Lycan Colony (2006) by Rob Roy

Director: Rob Roy

Year: 2006

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Werewolf

Plot:

Arriving in a small town, a new doctor and his family are welcomed into the community even if they notice the odd behavior and physical conditioning they exhibit, and when he realizes what’s going on in the town when he finds they’re werewolves trying to control a rogue member teams up to stop them.

Review:

Overall, this is a problematic but still somewhat watchable genre effort. Among the better features of this one is the general setup that brings everything together into a pretty decent starting point. The idea of the family coming to the town and what they all face when they arrive is pretty much based on the revelation about the true inhabitants of the town that slowly reveals themselves, this part comes off quite well with the males involved in separate storylines that make sense regarding what’s going on. With the father getting an up-close look at the inhabitants with the involvement of the hunters looking into their missing father while the son gets to know the neighbor which slowly brings him into what’s going on in a more direct and physical means, there’s a lot to like with the setup in place here.

This all sets up the rather cheesy but still fun encounters that focus on the werewolves and humans interacting together. From the opening ambush of the hunters that show off the creatures’ intelligence quite nicely to the quite goofy bar encounter where the truth gets revealed in several silly encounters, this one gets quite wild and over-the-top the longer it goes on with the series of interactions involving the werewolves explaining themselves to the family. The way they adapt to everything is a bit quick, but the fact that this all sets up the inherently goofy and overly silly finale where they battle the bad werewolves in the woods which is filled with some fine conceptualized combat and stalking that takes place but it’s the immensely silly execution that gives this the kind of fun to be enjoyed here and holds this up for the most part.

There’s not much holding this one back but it does have some strong flaws. The main issue with this one, and the most overriding factor on display, is the generally obvious low-budget setup that offers no real escape from the limitations it imposes on the film as a whole. This is mostly apparent in the shoddy werewolf effects that don’t have the type of body coverage or realistic effects imagined in the genre, the general lack of lightning in most night-time sequences that are impossible to make out, or the laughably poor CGI that barely looks better than superimposing the shots onto each other, there’s nothing here that looks remotely realistic or believable which causes the action to take on a goofier and less genuine tone compared to how it had been presented beforehand. This goes a long way towards making what happens here look as bad as it does so there’s not much but still features one big flaw to bring it down.

Overview: ***/5

An immensely silly and cheesy werewolf feature, that the majority of the flaws here are based around how cheap and low-budget it is makes this come off with the kind of singular-mindset appeal. Those who appreciate this kind of genre fare or don’t mind the issues here will be the main target while those who are turned off by the flaws should heed extreme caution with this one.