Night of the Wolf

If you need your dose of creature feature, Late Phases may not be a great one, but it is a pleasant one nonetheless. What's rather unusual is that the best bits don't come from the creatures but from the main character, his personality, and the way he deals with things. Played by Mr Damici, I found him quite fascinating.

More points for originality come from the setting itself, a sort of village full of elderly people. Something that you don't see everyday, and that ends up playing miles above all the teenage & monsters rubbish that pollutes our silver screens these days.

Late Phases has all you might expect from a decent B-movie: not the best FX and monster suits, but personality, intriguing developments, and fun. Many things are done right, like going into action right from the start and showing the creature in the first minutes. Even the music score has a couple of great moments. So why not a better note ? Well, none of the flaws is big enough to ruin the story, but I can't just ignore all the little goofs, and the costumes do look daffy after all.

Wounded war vet Ambrose (Nick Damici) moves to a place where people are dying from mysterious circumstances.

This is the most pleasant surprise in the horror genre in quite a while. Although a few films have caused a bit of a stir (including "The Babadook" and "Starry Eyes"), this may turn out to be the sleeper hit of 2014 when word of mouth begins on the DVD release.

Werewolf films are few and far between, and good ones are even more rare. Although Universal tried to reboot "The Wolfman" a few years back, it was hardly appreciated. The last great wolf film was probably "Dog Soldiers" (2002), now more than a decade ago. "Late Phases" now takes that spot as the last great wolf film.

Leading the way is Nick Damici, who makes a very believable blind veteran. If these sort of films won awards, Damici might even be a strong contender. Horror fans ought to know his background, too: mentored by Michael Moriarty (a Larry Cohen regular), Damici came into the realm of Jim Mickle and Larry Fessenden (who produced this picture). He tends to be the less-often-mentioned part of this team, but should be mentioned in the same breath.

Then we have an excellent supporting cast: beyond Damici and Fessenden, we have Ethan Embry ("Can't Hardly Wait"), Tom Noonan ("Manhunter"), Tina Louise ("Gilligan's Island") and even Dana Ashbrook ("Twin Peaks"). The strongest supporting role is filled by Lance Guest ("Jaws: The Revenge"), as the connection between Ambrose and the local church.

The effects are solid, with both Bob Kurtzman and David Greathouse constructing the creature. Greathouse even wears the costume, apparently. Mix this with a plot that is entirely original (with a nod or two to classics like "Silver Bullet") and you have a winner.

Oddly, reviews are mixed. Shock Til Your Drop says the film is "obviously going for the Bubba Ho-Tep vibe", a contention that is flat-out wrong. Other than this being a community of elderly folks, there is no similarity. They might have said "goes for the Cocoon vibe" and been just as wrong. Bloody Disgusting properly called it "a masterpiece of the werewolf genre".

Director Adrián García Bogliano may not be well known, but after "B is for Bigfoot", "Here Comes the Devil" and now this, horror fans better take notice.

This movie turned out surprisingly well!

I had seen the title around in the past and never paid much attention. I mean really? A blind older vet against a werewolf?? .... How ridiculous is that whole idea? Well.... Not only was I wrong, I was pleasantly surprised by just how wrong I was.

This was one of the most enjoyable werewolf movies I have seen in a while! I absolutely love the dry, serious personality of the main character. He doesn't talk much and is direct and to the point about things. I love how those gossipy neighbors annoyed him as much as they did me! The acting was on point, all characters believable.

The special effects were not the best but they were good enough! I will take the not so perfect make-up/body suit type of effects over mediocre CGI any and every time! Definitely the right call there. I wish more movies still handled things that way more often. Bad CGI will cheapen any movie.

The story line was really good, and definitely different from any newer werewolf movie I have seen in quite a while. Retirement werewolves, not something you see.... Like.... Ever! Lol. The whole thing was refreshing. It was also extremely refreshing to see a modern werewolf movie actually respect and follow the traditional lore in a traditional way without making a joke out of it or turning the werewolves into actual wolves. Werewolves are not wolves and should be kept that way.

However I will say one thing for anyone already thinking it, because ik that they are. In Twilight, which is the most used reference in the past decade it seems.... They were NOT werewolves. The movies never clairified any of that and completely butchered the books which were actually quite good (yes I read them, long before the movies were even a thing and still have them) unlike the movies. In the last book towards the end the whole wolf thing is actually explained and acknowledged that they were not werewolves but were indeed a race of shapesifters. No more, no less. Completely different species.

All in all I definitely recommend this movie to anyone that still loves and appreciates traditional lore.

Late Phases reminded me a lot of Silver Bullet (the movie adapted from Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf) but with a blind, elderly Vietnam veteran instead of a paraplegic boy as the protagonist. As much as I have always loved Silver Bullet, I have to admit that I enjoyed this movie about as much, and it doesn't feel dated the way that Silver Bullet does when watching it again. It seems fitting that the special effects were handled by the same man who did special effects work on Bubba Ho-Tep, since there are some parallels between this story and that one, except that this one doesn't take place in a retirement facility, rather it takes place in a neighborhood of retirees. I've seen better werewolf creature effects (the creature appears to be a little bit more like a wererabbit because of a strangely short snout combined with the long, pointed ears), but I have seen much, much worse than these. It's not the caliber of the Howling or the old Werewolf television series, but it beats the hell out of the shiny/glossy, god awful creature effects from the Underworld movies and so many others. The transformation process itself, that you don't get to witness until near the end, is actually pretty impressive compared to a lot of them I've seen. The story is captivating for the most part, though it does drop a few steps during the investigative portion of the narrative while the protagonist figures things out and prepares for the next full moon to arrive. The climax of the movie makes up for it though, and then some...and even that slower patch between the full moons isn't the sort of thing that can be skipped over, in part because there is a bit of a twist relating directly to the investigation the protagonist conducts. I felt like now was as good a time as any to watch this particular movie because I am in the process of writing a werewolf story of my own, and it seemed like a good idea to watch some things for additional inspiration...and this one definitely served that purpose well. I wish that the werewolf wasn't such an underrepresented monster in both movies and literature...but it seems like all anyone has time for are zombies and vampires, and that is a damn shame. I would love to see more movies like this.

Late Phases...interesting title i suppose. I was really excited to have a werewolf movie that appeared, judging by the reviews, to have promise. I tend to base most werewolf movies on what i consider the gold standard of that genre, An American Werewolf In London. For me that movie has suspense, humor (to offset the suspense), great special effects (still one of my favorite werewolf makeups and transformation scenes) and a decent story line.

Late Phases doesn't really have many of those but it does have some humor and a couple quasi suspenseful spots. The main character is very likable which i think adds to the film and, for me at least, the movie gets very cheesy in an almost Troma Films like fashion towards the end. The werewolves are far from well done...they are embarrassingly bad. I will say that one transformation scene is actually pretty decent and the profile of the beasts are OK but that's it. The actual werewolf though looks like Fuzzbucket ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286639/ ) on crack (sorry Fuzzbucket, i still like you). The werewolves look like Halloween Express costumes. I enjoyed it though...somehow. Maybe its the Bubba Ho Tep type feel of monsters and Elderly people? I gave it a 6 / 10 because its definitely watchable but you need to be in the mood for this type of movie. Its not as bad as the "bad" reviews are stating but its definitely not stellar. Its just... Fun

I would watch this if you like cheesy werewolf movies. If you are looking for a serious piece of film then you might want to move on.