The Beast of Bray Road

This Wisconsin werewolf movie is supposedly based on a local legend, however, it appears to take massive liberties with the original fable. Unflattering stereotype hicks abound, and at some point, almost every character has a beer in their hand. Now some of this is actually amusing, as almost every monster on the loose film out there has been "borrowed" from. There is some gratuitous nudity involving a couple parking for some "business" and perhaps capturing a werewolf cell phone picture, that borders on the ridiculous, but does add to the fun. The ending is a real rubber band job (stretch). Not bad of it's type, and marginally recommended. - MERK

A nice little and a little too easy going indie' B-movie, The Beast of Bray Road, is, allegedly, based on factual reports of sightings, circa 1989, of the legendary sasquatch and werewolf myth, or cryptozoology as the scholars would pronounce, and wild as the beast itself, the over active imaginations of the peoples' of Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Directed and written by Leigh Scott (b.1972), aka Scott Slawner, brings his extended family together for another outing, this time to do battle with modern folklore and superstition. Released by Asylum Home Entertainment, whose category embarks on the wonderful B-movie drive-in genre as Snakes on a Train (2006), Vampires vs. Zombies (2004) and The Fanglys (2004), all straight to video, and all for sale at the bargain basement bin at your local video rental shop. Most here, at least, have worked together in other projects, Jeff Denton (as Sheriff Phil Jenkins), working in Leigh Scott's Art House (1998), Sarah Lieving (here as Kelly), and Andrew Lauer had played against said director in the T.V. movie H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (2005). Ms. Noel Thurman (playing Sheriff Pamela Fitske) in Mr. Scott's The 9/11 Commission Report (2006).

Mr. Scott's movie is very light comedy; too many weak points to be taken seriously, The Beast of Bray Road could be taken for a Saturday morning T.V. matinée parody at best. If it were not for the gross out flesh eating scenes and, once, light nudity and some coarse language, but not often. We can forgive Mr. Scott for trying too hard, but try he has and he has, forgivingly, done reasonably well. The attention to detail can be somewhat lacking, sadly, and it is this that has The Beast… looking a little too unprofessional and unfortunately this gives it its comical look, the desired effect perhaps or a bad dose of laziness and complacency.

The beasts makeup, on the other hand, is impressive, and done by Eva Lohse, regrettably, the only highlight of the movie, and not really seen enough, and Dizzworks Design too played their part. Ms. Lohse is credited as key makeup artist and having worked on Rent Control (2002), Employee of the Month (2004), plus many others as Dead Men Walking (2005) and Dracula's Curse (2006), which coincidently has five members of The Beast…co-starring.

The poor attention to the editing, again by Leigh Scott, has given The Beast…more plot holes than Emmental cheese, we are left scratching our heads and left feeling the efforts are rather curdled in the process and that this could, if at best, have been a half decent movie. This could, and to be fair, be down to a lack of proper funding, if so then the parodying of the major American beer companies and their logos that are seen in "KELLY'S Roadhouse" might be understandable.

The clichéd character development, too, is feeble and the lack of originality only separates its need to be taken seriously. All in all The Beast of Bray Road is a group of new family and old friends making movies, if it doesn't workout, then fine, lets make another. If one should hit the jackpot and stir up peoples imaginations then all the better for them, but in the meantime The Beast…will remain an okay movie, but it will never walk down the road of being a good movie.

The Beast of Bray Road is certainly not an A-List picture, and to put it mildly it is very rough around the edges. The budget must have been extremely low, production values are negligible, and while there is a legend in Wisconsin concerning what may be a "real" beast of Bray Road, the film's claim to be based on a true story is plainly a gross exaggeration. On top of all that, the script populates the small town that is its setting with hardly anybody but unlikeable rednecks, the worst sort of white trash that you're often only too happy to see get torn limb from limb by the ravenous werewolf.

But despite it all, I had a lot of fun watching The Beast of Bray Road last night, so much so that it probably won't be too long before I watch it again. The story itself is built on a reliable formula, that of a small town beset by an unidentified monster which just might be something supernatural. Foruntately, our small cadre of heroes are more likable than most of the supporting characters. The protagonist is a local cop, but even so he's from the Big City and the locals mostly see him as an outsider not to be trusted. As our hero slowly puts the pieces together, he gradually comes to the realization that the predator he's looking for may spend most of its time hiding in plain sight as one of the townsfolk he's sworn to protect--even if they hate him for it. A cryptozoologist, drawn by the lure of fame and renown, shows up to lend the esoteric knowledge it takes to track down a werewolf, and aided by the deputy's beautiful almost-girlfriend and the rest of the rather clueless police squad, they put the truth together piece by piece, leading to a climactic hunt for the bloodthirsty monster in the dark of the forest.

Yes, this is a b-movie, but so what? It lacks polish and while its tough to ignore the obvious lack of funds, the picture still puts together a suitable atmosphere that, despite its official setting in Wisconsin, could be a small town almost anywhere in the USA. Direction is competent, with some creative shots worked in throughout the movie, and the acting is for the most part more than acceptable. The script does take some bold jumps in logic that require more than a little suspension of disbelief on the viewer's part, but that was okay with me. The werewolf itself is exceptionally well-done, and though we only see it a few times head-on, the eponymous Beast is very fearsome. Despite the low budget, the kills are pretty elaborate and gory, if you're impressed by that sort of thing. The big reveal near the end is quite a surprise, and the climax highly suspenseful.

This is a movie that would be pretty easy to pick apart, if you really wanted to. There's no denying its weaknesses, but it also has quite a few strengths. If the cast and crew don't have the tools to make a first-class blockbuster, they make up for it with a remarkable level of enthusiasm and dramatic flair. Together, everyone involved helps to create a story that is entertaining enough to overcome any inherent shortcomings. Thanks to an impressive werewolf, a simple but sound plot, surprisingly good acting, and a nice atmosphere, The Beast of Bray Road adds up to be more than the sum of its low-budget parts.

OK I felt the need to stick up for this movie a little bit. You have to take it for what it is, it's a low budget independent werewolf movie. With that in mind this movie really wasn't as bad as another reviewer has claimed. I purposely rent low budget indie horror flicks to see what people can do with a low budget, and sure there were things that could have been better, but there were a lot of good things about it too. For one, the fact that it didn't look like a kid grabbed his mom's video camera and started recording is a big plus, considering the picture quality on many indie horror flicks out right now is absolute CRAP. Most of the effects weren't bad. If you are like myself and can enjoy a mindless horror movie than you might like this one.

Review: The Beast of Bray Road(2005) So here's another one of those straight to DVD horror films that can either be really fun or really bad. So besides vampires, the second most played out genre is werewolves. Besides Neal Marshell's Dog Soldiers and Underworld, there has yet to be a were wolf film that has yet to broken new ground. Beat of Bray Road is somewhat based on a true legend in the Midwest about sightings of a real life were wolf on this road. This film comes from the same people who delivered the kick ass and fun "Jolly Roger" so I was pretty much expecting the same kind of film and hoped it would be just as good. Well the good news is the it is pretty good but the bad news is that it's as fun as Jolly Roger. While Jolly Roger was horror fun, Beast of Bray Road is more serious and straight forward horror film. Is that a good thing or bad thing...well truth is it's not a bad thing but it's not but it does hurt the film a little.

The Beast of Bray Road is more about telling a story then having killing and nudity every 10 minutes. The film feels like a real real story as it unfolds through out the film. I really liked the fact that the film was more about the characters of the small town and how the strange creature effects the town. So I liked the characters interacted with each other and slowly unfolded. But the bad thing is that the film makes the same mistake as other low budget films that want to be like real films...it tries to tell a story that sometimes feels dragged on in certain places. I liked the story of the film a lot but there were some moments that seemed too long or uninteresting(plus some of the bland acting by some of the actors really doesn't help either). I really loved where writer/director Leigh Scott took the story and I knew just want he was trying to do. He really wanted to make a different kind of low budget horror film by taking it back to more of a classic story telling point of view ala Stephen King based classic like Pet Cementary and Graveyeard Shift. So I knew just were he was coming from and I really respected him for trying to do a different kind of film. He really does deliver a pretty good film here and a great story. I really liked that he made it flow so smoothly and had the set up of other bigger films. On the downside, I saw a lot of things coming but I really didn't care. I was really digging this film to bother with that. But the film's twist ending did have me bummed. I could tell from the way the character was written that they were going to be the werewolf because it was a classic set up of making the character so likable that I knew they were setting it up for them to be the were wolf. I knew they were going to do it for twist's sake, I didn't want them to do it but they did it and I hated it. But besides that...Scott writes a great film considering the budget he had to work with so much love for him for that.

Acting wise, this film suffers again...like most low budget horror does from bad supporting cast. The leads were pretty great a believable. Jeff Denton as our lead Phil was great and I really liked the guy. Sarah Lieving was great as Kelly. Not only did she look good but the girl could actually act and was just fun to see on the screen. At least Jeff and Sarah had noticeable chemistry unlike the bigger budgeted The Fog remake where the awful Tom Welling and Maggie Grace had ZERO chemistry on screen and couldn't even act.Tom Downey from Jolly Roger is in this film and is great again. I really like him...he plays it straight but realistic. Now comes the only really draw back to the whole film...the acting of some of the supporting cast. Afew are pretty good at doing what they have to do but others here are just plain bland. They have zero personality on screen and it really comes across and hurts the film a lot. With the kind of script that Scott wrote, it would have really needed good actors to make the story interesting and alive but instead they drag the interesting script to kind of a bore. Then there's Tom Nagel, once again...he blows another role. I don't get this guy, he acting is just that...acting. He doesn't seem natural at all and is straight out acting and it gets annoying fast. I'm not a fan of his at all.

Direcing wise Scott does a really bang up job. I really liked all the different stuff he brought to this film. First he shot it pretty straight forward, there's nothing wrong with that because it gives the film a real classic feel to it. It seemed more like I was watching a real film than some low budget horror. Scott has a real feel for capturing that old school feeling and I really dug him a lot. All in all The Beast of Bray Road was as fun as I hoped it would have been but it was pretty interesting to watch. I really liked how the story unfolded and I liked the cool bloody kills. The film was hurt by some bland acting by actors here and there but I dug the whole film a lot. It's a smart, good little film that gave me what I wanted but still has it's problems. But it's all good. Great show.