Lone Wolf

Big hair big thrills shocking acting shocking plot

but quite entertaining... it's more of a background film but it was not bad... just not great eother

A small town in Colorado is plagued by grisly attacks involving a pack of wild dogs or some other animal, but they curiously only occur during the full moon. The brooding lead singer of a local rock band (Jamie Newcomb) teams-up with some fellow college students to resolve the problem.

"Lone Wolf" (1988) was made on a direct-to-video budget with no-name actors and a half-serious, half-hammy tone, yet it's entertaining as comic book horror in the mold of a fun slasher, but possibly featuring a wolf-like creature. You can tell the cast had a good time. It's superior to the contemporaneous "Night Shadow" and I'd watch it any day over "Silver Bullet."

What's interesting is that most of the students appear to be around 30. Sure, Colleen looks like she could be 18-21, but Julie and, especially, Deirdre and Eddie look past 30. The creators obviously kept the nature of the school ambiguous because of this factor, just calling it "Fairview School." I guess it's supposed to be a community college, yet all the school scenes were obviously shot at a high school (cited below). Hey, they had to shoot where they could afford.

There are four songs on the soundtrack by the hair metal band Tyxe, all written by Greg Leslie: "Raised On Rock & Roll," "Misunderstood," "Let It Rock" and "Rock You All Night." These songs are evidently from their 1988 demo, but further information on the group is pretty much nonexistent. Their style is akin to bands like Dokken, Ratt and Warrant.

The movie runs 1 hour, 37 minutes, and was shot in the greater Denver area, including Adams City High School and Jefferson County.

GRADE: B-

My review was written in August 1989 after watching the movie on Prism video cassette.

This made-for-video werewolf feature is moderately interesting but unfortunately adds nothing to the lore of the lycanthrope.

Shot in Denver, pic unfolds as a whodunit with mostly students as suspects when a rash of killings breaks out in a small town. Police are slow to pick up on the clues, such as sightings of wild dogs near the murder scene. Young computer hackers decide to investigate on their own, leading to a surprise revelation of the werewolf's identity.

Gore content increases as film goes on (first few attacks are presented tamely) and a fair amount of suspense is built up. However, the cast members are a bit old for their roles, though heroine Dyann Brown is a beauty. Gimmick of building evidence to make each principal potentially the killer is fun.

Tech credits are okay, including unspectacular werewolf effects.

The Colorado town of Fairview is plagued with a vicious string of wild dog attacks.The dogs are mutilating humans,especially around Fairview School.No one has actually seen these wild dogs, but there are also reports of a large wolf walking on its hind legs...Who is the werewolf? This is one of the many cheesy horror flicks from late 80's.Admittedly the make up effects and a few gore scenes are decent,so if you like rubbery transformation sequences you shall enjoy this crappy flick.The utterly terrible music is credited to the awful 'heavy metal' band called Tyxe.Overall,"Lone Wolf" sucks massively and is only recommended for non-discriminating fans of grade-Z horror trash.4 out of 10.

Yes, this movie is objectively done badly, but it's that bad done fun, the characters are nice, the gore effects are cool and the werewolf definitely badass, plus there's a nice hard rock soundtrack. I prefer a small film like this to modern films of today.