There's a very good reason most direct-to-video movies go direct to video: they fall short. Budget, production values, script, performances, visual effects, studio support... whatever the case, DTV films are greenlit on a dime, shot on a dime and released with the meager comfort of at least earning a small profit thanks to the curious thrill seekers who scour Netflix and their local Redbox kiosks in the hopes of finding that hidden rainy Friday night gem. Horror junkies are particularly familiar with the DTV circuit and cycle, as well as the sharp sting of disappointment. Which brings us to Bats director Louis Morneau's Werewolf: The Beast Among Us, an admittedly watchable but ultimately silly, cash-strapped, identity-challenged reset/non-sequel/reboot to Joe Johnston's poorly received 2010 Wolfman remake. And you know you're in trouble when "watchable" is the highest compliment a film is paid.
On the hunt for things that go bump in the night...
When a mysterious creature terrorizes a village by moonlight, a young man named Daniel convinces a team of skilled werewolf hunters to let him join their quest to hunt it down. But as the villagers are attacked one by one and turned into vicious beasts, Daniel begins to fear that his ruthless foe is someone closer than anyone thinks.
It's hard to get a bead on Beast Among Us. Is it horror-comedy? Action-horror? Parody? Growly supernatural drama? Referential genre mashup? Lurching hybrid? Bargain bin monstrosity? It's a little bit of everything (including a "Where Are They Now?: Steven Bauer" special), and none of it is very good. It's rife with potential, I'll give it that. It even pulls off a few surprises, bats around a few semi-solid ideas and dabbles in some relatively well-executed creature feature festivities. It never feels like anything more than a Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection cash-in, though, and a fairly unimaginative and exceedingly opportunistic one at that. Ah well, at least Morneau knows how to give the kids what they're looking for. Blood, gore, grisly death, mangled corpses, flying fur, silver tipped blades, two-legged horses... alright, so maybe not everything you might be looking for.
Alas, the problems are pervasive and widespread. The script is a hodgepodge hack-n-slasher, the dialogue is just dreadful, the hunters are woefully ineffective and irritating, the jokes and quippy exchanges fall flat, the beasts and various werewolf transformations could have used a lot more work, and the gristle, guts and Romanian locations are about the only things that elevate Beast Among Us above a SyFy Channel original movie. Along the way, Bauer and his third and fourth-rung castmates either overact or underact, and sometimes even manage to do both simultaneously. Stephen Rea is the most notable actor on the call sheet, and he all but sleepwalks from scene to scene. The next best thing? That unfortunately would bring us back to Morneau's dutiful but disadvantaged horse, perhaps the most magnetic character on set. Not that I'm complaining, the animals -- wolven or no -- are far more entertaining than the humans, and easily steal the show. (Especially from Quinn, who grumbles, glowers and mumbles whenever and however it benefits his steely cowboy getup.) By the time the credits rolled, the only thing I felt compelled to say to everyone else in the room was "well, that was a movie." So there you have it. A watchable movie. Proceed accordingly.
Valid criticism comes easy when evaluating Werewolf's 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation -- colors are rather lifeless, skintones are chilly, black levels are sometimes muted, noise spikes, shimmering creeps in, and minor artifacting, easy to overlook as each instance may be, makes its presence known -- but don't be so quick to judge. Aside from a few small compression/encoding mishaps, Werewolf: The Beast Among Us looks exactly as Morneau and DP Philip Robertson intended, hyper-polished digital sheen and all. Detail is excellent, revealing every nick, scratch and inch of the crumbling Romanian locales and budget production design (whether or not that's a good thing I leave to you), and fine textures are crisp and nicely resolved. Delineation is on point too (slight crush notwithstanding), as is saturation and contrast. Better still, the encode itself is reasonably sound, without any serious compression issues or errant anomalies. It may not sport the cinematic wares or grain-n-grit that would bolster its horror cred, but The Beast Among Us fares well in high definition.
No one will confuse Werewolf's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track for a blockbuster sonic experience, but Universal's lossless mix delivers a technically faultless presentation of the film's at-times flat and uneventful sound design. Dialogue is clean, clear and smartly prioritized, aggressive effects are suitably vicious and disconcerting, and dynamics are decidedly decent, canned though some of the predictably dark, sinister ambience may be. LFE output is strong and assertive, rear speaker activity flourishes (at least when the action erupts), and the soundfield features a number of fun directional flourishes. "Immersive" is probably too generous a word, but "engaging" will do, so long as you're willing to accept volume and bombast in place of nuance and prowess. All things considered, The Beast Among Us sounds as good as it looks... take that as you will.
Audio Commentary: Director/co-writer Louis Morneau and producer Mike Elliott deliver a solid commentary, recorded when the film's title was still in flux. Morneau does most of the talking, touching on Werewolf's Romanian shoot, budgetary constraints, script and story development, casting, FX and more, but Elliott chimes in quite a bit as well, revealing tidbits like the crew's resistance to Morneau's desire to shoot budget-busting sequences that didn't cost as much as they were worth. The pair also describe a film that underwent a number of significant changes along the way, and makes it clear the production was very much a collaboration.
Rated and Unrated Versions: Werewolf: The Beast Among Us includes a 93-minute Rated and a 93-minute Unrated Cut, the latter of which is only eighteen seconds longer. Considering this is a direct-to-video release, it's little more than a gimmick and a wasted one at that.
Deleted Scenes (HD, 4 minutes): An intro to the two-legged horse. Otherwise, nothing of note here.
Making the Monster (HD, 9 minutes): A behind the scenes look at the film and its production.
Transformation: Man to Beast (HD, 6 minutes): Breaking down the werewolf transformation sequences.
Monster Legacy (HD, 4 minutes): The cast and crew discuss Universal's horror legacy.
As direct-to-video reboots of classic Universal horror icons go (or don't go), Werewolf: The Beast Among Us is a near-serviceable shot at DTV greatness that fails to amount to anything great. Or good. Or memorable. Or anything of the sort. It's a quick-hit, one-note blood and guts bore with one too many cringe-worthy performances. Universal's Blu-ray release is far more satisfying, though, with a faithful AV presentation and a decent selection of extras (even if the Unrated version of the film amounts to a whopping 18 seconds of additional/alternate footage).
In October, Universal Studios Home Entertainment will bring Werewolf: The Beast Among Us to Blu-ray. This feature-length homage to Universal's classic monster cinema follows the carnage left by a werewolf running wild in a 19th century European village. Werewolf: ...
Werewolf: The Beast Among Us Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
