Werewolf: la bestia è tornata

This film was actually recommended to me by a friend who said it was awesome. I did see the film myself and I wouldn't use the word awesome to describe it but it is one of the better werewolf movies that I have seen in a while. During the first half it had the usual genre clichés that were in a way painfully obvious but later it pulls out a few very clever plot twist that actually manages to surprise.

Also, given that this is a made for TV movie the quality and production value as well as the special effects will certainly leave you thinking otherwise. The cast has a few familiar faces among them including Ed Quinn, Nia Peeples. Stephen Rea and Steven Bauer and all of them including the supporting cast give good performances.

Overall, awesome might not be the word I'd use to describe this film but in the end I did like it and I'd recommend it to fans of the genre.

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.

Twenty-film years after a kid inadvertently kills the werewolf that's attacking his family by setting his house on fire, he finds himself in the rural town of Dravicu on the hunt to kill more werewolves. Meanwhile, a local doctor's apprentice seeks to join up with the group of werewolf hunters much to the reluctance of pretty much everybody else.

The production values were a tad bit better than I expected and the acting, if over-dramatic, was still solid enough. The story was a bit on the predictable side, but I've seen many worse werewolf films in my life.

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.

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