Sunday, April 5, 2015

Horror Film Review

Wolfcop (2014):  If you're lamenting the dearth of B schlock in the horror genre, boy have I got a flick for you.  Well, it's horror in that there's a werewolf...and enough gore to make Chuck Manson queasy, but the filmmakers couldn't give two shits about scaring you.  They're after laughs.  And more often than not, they succeed.

Lou (Leo Fafard) is an alcoholic deputy sheriff in a smallish town.  He comes to work late, drinks on the job, and ignores all crimes in progress he happens upon.  His boss (Aiden Devine) is a jackass and fellow deputy Tina (Amy Matysio) is a by-the-book overachiever.  Lou investigates a complaint of kids partying in the woods.  He wakes up in his bed with a bloody pentagram carved into his chest and a jumble of nightmarish images dancing in his booze addled brain.  Turns out three shapeshifters infiltrated the town 200 years ago, and every couple of decades they conduct a ritual to turn a man into a werewolf.  Why?  Because they need to drink werewolf blood during an eclipse in order to maintain their youth, of course.  But from where did these shapeshifters come and what, exactly, are they?  Dunno.  It's not explained.  Will you care?  Not in the least.

Alcohol, it seems, affects those afflicted with lycanthropy in an interesting way:  it makes them stronger.  So with his gun store owning buddy Willie (the hilarious Jonathan Cherry), Lou tricks out his cop car and goes on a crime-busting spree.  Unfortunately for Lou, Willie, Lou's jackass boss, and seductive bartender Jessica (Sarah Lind) are the shapeshifters and they manage to capture Lou.  They chain him to a tree in the woods and prepare for the bloodletting ritual.  Will Lou along with the help of Tina escape their clutches?  Well, yeah.

The many laugh-out-loud scenes in this movie can be credited to Cherry.  By far the most gruesome and most funny is where Lou and Willie literally burst in on a gang's barn HQ where all manner illegal shenanigans are taking place.  While Lou goes medieval on everyone's ass, Willie stays in the car and provides a running commentary.  The best gag involves Lou ripping the face off a bad guy who then (without a face, mind you) runs screaming to Willie for help.  Sounds awful, doesn't it?  It's seriously one of the funniest bits I've ever seen.

The Skinny

Acting:  No Oscar performances here.  Cherry does the best.
Story:  A new spin on a very old idea, the script is lean on the hows.
Direction:  We get from A to B to C in record time with nothing unnecessary.
Production Values:  Amazing considering the budget was just one million Canadian dollars.  Of course most of that probably went to the FX guys.
Gore/FX:  The blood runs far and free.  Beheadings abound, as do befacings (just made up a new word).  You might want to turn away during the urinal scene, though.  That's just nasty.  No CGI.  When the gang's barn hideout with the meth lab explodes, it's a model that goes boom and it's quite impressive.
Scares:  Not in the game plan.
Ending:  Bad guys all dead, good guys all alive.  Shocking, I know.
Verdict:  Should you see Wolfcop?  Sure.  Why not?  It's a goofy, over-the-top schlockfest chock full of grins and gore with a kick-ass soundtrack.  And just like they used to do at the end of James Bond movies, Wolfcop promises another installment in 2015.  I'm both appalled and excited at the same time...

Rating:  3 out of 5

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