Shudder Saturday: WolfCop (2014)

I remember hearing mixed things about Wolfcop when it first came on the scene. I have subsequently heard that the sequel was an improvement, but I am not the sort of person who would be able to watch any sequel without having watched the first film first. I am not a lunatic.

Written and directed by Lowell Dean, this is a fairly simple tale of a cop (Lou Garou, played by Leo Fafard) who seems to be very close to losing his job. He would much rather spend his time getting drunk than solving crimes, but things change when he ends up involved in some black magic ritual one night. That gives him the "gift" of lycanthropy, which turns him into the titular wolfcop. The bad news is all the extra fangs and hair. The good news is that he actually seems to become better at his job.

Although it's hampered by some of the acting, as well as the moments that feel planned more around the low budget than the set-pieces, there's a lot to enjoy here. The mix of tired tropes used to define our main character and his situation are mined well to show the full transformation, and everything plays nicely into a finale that is both clever and entertainingly cute.

Fafard may not be the best lead ever, but he leans into an amplified set of behaviours that play into the ridiculousness and comedy of the premise. Amy Matsio does a bit better as his partner, Tina, Sarah Lind gets to play her character, Jessica, as a sultry riff on Little Red Riding Hood, Aidan Devine is pretty good as the Chief Officer, Corinne Conley has good fun in her role, and Jonathan Cherry, arguably the most familiar face, also seems to be having a good time with the material.

Dean may not be able to smooth off all of the rough edges, but that just adds to the appeal of the whole thing. And while it's mostly a bit technically crude and visually ugly, all the stops are pulled out for a couple of fantastic highlights. The actual werewolf transformation sequence is up there with the best of them, a genuine contender that should appear on any ranked list of "best movie werewolf transformations of all time", and there are some brilliant gore gags that focus on spray and splatter ahead of realism.

I think I fall in line with many other horror movie fans who wanted this film to live up to the full potential of the premise. It's slightly disappointing, particularly in the first half, but the best parts of it easily make up for the lesser moments. If the sequel is the improvement that everyone says it is then I am pretty much guaranteed to have a great time with that. In the meantime, I won't rush to rewatch this one, but I am glad to have finally made time for it. It may not have had me howling with laughter, but it kept me fairly amused, and it tried to deliver at least one or two moments that felt quite unique. It also has one of the best taglines ever.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Still/Born (2017)

Movies are like jokes, in my opinion. They can be made about absolutely anything. what matters is the context and the motivation. But it's fair to say that some people may not be able to watch Still/Born, with the horror being derived from the aftermath of something that is a hugely traumatic experience for any mother to go through.

Christie Burke plays Mary, a young mother who now has a son named Adam. That's all well and good, but Adam was born with a twin brother named Jonathan, who was stillborn. Mary is obviously seriously affected by this, to the point where she starts thinking that a demonic entity is after her son. Unfortunately, everyone else simply sees Mary in a state of deteriorating mental health, and the only one who could cause harm to her son, as far as they are concerned, is Mary herself. Her husband (Jesse Moss) is sympathetic, to a point, and she also has some support from a good neighbour (Rebecca Olson) and her own mother (Sheila McCarthy). She's also seeing a doctor (Michael Ironside), but her refusal to be completely honest with him doesn't help. As things start to escalate, Mary becomes convinced that the only way to save her son is to make a sacrifice.

It's hard to be overly critical of director Brandon Christensen, who also co-wrote the script with Colin Minihan (still probably best known to genre fans just now as one half of The Vicious Brothers). Making his feature debut, Christensen has certainly picked a subject that contains layered levels of horror. It's something that needs to be handled just right, and both the script and direction allow time for a dark fog of sadness to permeate scenes in between the standard scares. Unfortunately, those standard scares are real mixed bag. The first hour is a slog, with a number of lazy, but admittedly effective, jump scares and some fleeting glimpses of graphic nastiness that some viewers definitely won't appreciate. It also makes for a tough viewing as you wonder whether this is a standard horror movie or a look at the world through the eyes of someone in a state of painful suffering after experiencing the worst loss of their life. That uneasy blend lasts right up until the final scenes, with a coda that feels equally dispiriting because of what it reveals to another main character. Some may argue that a scene between Mary and a mother who previously seemed to share her experience (played by Jenn Griffin) keeps the film rooted in more standard scares. I would have to disagree. It feels like a shared hallucination, mainly because of the way in which nobody else is ever brought in to the proceedings at the right time to offer help.

This is a film that floods the screen with a sense of helplessness, almost as if it dresses up the main character in heavy clothing and forces her to wade into deeper and deeper water. That's a hard thing to watch, at times, but would fit more in a film that wasn't also trying to deliver the required genre goods.

Burke is good in the lead role, managing to show her terror and paranoia without her performance devolving into a mass of wide-eyed hair-pulling and shrieking (as can sometimes happen). Moss does fine in his role, although he's at the mercy of a script that has him having to be kept out of the way while things get worse for his onscreen wife. Ironside is always good to see, and his small role here is uncharacteristically non-threatening, and Olson and McCarthy both do solid work.

Still/Born is good. It walks a fine line between being considerate to the central issue that spurs on the horror and being in completely bad taste, and I think I would recommend avoiding it if you are one of the many women who have experienced the loss that Mary goes through (or at least give yourself ample time to prepare for your viewing), but it just does enough to keep itself in the right. Only just.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.
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