Director – Steven C. Miller, Screenplay – Matthew Kennedy, Producers – Jim Cardwell, Craig Chapman, Sevier Crespo, James Michael Cummings, Steven C. Miller, Myles Nestel & Luillo Ruiz, Photography – Brandon Cox, Music – The Newton Brothers, Visual Effects Supervisor – Scott E. Anderson, Visual Effects – Crater Studio (Supervisor – Peter Jovovic) & Quest Pacific (Supervisor – Steven Ardal), Special Effects Supervisor – Michael Lee Walls, Werewolves Designed & Created by Alec Gillis & Tom Woodruff Jr., Production Design – Tyler Bishop Harron. Production Company – The Solution Entertainment Group/The Pimenta Film Co./Monty the Dog/Rainmaker Films/Sherborne Media/Paprika Financing/Burke Entertainment.
Cast
Frank Grillo (Wesley Marshall), Katrina Law (Amy Chen), Ilfenesh Nadera (Lucy Marshall), James Michael Cummings (Cody), Lou Diamond Phillips (Dr James Aranda), Kamdynn Gary (Emma Marshall), Lydia Styslinger (Reagan), Daniel Fernandez (Evan Radcliffe), James Kyson (Myles), Betsy Landin (Dr Vasquez)
Plot
One year ago, a supermoon caused anybody caught under its light to become a werewolf. Now, one year later, society is preparing for the return of the supermoon. Wesley Marshall gets his wife Lucy to barricade herself in their house, surrounded by defences against any werewolves. Wesley heads a team that are attempting to combat the transformation with a serum they call Moonscreen. However, as the supermoon rises, the serum does not work as planned and werewolves break free and overrun the lab. Wesley and colleague Amy Chen are forced to try and survive in the streets as they become overrun by werewolves.
Steven C. Miller has emerged as a regular genre director since the early 2000s. He first appeared with the zombie film Automaton Transfusion (2006) and went on to make the Syfy Channel film Scream of the Banshee (2011), the home invasion thriller The Aggression Scale (2012), the killer Santa film Silent Night (2012) and the children’s horror film Under the Bed (2012). In more recent years, he has specialised in action film/thrillers with the likes of Extraction (2015), Marauders (2016), Submerged (2016), Arsenal (2017), First Kill (2017), Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018) and Line of Duty (2019), before a return to genre material with the automated home horror Margaux (2022) and Werewolves. The film was co-financed by and shot in Puerto Rico.
The werewolf film has been with us since the silent period, although the work that defined it on screen was Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney Jr, which created what has since become regarded as werewolf lore about full moons, silver bullets and so on. Since then, the werewolf film has undergone many B movie and comedy treatments and has been revived with a full arsenal of makeup effects transformations. (For a more detailed listing see my essay Werewolf Films).
Werewolves comes with an original premise. Through the handwave science of a supermoon, everyone who is exposed to it ends up becoming a werewolf. Now on the anniversary of the supermoon, the entirety of society is battening down as this is due to happen again. There is a dash or two of something like The Purge (2013) here.
Werewolves of the supermoon
The nuts and bolts of the set-up are not too clear – the film doesn’t, for instance, specify what exposure ends up affecting people – we see people out in vehicles, looking through slats and windows or seeing reflections of the moon so one guesses it has to be direct exposure – but the idea is a potent one. Another interesting idea added to the mix is that lycanthropy is now treated as an infection – surely echoing the post-Covid era.
Steven C. Miller has been languishing in the action genre for most of the 2010s and brings his action movie sensibilities with him as she launches into Werewolves. The film gets fast and furious in short order and Miller fairly much keeps his foot to the pedal the whole way though. Frank Grillo looks in absolutely ripped shape.
The major downfall of the film is the werewolf effects. The werewolves look impressively hairy and bipedal with massive snouts, but they also look exactly like they are makeup effects. There’s a fakeness in many of the scenes and Steven C. Miller doesn’t just do enough to disguise this.
