Director: Simon Wells
Year: 2017
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Werewolf
Plot:
Heading out to a remote cabin, a couple looking to keep the spark in their relationship alive continually find something is lurking in the woods around them, and once they find the culprit to be a vicious werewolf prowling the area try to fight it off to get away alive.
Review:
This turned out far better than expected. Among the more enjoyable aspects of this one is the highly enjoyable and unique premise that sets this in motion, which is rather enjoyable. The main idea here is pretty clever, about a vicious werewolf loose in the English countryside terrorizing a couple stranded in the middle of a remote house, and the fact that this one manages to keep the suspense going straight on for the most part, which gives this a solid pace. That's helped along nicely by the rampant series of attacks the creature unleashes to try to get inside the house, as the rather early appearance of the werewolf shown stalking them gives this plenty of solid action. The shadows showing something large running around in the outskirts of the house's yard or passing by the windows causes this quite a nice, suspenseful start to the ambush attacks that pop up later on.
From the constant attempts at breaking in through the upper floors or the roof of the house, their being forced to sneak around the house to accomplish anything with the creature on their tails and the rather enjoyable finale where it draws the couple into a rather fun chase around the house and into the surrounding woods which provides several fun mini-battles as they attempt to get into the final stages of the conflict with the werewolf. By including a rather touching and highly unconventional ending, which has plenty of fine emotional resonance on top of that, the ending has plenty of enjoyable elements included within, on top of the fine gore throughout here. Coupled with a solid werewolf look that's rather enjoyable if somewhat cheesy, there's enough to like here that holds it up over its minor flaws.
The main problem here is the fact that the trip for the couple makes no sense whatsoever. As we're dropped into this trip on the outset, the pacing here offers a fast and frantic tempo, yet never really makes it clear what the purpose is, since they seem like a married couple on a holiday, yet he's trying to propose the whole time. As they clearly have a timeline on the relationship due to other commitments brought up over the course of their evening together, yet are either trying to rebuild their relationship by taking a trip into the woods under those conditions, which makes no sense. This could've been a lot better explained in a brief throwaway line, as their purpose for being there is counterintuitive to what's happening. On top of that, the ending features a rather unneeded twist that doesn't need to be included in the film to help sell it, since it was working fine without it, yet the inclusion does it no favors. Combined with the cheesy-looking werewolf costume, these here are the film's biggest problems.
Overview: ***/5
Enjoyable enough if slightly flawed werewolf effort, this one is better than expected and manages to offer up quite a few likable factors that hold off the few drawbacks within this one. Those with an appreciation for this kind of genre fare or who aren't turned off by the issues here will have a fun time here, while most others out there will want to heed caution.
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