Werewolves Within

Films based on video games aren’t usually ones you rush to see, they don’t always translate that well. So with writer Mishna Wolff taking on the Ubisoft game of the same name, we cautiously approached.

Man of the moment Sam Richardson, who can also be seen in the Amazon original The Tomorrow War, is Finn Wheeler. He’s a Park Ranger sent to Beaverfield, arriving some 29.5 days later after a local man goes missing.

Beaverfield is a cold and remote place, full of division as local man Sam Parker, Wayne Duvall (“Richard Jewell”, “The Hunt”), wants to build a pipeline right through the middle of town.

This sees some locals on his side, such as Trish, Michaela Watkins (“American Dad! (TV)”, “The Unicorn (TV)”), and her husband Pete, Michael Chernus (“Orange Is The New Black (TV)”, “Patriot (TV)”), local mechanic Gwen, Sarah Burns (“Barry (TV)”, “Bad Vibes (TV)”), and her partner Marcus, George Basil (“Desperados”, “Cube Farm (TV)”).

Counter to that is local hotel owner Jeanine, Catherine Curtin (“Stranger Things (TV)”, “Homeland (TV)”), Joaquim, Harvey Guillen (“Don’t Look Deeper (TV)”, “What We Do In The Shadows (TV)”), and partner Devon, Cheyenne Jackson (“Call Me Kat (TV)”, “Watchmen (TV)”).

When the power goes out and the roads are blocked due to a storm, they all wind-up in Jeanine’s hotel, all panicked, Trish upset as something has killed her dog.

Newboy Finn tries to restore some calm to proceedings but he’s just gosh darn nice and struggles to make himself heard. Though he has made a nice new friend in mail-woman Cecily, Milana Vayntrub (“Dad (TV)”, “Kingpin Katie (TV)”).

As the body count begins to rise, accusations keep flying around and fingers are either pointed, or, well, bitten off.

Director Josh Ruben (“Scare Me”, “Boondoggle (TV)”), keeps the jumps up and the humour is either very subtle or very obvious, rarely in between.

The effects are decent, the kills are nice, the laughs a little hit and miss though helped enormously by Richardson being such a likeable person and his character being such a likeable man.

There’s hints of activism and environmentalism but they never really take hold nor go anywhere, equally there are hints of greed, but they also hit dead ends.

Having said that, Werewolves Within is a lot of fun and you could certainly spend an hour and a half of your life in worse ways.