War Wolves

This is probably due to poor editing. There are too many jumps in the story, like key elements are left on the cutting room floor. How did they get out of the war zone alive? Very little character development, other than John Saxon's character. A few familiar faces, Art Lefluer, John Saxon and his Sargeant, and the briefest cameo of Martin Kove, which made no sense at all. The story kept jumping, and we kept asking "Wait, what happened? Now they are together?" Decent make-up, but not very werewolf looking. Of all the werewolf movies we've watched lately, this is not one I would recommend, unless you are a compelled to watch all things werewolf.

If you can get through the dull first thirty minutes or so, the film picks up a bit. The opening sequence offers nothing to draw you in. It's a set-up for later stuff but it's so poorly done most viewers will shut it off. Some GI's have a boring pick-up football game, then some shooting starts. Then some tribal guy with warpaint and fangs jumps around making weird faces and noises. Then you're suddenly looking at a nerdy grocery store clerk with a geek customer. Hunh? Did they abruptly burst into a commercial? Where's Mrs. Olsen and her Yuban can? No, it's part of the movie, believe it or not. And then more puzzling stuff happens.

Dark shadows everywhere, and a loud soundtrack with music that doesn't fit and isn't balanced for tonal quality at all--and this happens several times. There's some ex-Baywatch girl extras creeping around and making trouble at a hick bar. Then some mumbling guy pays cash at a desert motel. So what? What is this for?

But about 30 minutes in, something strange happens. The director decides to tell a story. John Saxon, Adrienne Barbeau, and Tim Matheson suddenly show up and save this thing. Adrienne is some kind of prophetess or something. The others are vigilante monster hunters. Pretty cool old school stuff, and the fun begins. The Baywatch girls still can't act, but since they're the baddies--well, you know.

The creature effects are weak; were they inspired by the Twilight movies? Egads. But the fights are choreographed and shot well, to compensate for it. The ending isn't bad, and leaves the usual loose ends for a sequel. And they put on one last over-volume record. They might be trying to market the soundtrack CD, but I'm guessing nobody buys a copy.

Not great by any standard. But the last 2/3 of it are at least passable.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Genre: Horror, Werewolves

Director: Michael Worth

Stars: Michael Worth, John Saxon, Tim Thomerson, Natasha Alam, Alex Ballar, Siri Baruc, Kristi Clainos, Adrienne Barbeau, Jon Bradford, Margot Farley

Synopsis: Ford (Saxon) leads a unit on the hunt for an escaped, infected team member who was infected by a werewolf virus. But others have been infected and a group of she-wolves may be more dangerous then they can possible imagine.

Thoughts: Well you know you are in trouble as a filmmaker (not to mention the viewer) when your celluloid effort gets picked up by the SciFi Channel. There's a 90% chance that they'll regret it and we'll regret it even more. Unfortunately "War Wolves" doesn't break the cycle. This bad boy must have a seriously low budget. For nearly the entire length of the film we get growling effects, dime-store fangs, contacts and the occasional eye shadow to signify someone is in wolf mode. Toward the end when we see our war wolves in their ahem full glory well let's just say that Barf's makeup in "Spaceballs" has a better shot at scaring the crap out of you. The script will make you wince in pain with dialogue so hideous you'd like to stuff your remote in your ears.

In Conclusion: This one should rate a zero. The only reason I give it two stars is that genre greats Saxon, Thomerson and Barbeau were in it. They did what they could with what little they were given and Thomerson actually managed a couple good comebacks. So be warned.

The films approach is light hearted with some tongue in cheek nods to the X-files conspiracy theorists. It's not an SF gore fest, in fact they go out of their way to avoid the gore we've come to expect with such a sub-genre.

The writing is excellent in places and overall you engage with the protagonists- watching Tim & John is really entertaining (in a good way). I think with lesser leads this would have sunk without a trace.

It only seems to drag with the antagonists are on screen as the wolf SFX leave a lot to be desired. They throw in some matrix style fight scenes, but they aren't amazing.

Watch it for Tim & John if nothing else- great scenes.

I thought this movie was kind of hilarious at points! I mean, they pay half of a homage to the original Wolf Man movie from 1941...Half a homage. Hilarious. It's disjointed and the dialogue isn't great, but it's a bit over dramatic and that makes it Funny! There's numerous references to films that came before and cliche film tropes, complete with a potential Elvis siting!