Werewolves Within Movie Review

I am a huge fan of lycanthropes. HUGE. And yet I find there are not hundreds of options when it comes to good werewolf movies with a high re-watchability factor.

It is no secret that Dog Soldiers is one of my all-time favourite movies and one of the things that I most love about it, is the humour.

So when I saw director Josh Ruben tweeting about a comedy horror called Werewolves Within, I was immediately excited. Highly intrigued. Interest piqued, yes you catch my drift. Now sometimes that amount of hype can let you down.

Thankfully, this gem of a movie did not.

I absolutely loved it.

We follow the story of Finn (played by the wonderful Sam Richardson, who is also producer) as he embarks (see what I did there?) on a new Ranger post in a town called Beaverfield. He soon meets the mail-person, Cecily (played by the fantastic Milana Vayntrub) and after a snowstorm cuts the power in the town, they find themselves trapped alongside some other interesting inhabitants and seek refuge at the local inn. Of cause, chaos ensues along with a plethora of funny moments and some great setups.

The thing that I most appreciate and enjoy about this film is the characters, it is often true in any medium that you need to feel something for them or the story will be meaningless. Even if you loathe them, that is still an emotion. Each member of the cast evoked something in me and that is no easy feat. The film is exactly what the tagline says, a whodunit with teeth. There are some truly awful characters (insofar as they are horrible people, the actors are all spot-on), there are some brilliant set-pieces (timing with comedy is imperative and Ruben nails it) and some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Is it scary? I would argue no, there are a couple of creepy moments and jump-scares, but another one of my all-time favourite movies is Brain Dead/Dead Alive and I would argue that isn’t scary either.

My only regret was watching it on the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, as the snow scenes and the fire in the inn made me feel all cozy and then I remembered I was sweating like a pig and had the fan turned up to a million. I will most definitely re-visit Werewolves Within when it is actually cooler, in fact I would go so far as to suggest it would make perfect Halloween viewing.

Josh Ruben has yet again shown me that he is someone to keep an eye on.