Werewolf Week: Never Cry Werewolf

Welcome to your Fright Night!  Today's film is Never Cry Werewolf or, as I call it, Werewolf Fright Night. Seriously, this is the same movie, albeit with some minor tweaks.  Instead of a guy, it's a girl.  Instead of a TV show host that knows about vampires, it's a TV show host that kills actual wolves.  On the plus side, there's no sequel that nobody saw to talk about...yet.  The hook here is that Kevin Sorbo is on board.  Oh yeah, Hercules in the house!  This guy has made a mini-career out of doing a ton of low-budget, Direct-to-DVD schlock.  In fact, my friend over at Gaming Creatively is doing one as part of Project Terrible!  This guy even took over for The Rock (who took over for Joe Don Baker and Bo Svenson) for two more Walking Tall films.  Is he enough to make this film more than just a cheap imitation of an '80s classic?  To find out, read on...

A mysterious man- who's not Colin Farrell- moves in next door to our heroine.  He's a Werewolf, which we figure out pretty quickly.  The film still wants to play up the mystery though...

His Werewolf powers are interesting, as he can only turn on a Full Moon...

...unless he kills a murderer and keeps his neck skin to trigger a transformation.  First- ew.  Second- whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa??????

This random guy falls for our hero and gets dragged along for the ride.  He'd be a Poor Bastard of Cinema if he died here, but he doesn't.  His fate is...different.

The wolf-man shows up at a gun shop where our heroes go to recruit Sorbo to their cause.  While he infects the boy, he sends his wolf-dog out...and it's a demon.  Remember when Werewolves all kept Hell-Hounds?  Apparently they all do.  Huh?

Our hero begins to turn into a Werewolf due to being scratched.  Conveniently enough, all of this film takes place right before a Full Moon happens.  You know that only happens once a Month, right?

Sorbo turns out to not be as helpful as she thought, due to him being an actor...and not a Hunter.  Does his character arc turn out the same way as Roddy McDowall's?  Not exactly...

...he pretty much does nothing of merit in the finale.  The brother does more, which is kind of sad.  Nice suit though.

In a scene right out of Fear No Evil, the monster is stabbed against a tree and dies in a big flash of light.  Werewolf lore is just being taken out into the woods Deliverance-style, huh?  The End.

All bark, no bite.  The plot of this movie is, well, Fright Night.  As I said before, there are very few changes to the structure.  That said, I like the plot of Fright Night.  This one doesn't do it too well though.  It tries to keep the tropes of modern horror- the slutty friend who has to die, the parents who are absent, the cops that don't do shit- while trying to ape the '80s film.  The mix is a bit uneven for me.  Sorbo's version of McDowall's character is missing the key component that made the original one work.  That guy talked about monsters, knew about monsters, but was scared of them.  When it came down to it, however, his knowledge was helpful and he stood up to stop them.  Sorbo, however, does show up for the climax, but his input is incredibly-useless.  The female lead does a good job at the whole 'female empowerment' idea without it being too forced.  That said, her realization that the guy is a werewolf is way too forced.  He has hairy palms, so he's automatically a werewolf?  Wikipedia is a dangerous thing for kids!  Other than that, there's not much more to say about the movie.  It's decent, but it never quite rises above being a copycat.  On the plus side (for him), Sorbo is barely in this thing.  Take us away, not using a fake phone number in a film...

Next up, I cover a rare case (note the lack of caps) in the history of cinema.  Someone appears to have ripped off The Asylum!  Stay tuned...