The three latest movies I crossed off my streaming watchlists focus on furry transformations, but were they the kind of hairy horror flicks I crave? Let’s find out.
WOLF HOLLOW (2023)
When a film opens with an awesome campfire party werewolf massacre, it definitely gets my attention. This gathering also happens to be some sort of leather orgy, and I’m pretty sure I saw someone wielding a dildo as a weapon against the werewolf attack.
But alas, there’s not much story following that. A group of filmmakers comes to make a movie in Wolf Hollow, where one dude has family from which he’s estranged.
Lynn Lowry briefly plays an actress with a diva attitude, Hannah Fierman of the original V/H/S has a super brief cameo. and Felissa Rose has a slightly bigger role than both of them.
The werewolves are reminiscent of The Howling werewolves, and after some dialogue-heavy scenes the werewolf action goes full blast for the second half of the film.
However, this doesn’t feel like a scary werewolf movie so much as it does like a grittier version of one of those werewolf bloodline fantasy flicks. The film literally turns into a werewolf war movie.
Having said that, the werewolves kick ass, and there is a fun scene in a haunted attraction at the end. Most importantly, there are two gay guys among the film crew who step up when the time comes and go all in on the werewolf war, landing this one on the does the gay guy die? page.
SCREAM OF THE WOLF (aka: Wolf Manor) (2022)
The director of Inbred gives us another gorefest with a demented looking werewolf instead of a classic creature design.
A film crew is making a vampire film in an abandoned house in the country when suddenly they are being killed off by a hairy beast.
In most cases, this extra fun werewolf likes to hack their heads off. Yay!
As one of the filmmaker characters mentions in a monologue, too much backstory is boring, so the film reflects that by giving us barely any.
It’s all about the werewolf horror, and I was so there for it.
There’s humor, suspense, chase scenes, and great atmosphere. This is definitely one to watch if you want to scratch your werewolf itch.
IT BE AN EVIL MOON (2023)
This British film is categorized as a horror comedy, but personally I found it to be a very melancholy film with just minor quirky elements. It’s also heavy on dialogue, light on any excitement.
A man who lives with his aging mother is trying to develop a cure for baldness, which leads him to get mixed up with a mob type dude.
35 minutes in, he uses his serum on his own head and wakes up full of hair…but is he a werewolf?
After a bit of a promise of some horror, he is on the run due to a rash of murders that could be pinned on him.
He ends up in the woods for a while and is taken in by a nice couple, so it’s tragic when the mob dude shows up looking for him.
This is mostly a drama in my opinion. I personally wasn’t feeling it.
