The Boy Who Cried Werewolf

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of The Boy Who Cried Werewolf; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.25 Direction: 1.25 Pace: 1.75 Acting: 1.50 Enjoyment: 1.50

TOTAL: 7.25 out of 10.00

Werewolves; Vampires; dark, mysterious figures; an immense and ominous castle; and a creepy-ass housekeeper - what more could a family film need(?)

Thankfully the writers, Art Edler Brown and Douglas Sloan provide the audience with a witty script to keep them chuckling through the hour and a half. Unfortunately, the underlying concept is overly-used in plenty of teen flicks; The rites of passage storyline. After the tragic death of their mother, poor old dad has to cope with the aftermath. His son Chase is having a hard time and overcompensates with horror-based practical jokes. There are power outages where he lies in wait near the fusebox to scare his sister. There are decapitated body parts swimming in fake blood left in the fridge. So, you can understand the movie's title and think you know where the story is heading - or is it? His sister Jordan is the bespectacled nerd in school who likes the football jock and would like to be part of the Heather's clique - Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? It should; these elements had been done to death before this picture's 2010 release. Happily, Brown and Sloan transport us out of the dangerous waters of teen movies by adding a motley mixture of horror goodies and gags. Yep, Jordan will still metamorph into a mighty attractive bewitching mademoiselle and love interest to the local Romanian village teen heartthrob and bakers boy, but mystery and suspense will litter her path. And the secrets and misgivings come from many avenues. Firstly, who is the forboding housekeeper, Madame Varcolac, whose very name has the creatures of the night singing their sweet music? Why is the local estate agent so keen to sell the mansion, and does she have romantic designs on their dad? What is the secret of their departed benefactor, and why does it appear to be connected with a popular video game franchise? Added to the numerous conundrums, Brown and Sloan proffer the audience with decent characters. Each is an individual in their own right, which helps significantly with the humour.

Eric Bross isn't the world's greatest director. In truth, his stock and trade are on the average side. But he excels at managing the movie's tempo. Not only can he manipulate it impeccably to create excitement, tension, and a little dread, he's punchline-perfect with the visual and vocal gags. And though he has a good eye for composition - the upward pan of the mansion shows how massive it is but also attaches an eerie feeling to the building - he could've done with adding more captivating camera angles, especially for the fights and the chases. His cutting is excellent, as I said. However, changing their height and angle would've heightened the excitement. At least there's no camera shake - Thank you for that, Mr Bross. There's a scene when Jordan takes off across the rooftops; Bross follows her athletic departure with a pan and a slight zoom. It would've been nice to have a couple of close-ups on the rooftop or maybe more of a following shot. But these are small things because the movie works.

The cast is superb. However, this film belongs to Brooke Shields. After watching her in this picture, I can say this lady sure can act. Yes, her accent may slip a couple of times, if I'm being pernickety, but she sure does come across as scary and intimidating. I wouldn't mess with Madame Varcolac.

And in all honesty, I'd recommend watching the whole of this movie just for the music video at the end. Madame Varcolac and the rest of the cast singing Britney Spiers' song, Baby, One More Time, is priceless - and Shields stays in character, awesome. But the bonus is the movie is one enjoyable romp through the Old Country of horror. The Boy Who Cried Werewolf will be a go-to movie whenever I get down and need my spirits lifted.

Now take off that fur coat and... What do you mean you're not wearing a fur coat... Err, well, just come over here and take a look-see at my IMDb lists - Absolute Horror, Just For Laughs, and Guilty Pleasures to see where I ranked The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. Sit: Rollover: Good werewolfie.

Take Care & Stay Well.

Jordan Sands (Victoria Justice) is a dorky teen who became the lady of the home after her mother's death. She's awkward, accident-prone (especially near hunky boys) and picked on by the mean girls. Her father David is struggling as her little brother Hunter gets into trouble for his grotesque pranks. They find that they inherited their Great Uncle Dragomir Ducovic's castle in Wolfsberg, Romania. The California family travel to Romania. Jordan is taken with local boy Goran. Madame Varcolac (Brooke Shields) is the creepy housekeeper. Sketchy real estate agent Paulina Von Eckberg (Brooke D'Orsay) entices David. The kids discover a secret lab and Jordan steps on a broken vial. She becomes meat-loving, athletic and more powerful. Her senses improve and she stops needing glasses. However her transformation doesn't end there.

This is a barely passable tween horror which means that it's not really scary. Victoria Justice has the love of the tween audience. The production is limited TV level. The Vancouver sets don't have the right Gothic look. Brooke Shields is overacting. The werewolf looks like a Halloween costume. The final battle has low grade special effects and some stunts. It doesn't have any fun or horror to interest anyone older than a young tween.

An American family inherits a castle in Romania and go there to check it out. The daughter (Victoria Justice) accidentally becomes infected with werewolf blood and soon becomes a werewolf herself. She has to find a cure before the full moon ends or she will be a werewolf forever. There's also some stuff about a family legacy and a funny group of vampires out to get the castle.

Nice family movie with a good cast. Being outside of the target demographic here, I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this as much as I did. Victoria Justice is a likable young actress. I am not familiar with her work on TV but she seems to have a lot of potential. I'll be surprised if she doesn't go on to bigger things. Brooke Shields is really good. I haven't seen her in forever. Long way from Blue Lagoon, I guess. Chase Ellison seems to be having a great time with his part. Every kid dreams of being in a werewolf movie, I think. If they don't, they should. Brooke D'Orsay is a lot of fun here too. The whole cast seems to be having a good time. I always like to see that.

I thought the werewolf effects were amazing for a movie produced for Nickelodeon. I was happy that they actually went the route of using a werewolf costume, as opposed to crappy CGI or the even crappier cheat of having the person turn into an actual wolf or dog so they can save money on effects like so many shows (Vampire Diaries, I'm looking at you).

This is a cute, enjoyable, fun movie with good special effects and an immensely likable cast. That it can be this good while being made for television impresses me a lot. To the reviewer from Romania who was offended at how his country is portrayed in movies like this: lighten up, buddy. If the worst your country has to worry about is that its public image is that of being home to werewolves and vampires, you're doing pretty good compared to the rest of the world.

Good watch, probably won't watch again, but can recommend.

This, a Nickelodeon production, is obviously targeting younger kids, but is a surprisingly watchable "teen angst over traumatic event" coming of age story with a really good preternatural twist to it.

It does lend into "no one will believe me, boo hoo", but this movie has a subtle message of empowerment to kids, and (I think) women: the ladies out stage the guys easily throughout the entire movie.

Victoria Justice is a proven entity in leading and carrying a movie, which she manages to do until she bumps into the older women would rightly steal the focus. Brooke Shields does a great "foreign lady that is either about to kiss or hit someone, but does neither" type of role here, and Brooke D'Orsay gave a confident and consistent enough performance that I honestly thought it was Eva Green essentially doing her character from "Dark Shadows".

I think this is better for younger audiences, but good enough that an older audience can still appreciate it.

Boy Who Cried Werewolf, The (2010)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Silly made-for-TV "horror" film has a father and his two kids traveling to Romania after a relative dies and leaves them her castle. Once there the teenage girl eventually becomes a werewolf and her little brother is the only one who knows it but no one will believe him because of his wild imagination. A weird housekeeper (Brooke Shields) is the only other who might know the secrets of the beast. This was partially influenced by the 1973 film of the same name, which featured a father turning into a werewolf and only his son knowing but no one believing him. Things have certainly changed in this new version and not a single thing was done for the better. That 1973 film is far from a classic but it looks like 1941's THE WOLF MAN compared to this junk. Yes, it's clear that I wasn't the target audience for this film but I'm scared to think of who exactly this thing was made for. The biggest problem is the horrid screenplay that doesn't seem to know what type of story it wants to tell. TO appeal to the teen girls we have countless subplots with the girl here not being good enough for the hunk at school plus she's having to deal with the loss of her mother. With all of that said you'd think the film was about her but we get countless other subplots including one with the father dating and all sorts of stuff with the younger brother and his obsession with monsters. We even get more subplots dealing with the curse of this castle. You have so many subplots running at once that it's clear everyone involved simply forgot what they were trying to do. I mean, "werewolf" is in the title yet this portion of the film doesn't start until everything's half over and by then you're either going to be hitting your head against the wall or wondering why on Earth you started the film at all. The performances are all pretty good with Shields standing out as the creepy housekeeper. The make-up effects are all pretty good as well but it's just a shame we didn't get to see much of it. I'm sure this thing might appeal to some very young teens but let's hope their parents keep them away from this and show them some better werewolf picture.