Director: Charlie Steeds
Year: 2020
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Werewolf
Plot:
While transporting a criminal to trial, a vicious storm forces a bounty hunter and his charge to seek shelter at a remote inn at the behest of their own intuition, but when they’re forced to stay discover a gruesome pact involving vicious werewolves in the area and must try to get away alive.
Review:
There was quite a lot to like with this one. Among the better elements here comes from the old-school setup that gets everything spelled out rather nicely. As this one goes for a quickly spelled-out story that gets the constable and his charge stranded at the inn where they encounter a slew of off-beat characters there, the resultant scenes give us a hint of their life at the location where the various residents are shown off. Getting an idea of the relationship of the prostitutes being there somewhat antagonistically against the owners and the other guests still there, the first half offers the kind of fine starting to the unscrupulous behavior of the owners which soon turns the film from a period-piece comedy to a genre outing.
That becomes the perfect base for the genre outing to be highly effective overall. After initially appearing as a brutal serial killer effort with the antics of the owners carving up the guests and how to finally apprehend them, the revelation about their purpose for doing so being to curate guests for the werewolves turns this into a solid creature feature. Keeping the werewolves as constant threats by having a series of battles across the multiple floors of the inn with numerous confrontations involving the guests inside, this relentless energy allows not only to have everyone get a shot to shine but also get long looks at the impressive werewolf effects and gore. These factors do manage to give this one a lot to like.
This one doesn’t have much to dislike but a few issues hold this down. One of the biggest letdowns here is the final half where the film oddly comes up lacking in intensity than what came before. Despite it featuring just as many werewolves and crazy means of fighting back against the creatures, the influx of comedy here is odd and far too heavily present to have the impact it does due to several goofy ideas involving a dissected arm and the inability to recognize the obvious with the werewolves coming for them. This comes off even more confusing when the series of encounters carry off on the same series of setups which repeats itself so it should be obvious how it all works, and along with the cheesy monster costumes hold it back.
Overview: ****/5
A highly effective and enjoyable werewolf effort, there's not much to dislike as the few issues are barely detrimental in any sense with such enjoyable positives. Those who appreciate this kind of indie genre fare, are massive werewolf aficionados or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while only those turned off by these factors could heed caution here.
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