's details. It takes a bit of a leap of faith to make a horror movie knowing you can't really show any of it, and it's a credit to the filmmakers that it the concept works

Low Points

When your apparent heroine is introduced as the kind of spoiled rich girl who calls her best friend a whore (who of course responds with "bitch!"), it's an uphill battle to ever get us on her side (or any of the fairly unpleasant characters here)

Lessons Learned

The only strangers you'll encounter on a dark road in the middle of the night will be hot chicks or old dudes

You won't find street names on a tribal reservation

Pushing a fully clothed woman into a hot tub is only acceptable if rain is in the forecast

Chekov's Bear Trap

Thank goodness this sign comes into play. As I've said time and time again, if you introduce a bear trap at any point in your film, you damn well better have it go off

Rent/Bury/Buy

As the Village Sleeps is interesting in how it manages to give a fairly creative twist to the standard slasher setup. I just wish it was also interesting to watch. I think some horror fans with an appreciation for low budget potential will get something out of this. I don't regret watching it, but I just have a hard time telling anyone else to. 

Does Medicare Cover Werewolf Bites? Asking For a Friend

Of all the monsters that populate the horror genre, werewolves are easily my least favorite. Sure, history has provided the occasional good one, but 95% of the time, cinematic lycanthropes would belong better on a Party City commercial than a movie screen. Maybe it's just impossible for a human body to ever find the right mix with a canine wolf walk, but even the most tautly told thriller can be instantly killed by the presence of a poorly constructed costume. Some films succeed in spite of this (Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps), but so often I wonder, why bother?

Nevertheless, when enough people recommend a movie, I'll give it a go...even if includes werewolves. 

Quick Plot: Ambrose (the always extremely welcome Nick Damici) is a widowed blind Vietnam veteran moving into a quiet retirement community called Crescent Bay. After an awkward goodbye with his somewhat estranged son Will (Ethan Embry), an adorably promising flirtation with friendly neighbor Delores, and a cheerfully rude greeting to the catty welcoming committee (led by Rutanya Alda!), Ambrose settles in for what he assumes will be the first of many uneventful evenings.

It only takes one night of a full moon for Ambrose's new digs to be attacked by a mysterious canine-esque creature. With his loyal dog and Delores torn apart, Ambrose immediately suspects what every horror fan already knows: there's a werewolf in town, and in one month, he or she will undoubtedly return.

Ambrose decides, as one without much worth living for does, that he'll take the next thirty days to prepare for battle. During that time, he also begins catching the local senior van to attend church. It's there that he meets Tom Noonan's Father Roger, a priest who might have a few secrets hidden under his collar. 

Written by fairly new on the scene Eric Stolze (not the one you're thinking) and directed by the great Here Comes the Devil's Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Late Phases does the smartest thing any horror movie can possibly do: it focuses on retirees. Now in truth, Nick Damici is not by any means an old man (if the internet is to be believed and my math to be trusted, he's 58 at the time of this writing and wearing a heavy dose of prosthetics onscreen), but Late Phases gives him enough of a stiffness to let us believe he's closer to the end of his life or, perhaps more importantly, close to the point where he's ready to be done with it all. 

The film slowly drops clues about Ambrose's past, as well as why his current relationship with his son is so strained. His neighbors are similar fleshed out in ways that, plain and simple, make them far more interesting than the usual spat of pretty 20somethings who film most horror movies during their CW show hiatuses. When Delores calls her adult daughter, we watch this sad woman sigh at the excuses on the other line. When she's gutted by a werewolf moments later, the exasperated "I'll call you back Mom" closure takes on a whole new meaning.

I wish Late Phases was at good at its monster game as it is at characters, but unfortunately, it stumbles in its third act with, not surprisingly, some rough werewolf design work. On my end, I was invested enough to the point that I forgave its shortcomings because damnit, I was enjoying this movie. Sure, some of the "who's that werewolf?" mystery was probably less interesting (and mysterious) than the script intended, but I could watch Nick Damici rebuff fussy church ladies all day. Is this a good movie? I thought so. Is it a good HORROR movie? That's a different question.

High Points

Aside from the aforementioned concept of setting a werewolf film in a retirement community, let's give a nice nod to the humor of Late Phases. This isn't a horror comedy in the least, but Stolze's script, Bogliano's tone, and of course, Damici's performance manage to find some genuinely funny moments that never feel forced

Low Points

But some of those werewolf suit seams are laughable in a different way

Lessons Learned

When you're blind, it always looks like you're paying attention

Selling headstones with a senior citizen discount isn't great for business longevity

Mean girls never change, they just get older

Rent/Bury/Buy

Late Phases has its share of problems, but I found this to be a joy of a movie. Damici is such a wonderful presence onscreen, and it's a huge bonus that the film understands how an imperfect, grumpy AARP member can make for a compelling protagonist. It's the kind of choice I'd like to see more movies make...especially those that don't involve poorly constructed werewolves.

Bag Gift Ideas For Mother's Day: Werewolfism

Where were you when The Great Netflix Purge of 2013 hit? Stuck in an elevator with poor wi-fi? Trapped on a subway counting down to midnight? Locked in your recliner with the vow to clear that queue before the midnight cleansing?

For the un-instant watching, TGNP’13 has become an infamous day in modern history. To make room for its increased original programming (and a little show you might have heard of called Arrested Development), Netflix cleared out a few hundred/thousand titles on May 1^st from its streaming service. For some of my film-loving friends, this was a cinematic holocaust. For me, well…it simply gave me the impetus to watch a werewolf horror comedy co-starring Brion James and a lot of bad ‘90s haircuts.

Quick Plot: Emily is a pleasant sixtysomething widow whose son Clay is quickly rising as a go-to field reporter for a local news station. As Clay investigates a vicious rash of murders slowly spreading to his community, Emily rents her spare bedroom to a shifty blind man named Lester, played by the always shifty James. Before she can cash in his security deposit, Lester turns Emily into his werewolf hunting partner.

Early on in the film, Mom showed a lot of promise. There seemed to be a pointed effort to not tread typical werewolf territory, and having Lester and Emily wander through the slums of LA to scout out the best fed homeless entrée was a nice twist. Once Clay learns his mother’s secret, Mom even posits and interesting theme on what it means to be an adult taking care of your parents as they become less and less able. Like so many lycanthropic tales, Mom had plenty of firm ground to explore.

But meh.

Writer/director Patrick Rand worked on quite a few cult gems, including the somewhat similarly toned The Unborn and the, you know, POSITIVELY AMAZING Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He also edited a Baby Einstein video, which I imagine is an experience akin to being trapped inside a washing machine with a bag of Skittles. That aside, Mom is certainly a well-made film, one that gets good performances out of its fairly unknown cast and displays some passable makeup effects.

But meh.

Here’s the issue with Mom: it’s a horror comedy. Here’s the thing about horror comedies: they should be horror and comedy. Or horrific comedy. Or funny horror. The balance varies, but both conditions must be met in some capacity.

Mom doesn’t really meet either.

There are certainly moments of humor, but minus the hilarity of this era’s mullets, nothing really elicits more than a smile. Emily isn’t sweet or dark enough, and while her struggle to resist murder has stakes, the film doesn’t quite treat them with any real heft. That would be fine if the jokes were effective, but plainly and simply, they just aren’t. 

Pleasant. That’s what Mom is. Occasionally sweet, often bordering on dull (but MAN do those early 90s fashions save it from ever sinking) and overall, just not that special.

High Points

The first woman to be werewolfed, it should be noted, displayed a rather fantastic scream

Low Notes

The fact that the victim who dies before the opening credits having a good scream was the only genuine high note

Lessons Learned

When preparing your human meal, make sure he or she lays off the tobasco sauce

Always keep an open can of grease handy in the kitchen

There are ways to make tequila very unsexy. They tend to involve slobbery prostitutes with poodle hair

Being an unofficial Girl Scout in the 1990s was dangerous work

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Netflix Purge has made Mom rather hard to come by, as there seems to be no DVD release. Really folks, that’s okay. Neither funny nor scary, Mom isn’t the kind of film that deserves ebay scouring. If it ever comes back to Instant Watch and you’re the kind of cool cat that simply adores tame werewolf comedies from the early 1990s, then hey! Watch Mom. But considering it’s the second Sunday in May, I’d say you’re better off spending the time honoring the actual mothers in your life. Hope you made that brunch reservation!

Swapping Scarecrows For Working Wax

I know I haven’t been celebrating the greatest month of all with the usual candy corn fueled fervor I keep in reserve, but times have been busy here in the actual Doll’s House. After apartment hunting with more gusto than Gary Busey bare handing it in Surviving the Game, I’ve since moved on to the act of packing with more reluctance than Paul Rudd cleaning up his breakfast tray in Wet Hot American Summer. Still to come: the part where my fella and I face the first real test of our relationship by battling for poster space, followed by my cats meeting/hopefully not killing their new stepsisters.

You might say I’ve been stressed.

But thankfully, there’s one semi-monthly tradition that always soothes the crazed soul: the Lightning Bugg Doll’s House Swaparoo! In honor of the glory of October, T.L. Bugg and I went the good old fashioned Instant Watch horror route. Over at his Lair, I assigned Zach one of those VHS staples of the ‘80s that always warmed my straw heart: 1988’s Scarecrows.

My assignment? That very same year’s cult horror comedy Waxwork.

It has a little person butler and everything!

Quick Plot: In a sunny college town, a group of spoiled university students stumble upon a ‘hey, how’d that get there overnight?’ wax museum called Waxwork run by none other than genre stalwart David Warner. This is awesome on its own, but get ready to pick up some messy pieces as I make your head explode:

He’s dressed as if he ransacked Willy Wonka’s closet.

As if that wasn’t enough, he also heads a satanic wax museum with the best security system of all time. See, if any of the wanderers dare to cross that oh-so-tempting velvet rope, he or she ends up transported to an alternate dimension where the scene of the waxy display is real. That would be fine if Waxwork focused on happy periods in history, like discovering the cure to polio or the day peanut butter met banana. 

Then again, when was the last time you entered a wax museum and didn’t leave with a nagging sense of the icks? They’re inherently creepy places. Even the purely historical one I visited in Virginia a few years back seemed designed to steal the souls of every patron.

The scenes on display inside Waxwork are more in line with horror fans than history hunters, with vampires, werewolves, mummies, and phantoms luring our snarky teens into grizzly fates. The wealthy brat Mark (played by Face of the 80s Zach Galligan) and hungry virgin Sarah make it through the night, but there’s still another day of battle to wage.

You know how there are some films that other people seem to adore, yet the one time you tried to watch it you just couldn’t keep your eyes on the screen? That was how I always felt about Waxwork, perhaps in part because its first big sequence involves werewolves. As I’ve said before, it’s a monster that just doesn’t do anything for me one way or another. While I can appreciate the metaphorical aspect of man’s darker side (or menstruation metaphor of a female’s redder one), I generally find the execution to be either dull or just plain silly looking.

Such was my initial experience with Waxwork a few months ago, when I sat down to what I had always assumed was an ‘80s horror movie about killer wax mannequins but is, whaddya know? actually a comedy more focused on throwback horror monsters. Writer/director Anthony Hickox (he of the decent Hellraiser III) is clearly having a ball with giving us classic movie villains with an ever so slight twist. It’s not many an ‘80s teen horror film that would feature a fencing duel between its unlikable antihero and a pirate-styled Marquis de Sade, but Waxwork seems intent on being something special.

I see that now.

High Points

There’s a character named China (played by Michelle Johnson) who responds quite smartly to her vampiric dilemma. In a period where even the bravest final girl usually ran through boxes of Kleanex before lucking into victory, it’s nice to see a female character (and one presented as the bitchy slut at that) use her wits when needed

Any final reel that involves wheelchair-bound old dudes battling zombies, vampires, axe-wielders and werewolves can’t be half bad!

Low Points

Due to my intense discomfort with wax figures, I would have liked to see Waxwork utilize that fear factor a little more, rather than focusing so much on some of its Universal tributes

Lessons Learned

Having drinks with the butler leads to anarchy

If you think of completely raw, possibly human meat as steak tartar, it goes down slightly easier

Dictators have the shouting voices and the small mustaches

Stray Confusion

John Rhys-Davies 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers:

Not the same person. One day, I'll understand that.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now streaming on Instant Watch, Waxwork is good fun so long as you know that’s what you’re getting. I think my initial humbug reaction came from expectation: I wanted a waxy horror film and got an affectionate horror comedy. Thankfully, this time around I wanted a good time and Waxwork is busting with that. 

Thanks as always to my righteous recommender Zach. To see what that southern fried lightning bug thought of Scarecrows (an eerie little dark ride that I’ve always felt deserved more love) then grab some corn on the cob for the ride and head on over!

Triple D Action (But probably not the kind you're hoping for)

Look, SOMEONE had to see Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. Brandon Routh's mom can only buy so many tickets before the poor lug starts getting suspicious.

Quick Plot: Dylan Dog (Superman Returns’ Routh) is a private investigator stuck with goofy sidekick Marcus (Superman Returns’ Jimmy Olsen, because apparently there was some kind of sale), a token tragic past involving a dead love, and a really, really stupid name. Though he makes a decent living digging up dirt on cheating spouses, Dylan Dog’s real talent lies in monitoring New Orleans enormous population of vampire club kids, werewolf butchers, zombie bouncers and international antiques smugglers.

It’s the latter that starts Dead of Night (out of respect, I’ll refer to this naively self-believing franchise starter by its subtitle so clearly designed to be the first of many Dylan Dogs that will never be made). Dylan Dog reluctantly takes a job investigating the death of a relics trader whose daughter Elizabeth (or just call her The Girl) quickly velcros herself to Dylan Dog’s rigidly ripped chest. Before you can say true blood--and don’t worry, it’s said a lot--Dylan Dog is fighting werewolves, appendage shopping for the newly zombified Marcus, staring down evil club owning vampire Taye Diggs and sorta kinda bemoaning the loss of his past lady love who was--big surprise--brutally slaughtered some time ago.

You might have noticed the fact that I have only been referring to Routh's character by his full Dylan Dog name. When you have a character with such a title, it behooves a lowly blogger to use the words 'Dylan Dog' as often as possible in a review because really, has there ever been a better named protagonist in cinema history?

Dylan Dog!

Going into Dead of Night (teehee), my expectations were not high. In truth, they were lower than a limbo stick at an Attack of the Puppet People beach party. The fact that I don’t know a single living creature that has seen the film didn’t bode well, and the trailer made me think it was actually a CW mid-season replacement (in part because I don’t know the difference between Brandon Routh and Tom Welling). I’m still not entirely certain Mr. Routh is an actual human being. Part of me is convinced he was simply grown and harvested in a laboratory to play Superman and with that film’s rightful bombing, is now being leased out half price to smaller action films in a bid to recoup some of the genetic farming costs.

But hey, why beat a handsome hunk of wood when his film has already opened in 18th place with a low per screen average? Dead of Night is imperfect all around, but it’s also surprisingly fun. The film never tries to take itself remotely serious, keeping a popcorn light atmosphere throughout its hand-to-hand Buffy-esque battles, supernatural mythology slideshows (seriously), and awkward barely there love scene that feels crammed in merely to prove Routh still has his Superman physique. Don’t mind the fact that he can’t seem to bend or emote.

This is the kind of movie that trusts the holographic Brandon Routh to narrate about 45% of its running time in what I guess was an attempt at capturing its original source material comic frames or old school hard-boiled detective mood. That was the first of Dead of Night's many mistakes, though after a while, you kind of forgive it. Unlike a lot of slicker studio horror films, Dead of Night at least *tries* to entertain, pulling out every possible trick it can muster to give you a small smile. Most of its jokes have been done before and better, but there's a genuine charm about how much it wants to make you happy. 

Think of it as the cinematic equivalent of Clippy, that bright-eyed but useless icon that used to stalk your typing in Microsoft Word. It REALLY wants to please. It will most likely be deleted.

High Points

He doesn’t get nearly enough screentime, but Peter Stormare’s werewolf patriarch easily lends some juicy sparkle where it counts, particularly after a too-long intro focused squarely on the cardboard Routh. More teeth-clicking please.

Low Points

So that big buildup to the monster master happened. Then it ended. That was that eh?

Lessons Learned

Women who bang vampires are also the world’s heaviest sleepers

The go-to accessory for true blood addicts is a beanie

Before activating your apocalyptic vampire relic, you should really consider reading that owner’s manual

A lesson to the ladies: post-coital vampire-warding-off gifts are actually useless, though they do make that morning seem nice and important

New Orleans is filled with many monsters, lots of worms, and a ton of New Yawk accents

The Winning Line

“The human race is obsolete y’all”

This is gigglesome for various reasons, the most prominent being that Taye Diggs is a smooth as butter man with an eloquent speaking (and singing) voice. So tossing in ‘y’all’ is ridiculous in a near-offensive manner. But also hilarious.

See/Skip/Sneak In

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night is like that quiet kid in your fourth grade class that everyone forgot existed. It’s not that he/she is mean or smelly or a Nazi or anything; just really forgettable. There’s a part of me that wants to encourage a matinee viewing just as penance to make up for all the years you didn’t invite Little Boring Classmate to your bowling alley birthday party. It’s a good-hearted film made by C-listers with lots of enthusiasm. There’s plenty of zombie humor (some quite inspired, a lot not at all) and some genuinely chucklesome monster gags that certainly make it an eventual lazy rental or instant watch. If you’re in a part of the world where the weather isn’t currently gorgeous and 65 degrees, then I suppose you could kill 100 minutes with a viewing. I'm not really advocating that you do, but I feel like no one else will and so, you know...buy a ticket if you're running from the cops and need a place to lay low for a while? That happens, right?