Werewolf

Since capturing the MST3K version of "Werewolf" on tape years ago, I have sat down and watched it several times, trying to figure out how functional human beings could make a feature film that has a sloppier script, more continuity errors, less coherent performances and ends up making even less sense than a patchwork mess like "Space Mutiny".

Then I happened upon 'billybrown4''s suggestion that perhaps the filmmakers kept running out of money, waiting to get some more, and then trying to resume again over the course of several years while the actors and extras and costume designers and crews kept coming and going. That would explain a lot of things: Yuri's wildly varying hairstyles, Joe Estevez disappearing after the 1st 1/3 of the film, the way the werewolf keeps appearing in totally different guises (a bear, a bat, a hand puppet, Federico Cavellini in spirit gum and floor mats, etc.), Richard Lynch's apparent loss of interest in the whole problem in the last 30 minutes, the jarring "start-stop" feel of the movie and the whole plot thread with the 2nd werewolf (the security guard) which serves no purpose except to establish Yuri as a complete *ssh*le who will stop at nothing to 'be famous beyond (his) wildest dreams'.

Oddly, the movie is filled with physically attractive, photogenic people who nevertheless seem to have the personality of a sack of cement - this may have been caused partially by the fact that English is obviously a 2nd language for the three main leads, especially the female lead "Natalie". So your eyes are drawn to them while at the same time your ear recoils in irritation at their attempts to speak the vernacular. "Yuri" is very handsome and muscular, but chews the scenery without mercy. On the other hand (paw?), there is "Sam The Keeper" who speaks perfect English but looks like roadkill and camps it up something fierce. And there is Joe Estevez, who is an utter cornball, but still is one of the most interesting things in the movie.

So the actors who aren't wooden marionettes in this movie are complete Shakespearean level hams, except for poor Richard Lynch, who probably took the money and ran.

Other discordant and jarring elements in the movie:

1) The longest transformation scene in the history of Western cinema 2)A fight scene between Yuri and the werewolf in which the two actors are never in the same shot and Yuri seems to sustain fatal damage without ever being physically touched. 3)A scene in which the female realtor is thrown over a railing by the werewolf when she visits him in the house she rented to his human form, which fall should have killed or crippled her, but she walks away without a scratch - AND SHE NEVER REPORTS IT TO THE POLICE!! 4)The scene at the benefit party in the museum where "Loud Mumbling Breaks Out", followed by the one were Yuri attacks Paul Niles with the skull of the werewolf. 5)At one point Natalie tells Paul "You're our only hope..." What? Where did THAT come from?? If the archaeological project needed more money, all they had would have to do is issue a press release about the werewolf skeleton and they would have more money and attention than they could handle. Michael Jackson alone would probably bid upwards of $5 million to keep the skeleton after they were done. 6)Most egregiously, the infamous scene where the werewolf attacks the young woman who is necking in the jeep, and she jumps OUT of the jeep and runs screaming with three voices down the middle of the road, only to trip in her pre-muddied dress and founder in a 2 inch deep puddle. Where did her boyfriend go? How did the werewolf catch her when he was writhing along the road like a snake? We may never know...

Anyway, an invigoratingly sloppy and stupid movie. Watch this whenever you want to feel better about yourself in comparison to a bunch of clueless people who wasted thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to make awful dreck.

Thrill to the harpsichord music in the pool hall scene! Wonder at our heroine's ability to abuse English syntax and pronunciation! Tremble as the "wuur-wilves" grow wispy hair extensions and don animal puppet heads before striking! Shudder from exposure to the looney militant caretaker! Cackle as the greedy and inexplicably violent archaeologist's hair style and color spontaneously change from scene to scene! And don't miss Charlie Sheen's uncle's critical role as an itinerant site-digger.

Let's face it -- the only way to watch this dud is with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew lambasting it. Richard Lynch, ordinarily a good character actor, must have really been hurting financially to allow himself to be seen (and wasted) in this were-dog of a movie. Other favorite parts of mine include the hero turning off a radio, abruptly ending the annoying spooky soundtrack, and (in the MST3K version) Mike and the 'Bots' sing-along variations on the end theme.

Well, let's put it like this. They must have spent more money for the cool-looking holographic werewolf-transformation cover than they spent for the entire rest of the movie.

It was a horrible, horrible film. Makes Plan 9 look like Ben Hur.

This is a film that was featured on my favorite television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. It made for a very funny episode of the show as there was just a lot of aspects to the film to riff. You had Joe Estevez who is Martin Sheen's brother who I am guessing only gets roles because he looks like his more famous sibling. You have a dude who changes his hairstyle several times during the film, you have a solid actor in Richard Lynch reduced to a very underwhelming role and wearing a grandmotherly sweater and you have the two lead characters who both sound like they are from the same country in Europe. It is not all bad though, as the werewolf at times looks pretty good and the lead female has a nice set to stare at, but that is just not enough to rate the film any higher than the two I have given it here. It was not boring though and there were also a couple of good kills, but there is just too much randomness going on in this one to rank it higher. The fact that the film goes in one direction and shows you the beast and then proceeds to take it in another direction with another main character kind of weakens the film.

The story starts out having people digging in the desert, searching for stuff. Well, they find the remains of something and then proceed to get in a fight that Richard Lynch must stop. One of the workers gets cut on the remains that resemble some sort of animal, but also has some human qualities too. Well the guy who gets cut becomes a werewolf and the guy who constantly changes his hair proceeds to make matters worse and soon the guy is a full blown werewolf who promptly gets shot. Is the movie over already? No, another character is introduced who goes to a party and somehow gets involved in the whole affair and gets cut too as the dude who changes his hair also likes to wield werewolf skulls as weapons. Soon, the writer who likes the girl with the nice rack and is apparently from the same country as him, starts changing and running through the streets and doing things!

This made for a great episode of MST3K. It is a bad film, but not a boring film. There is enough in it to keep one entertained throughout and for the gang to riff throughout too. The film is much longer without being on the show as I am guessing MST3K showed maybe an hour and ten minutes while the run time for the standard version is an hour and 39 minutes. That would probably explain some of the more confusing jumps in it, but I am pretty sure the movie would remain pretty bad even with the extra time as the two lead characters are still going to be talking with thick accents and that one guy may have even had a couple of more hairstyles on display. I do think there had to be more with Richard Lynch though as his character kind of disappears at the tail end of the MST3K version.

So, while this film is severely cut for its showing on MST3K, I am just going to assume that whatever was cut was not going to make this thing an Oscar contender. As I've said the werewolf looks pretty good at times, but a lot of the time it is just some hair here and there and at other times it resembles a bear. The characters are over the top and fun to make fun of, but it is kind of sad to see Richard Lynch stuck in this mess. The guy was in some good films during his career and this is most definitely not one of them! In the end though it is a perfect film for MST3K and I think that if they had simply continued to do the show as like a DVD release here and there after SyFy canceled it, they could do more justice to films like this because they could do more unedited versions. I am kind of curious to see an uncut version just to see if that one gal goes topless!

I've seen some good werewolf movies in my time. "An American Werewolf in London", "The Wolf Man" and "The Howling" are among my favorites (and, incidentally, some of the better examples of the genre).

And then we get to "Werewolf", which seems to be the cinematic equivalent of a really bad train wreck. Up until I had seen this beauty, "Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf" was the worst movie about lycantropy I had ever witnessed.

Even the synopsis is bad: archaeologists dig up a skeleton of a werewolf and when people get cut on it, they turn into werewolves!

Kids, I won't lie to you...this movie stinks in every conceivable way you could imagine. The actors have so many different accents among them you'd think this was a co-production with the League of Nations. There are about ten (that I noticed) different versions of about, say, four werewolves in the whole movie. The director has absolutely no sense of how to set up a scene - scary, introductory, dramatic, what-have-you (a werewolf transformation gets up-staged by a mural in a bar? Yeah, just what I was thinking).

There are pretty women to ogle at, though. Whether or not they can act is a moot point, I suppose, but they talk about "fussinading" things, scream with what sounds like three voice boxes and type letters while pantsless.

But in the end, this is about as sorry an excuse for a werewolf (or "wahrwilf", or "wherwalf" or whatever) film I've seen in my life. Yep, it's bad; as bad as a truckload of dirty gym clothes. Bad like those ties way back in your closet. Bad like a Pauly Shore retrospective. Bad like getting gyros from an Italian restaurant.

Break out the silver bullets, wolfsbane, crucifixes and everything else for this flick!

No stars for "Werewolf" - the worst werewolf movie ever featuring Joe Estevez.

TIDBIT - victims of lycantropy should NEVER drive.