Donny Broussard Reviews: “Never Cry Werewolf”

Never Cry Werewolf

One of my favorite movies is a vampire flick called ‘Fright Night,’ which is basically put a horror spin on master director Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window.’ So it’s no surprise that I enjoyed Brenton Spencer’s ‘Never Cry Werewolf,’ because not only is does it bear a resemblance to ‘Fright Night,’ it mirrors it almost completely. Now of course the budget is much smaller, instead of a vampire it’s a werewolf, and instead of a high school guy doing the peeping, it’s a high school girl.

The film starts out almost exactly like ‘Fright Night,’ with a new guy moving into an old house in a quaint neighborhood. The new neighbor’s name is Jared Martin (Peter Stebbings), and as soon as he moves in he gets right to work on renovating the old house. Almost immediately every one in the neighborhood is talking about the motorcycle riding stud muffin, but Loren (Nina Dobrev), who automatically knows there’s something wrong with him, even if he does make her bottom tingle. Loren’s little brother becomes fast friends with Jared, causing Loren to start watching Jared through the lens of her telescope. Before long Jared is picking up hookers, taking them home, and munching down on them in more ways than one. Loren notices a missing person report with the hooker’s face on it and instantly figures out that Jared must have killed her. Not long after her initial speculation she figures out that the Jared isn’t just a serial killer, he’s a silver bullet hating werewolf. So Loren recruits a geek (Sean O’Neill) that has the hots for her, and a washed up television star (Kevin Sorbo) to help her in her quest to kill her neighbor the werewolf. Only what she doesn’t know is that Jared thinks she is the reincarnated soul of his ex-wife, because she looks exactly like her (duh). This complicates things because wolves mate for life (I don’t blame him, Nina Dobrev is stupid hot).

It is amazing how much this flick mirrors ‘Fright Night,’ there’s even a scene where Loren calls the cops, brings them to Jared’s house, then proceeds to tell them he’s a werewolf. But the funny thing is that it didn’t bother me one bit that this flick was a direct rip off of my beloved ‘Fright Night,’ because overall it was still pretty darn entertaining. director Brenton Spencer basically remade ‘Fright Night’ without actually remaking it, which is actually okay in my book. Hell, I’d rather filmmakers take a cool film and use the guts without ruining the name by blatantly remaking it. This film has some pretty cool effects, a talented cast, and an extremely hot leading actress. It’s cheesy in some parts (okay it’s just plain cheesy), predictable, and definitely has its share of flaws, but still managed to put a smile on my face. This is what direct to DVD and made for television horror should be, a good time for the horror fan. I’m probably going to get a lot of heat for enjoying this flick, but I really don’t care, because even with its flaws ‘Never Cry Werewolf’ was a killer film.