Crying Wolf

I recently watched the UK film 🇬🇧 Crying Wolf (2015) on Tubi. The storyline revolves around a small English town that falls victim to a series of gruesome killings. As a werewolf hunter, detective, and reporters arrive in town to investigate, they find themselves in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the unknown killer.

Directed by Tony Jopia (Cute Little Buggers), the film features Caroline Munroe (Maniac), Gary Martin (Little Shop of Horrors), Chloe Farnworth (MaXXXine), Hugh Edwards (Expend4bles), and Ian Donnelly (Casualty).

This film is a frustrating mix of mostly poor elements with occasional flashes of greatness that leave you wondering why it falls short. The narration feels cheesy, and the protagonist's voice becomes grating over time. The acting and dialogue are generally subpar, and the werewolf costumes are disappointingly amateurish. The transformation scenes rely too heavily on CGI, and the use of eye contacts feels contrived. However, the film's old-school reliance on shadows, along with its well-executed kill scenes and corpses, surprisingly elevate certain moments. Additionally, the nudity is worthwhile.

In conclusion, Crying Wolf is a bad movie with sporadic moments of enjoyment for fans of atrocious horror films. I would score this a 3/10 and recommend it only with the appropriate expectations.

There are a couple things I should mention before I get to my review of Crying Wolf 3D. First, I am not a huge fan of gory horror films, so I am sure this impacted my enjoyment of this film. Second, although the film apparently is in 3-D, the copy I saw was not and perhaps seeing it in its intended form might have improved the film.

The setting for the film is in the Cotswolds in England. For you non-Brits, that's west-northwest of London in the countryside. It's the pretty and peaceful part of England where Shakespeare lived....though it's not all that pretty or peaceful in this film, that's for sure!

It begins with a private eye buying a book from a strange lady...one she keeps refusing to sell him. Then, he reads what is the story you then see. In this story, a group of werewolves are going on a little vacation--to frolic in the countryside, camp out, sing a few songs and kill folks for kicks. You see, unlike the typical movie werefolk, these werewolves like to travel in packs and are not tormented by their evil desires...in fact, they revel in them. As they're out doing what werewolves do best, they don't realize that one of their past victims which somehow escaped has returned with a friend to hunt down the hunters. The end is a giant gore-fest--with exploding bits and blood flying here and there.

For me, one of the only things I liked about the film was seeing Caroline Munro (a former Bond girl and cast member of the Dr. Phibes movies) playing the strange bookstore owner. The basic plot ideas also weren't bad and could have worked. However, the execution of the story was seriously flawed. There's a lot of gratuitous blood and breasts, but there's no finesse to the story at all...it's just breasts and blood. For some people, that might just be enough to warrant watching the movie. But the characters and dialog were so poor and I simply didn't care about anyone and that's the real shame in Crying Wolf. Had they chosen to make it more of a comedy and made the dialog at least somewhat believable, I could have enjoyed the picture much more than I did. Or, had they made it a serious drama with real tension and decent characters, I could have also enjoyed it more. Instead, it's just another cheap horror film with little to distinguish it.

The special effects are the worst I have seen in a long time. Could be the worst looking werewolves I have ever seen in a movie. And the acting was just as bad. I can't believe I watched the whole movie. I don't know how some people rated this anywhere above a 3 at best. I highly recommend using your time more wisely.

Jopia's story is a fun, quick-witted twist to the Werewolf tale. The movie places the beast as unsuspecting prey against the vengeful. "Crying Wolf" has some colorful and interesting characters that are well developed. Some more so than others. The film is more comedy than horror, but with plenty of spooky nicely shot scenes offering the creature in all its costumey glory. I enjoyed the beast- visually and characteristically in "Crying Wolf". Plus the cast give nice performances as the individuals in the pack.

The special effects are a mixed bag of cool, gory practical effects, and weak disappointing CGI. Jopia does choose the moments for CGI very wisely and frames the scenes in a creative way that make watching the CGI easier for those of us who find the computer animation a turn-off in horror. Oddly enough the thing that makes " Crying Wolf" fall a bit flat is the hokey way the story is set up as comedic schtick, vignettes and flashbacks combined with a cheesy soundtrack more reminiscent of soap operas and webseries.

Overall "Crying Wolf" falls somewhere in the middle of good and bad. There are some quality moments where story and character really entertain and thrill, then there are those pesky times when CGI and dialog fail to sell the story. As a werewolf story this one is weak at beast, as a Brit horror/Comedy it is mediocre, but as for creative , Indie story- "Crying Wolf manages a decent and sometimes amusing tale. The creature design and wittiness are the best aspects for sure!

A horror comedy that has folks in England running for the pubs as werewolves run rampant. An investigator acquires a book with the wolf legends in it. He reads this in a pub while we visually see what he reads. This one misses the mark on every level and has no bite at all.

It has that Saturday afternoon TV show kind of feel. The special effects are 90% CGI and 10% costumes. The only thing missing in this was Eric Roberts.

After you watch this you just want to punch who ever was involved in making this film for exposing you to it. There could be health risks. Skip it.