Direction: Josh Ruben
Country: USA
Werewolves Within is an old-fangled horror-comedy mystery directed by Josh Ruben (his sophomore feature, following last year’s Scare Me) from a videogame-inspired script by Mishna Wolff. It gathers a bunch of eccentric characters in the snowy small town of Beaverfield with a werewolf on the loose. One of them is the monster, and both the newly arrived forest ranger, Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson), and an accessible postal worker, Cecily Moore (Milana Vayntrub), are compelled to find the culprit of several killings plus the sabotage of the town’s generators. The turmoil conveniently happens during a snowstorm, which is deterrent to escape.
In addition to an ineffable silliness, the film comes debilitated in thrills (all attempts are bungled with cliché), while the gags work intermittently. A common environmental problem nowadays is smartly transported into the story as the construction of a gas pipeline divides the inhabitants and invites strangers.
Some characters are funnier than others - my favorite being Joaquim (Harvey Guillén) whose sharp tongue is killing - and there’s harmless fun here and there, but overall, this is not a great film, walking a rutted road that feels too familiar to impress.
Werewolves Within is instantly forgettable, but at least the cast seems to have had a whale of a time doing it.
