Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf

Any time an independent movie is written by and directed by and stars the producer that usually means the movie is a turd and this is no exception to that rule. The acting is laughably bad and the story is so damn stupid you wouldn't believe me if I told you. Basically a crazed serial killer is locked up with other lunatics but then somebody kills the asylum's power which somehow makes all the cells open and turns on the red emergency lighting, which is extra bad because one of the crazy serial killers turns into a bull creature whenever he sees the color red. Yep it really is that stupid. Nothing in this movie is right and everyone involved in the making of this should be embarrassed to have it on their resumes. Whatever this movie's budget is I guarantee 99% of it went into getting John Rhys Davies, Smoking Man from X Files and Mercedes McNab who was occasionally on Buffy to agree to be in this. They're in it for a total of about five minutes by the way. This movie is a huge dud so do yourself a favor and avoid it at all costs.

I've seen bad acting and I've seen terrible acting and I've seen the W.O.R.S.T. acting now that I've seen Andrew Cymek in a movie. To call his acting wooden would be an insult to wood which is far more interesting. He has a grand total of one facial expression. How did he get cast in this? I wondered too until I checked out the credits, not sure how I made it that far in the movie I must have been real tired, but he was also director, writer, producer, pretty much everything. So he obviously thinks he has acting chops but honey he doesn't. Let's be honest, nobody in this movie was a good actor at all. The wrestler who plays a maniac who snaps every time he sees the colour red, yes you read that right, was awful. The character of Mabel was OK and got a couple laughs in her gory comic relief role but I'm sure at least partly that was in comparison to the other actors. William Davis, Test, Reso, John Rhys Davies, Mercedes McNabb, they all look super embarrassed just to be in this. Co-star Brigitte Kingsley only looks decent in her scenes with Cymek, otherwise she is almost as wooden as him. What legitimate doctor dresses like that? These two hamriffic performances are so bad the movie should at least be funny to laugh at but it's too bad even for that. The climactic scene where she's in a cage going underwater and talking to Cymek literally resulted in laughter at the most inappropriate time at their awful performances. Let's not mince words, she has huge breasts so guys will like to look at her and that's about all either 'star' has to offer in this flick. Cymek's not much of a director or writer either with terrible, predictable plot points and dialogue. Here's hoping this movie flopped so bad he'll never get money to make another one.

Look from reading most of the reviews out their on the Internet one may drop the gun and think that this movie will turn out to be one of the worst movies ever. In all honesty it's nowhere near that level. All the movie is, is just a slasher thriller with a goofy sounding premise and quite surprisingly an affective one. From what I've seen in other reviews, they say that the acting is the biggest atrocity that's ever hit cinema. I can already name like 50 other movies with worst acting then this one. Sure sometimes the acting gets really hammy but really based on the dozens of other hammy horror films out their this shouldn't be close to an "Atrocity of acting." Editing wise it makes some rather weird turns but it's still smooth and unlike other bad movies I can tell what's going on. If your into shutting your brain off and just watch a thriller slasher flick then I think you can handle Medium Raw. I sure enjoyed it and going in I was already on the other side of my argument right now. So, definitely give it a watch sometime.

UK title: Night of the Wolf. It's snowing outside, it's Xmas & a power cut somehow releases all of the dangerous inmates from their cells, meaning a fight for survival ensues. The inmates are the best thing about this film. Included amongst them are a cannibal, well played by Sand Ross, a huge hulk like man who hates red light (!), "God", child killer & a naked man with an extreme foot fetish. This is an Andrew Cymek movie - he wrote, directed, edited, etc - but sadly he also played one of the lead roles & this is a guy who can't act if his life depended upon it. And he's not alone here. Fortunately Brigitte Kingsley, who plays his wife, not only looks great but is one of the few decent performances. It gets worse. Not only do we get bad acting but also some woeful dialogue. Really couldn't decide if this film was attempting to be funny at times but if so it failed miserably. At 106 minutes it is painfully too long, I just wanted the end credits to roll but amazingly resisted the temptation to hit the FFWD button. The Anchor Bay DVD comes with an alternative ending but it makes no difference, this is a pile of predictable crap either way!

This is a stinker of a horror movie. I don't know why but for some reason the horror movie genre tends to draw wannabe film makers and movie stars to it to do sub standard horror films. This horror movie is not scary at all and is even funny most of the time which is a bad thing because it is not trying at all to be funny. The plot is so awful you can't help but laugh. The beginning starts out all right and it seems like it will become a good scary movie but once the awesome wolf costumed killer is captured it gets stupid really fast. Basically a little red riding hood killer with a metal wolf costume who kills little girls gets put into an asylum, the power goes out and yadda yadda yadda you already know where this is going. There are good supporting actors in this but the lead (Detective Johnny) is maybe the worst actor I have ever seen, as other reviews here say he has absolutely no facial expressions let alone acting ability. We laughed out loud several times as he said his lines with zero emotions. The other lead is not much better as the doctor/his wife he is separated from. Also there are a lot of really stupid plot twists. For example one of the patients becomes a homicidal bull man whenever he sees the color red. Insanely bad movie.