Werewolf: la bestia è tornata

It's amazing how many horror films open up with a pretty young lady running scared through a forest. At least the one that opens this film is allowed to wear some clothes. From those first moments, the pace never lets up in this hidden gem of a movie.

Louis Morneau directs events wonderfully well, creating a lush, eerily fairytale-type setting for the story. Everything is very moodily lit and the sets are wonderfully detailed.

The acting is powerful throughout, especially Adam Croasdell, who makes a powerfully, self-adoring Stefan - and it's always good to see Stephen Rea in these kind of productions.

My only gripe is the CGI, which comes into play for the more athletic lycanthropic scenes. I'm not a fan of CGI, unless there are enough millions of pounds or dollars to make it truly convincing. Otherwise, great fun. My score is 8 out of 10.

After reading some of the reviews, I was convinced that I would enjoy this film. I wasn't wrong at all. The characters were fun and interesting and the story was quite good at keeping me guessing all the way until the final act when yet another surprise was sprung upon the viewers. The scenery is quite good and the music compliments the movie. The actors all pull their weight and their are some really good fight scenes. I will be adding this to my collection.

If I had seen this in a theater, I would have been happy to see this in a theater. I think it was a lot better than the crap that has been regurgitated over and over again.

Nothing special, but more than a decent effort. Plus a few good actors are thrown into the mix. Stephen Rea being one of them. Acting is good overall. Nice make-up FX and nice story support that. There is not too much blood mind you and no nudity (just in case you were looking especially for those things, either because they interest you or appall you).

You can't or shouldn't compare this with a big budget movie though. It's what it's supposed to be: A nice little snack, an appetizer let's say, no pun intended. It is predictable and does not really make a secret of one of the (supposedly) big mysteries of the movie, but it still works nice enough

It wasn't great. I'm not even sure if it made good. But if you were looking for a cheap park your brain and have fun blood and guts violence movie with some Eastern European charm and don't mind utterly flawed props, this will do.

The cast is hardly sterling. We have Nathan Stark from Eureka in the lead. But that was good enough. In this land of Transylvania and cowboy hats, we have The Mysterious Vampire Hunter in a cowboy hat along with the macho chick and their sidekicks, going after the super bad ones.

It's obviously Romania from things like signs being in Romanian and the reward poster being in the Romanian money. (10,000 Lei) What's more out of place are the anachronisms in the firearms. The rifle the hunter carried was a round receivered Mosin Nagant rifle. They started producing them in 1930 and that gun looks like a post war II version. The revolver he carried was a post war Smith and Wesson. The Mauser rifles the gypsies had were K98's, which were from World War II.

Despite the historical stupidities and the iffy CGI, it was fun.

This movie was far better than I expected. A easy thriller to get into, with a lot of action and intriguing twists and turns. The lighting and cinematography was very good, and the characters were intriguing.

The acting and special effects could have been better, and some may wish it to be more scary, but I don't think anything about this movie was poor or cheesy. Especially considering a cast of so few "big name actors".

I was never bored or disappointed. As action-thriller it did all I would want from the genre, it surprised, thrilled, was nice to view, and engaged me enough emotionally to care what happened. I was well entertained and think a rating of 5 or lower is very harsh when you compare it to other films with a similar rating.