Never Cry Werewolf (2008)

Who payed the critics

Load of rubbish!!

Am I Missing Something?

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Mysterious Jared Martin (Peter Stebbings) moves in next door to the Loren Hansett (Nina Dobrev). Her little brother Kyle is taken with this motorcycle riding newcomer. When a prostitute goes missing, she recognizes her from his house. She suspects that he's a werewolf and her friend Angie (Melanie Leishman) calls the cops. The cops do very little about it. When Angie and her boyfriend get killed, she tries to tell the police detectives but nobody believes her. The only help is the hormone-filled Steven. She also tries to get the help of TV personality Redd Tucker (Kevin Sorbo) to battle the evil beast.I'm a fan of Fright Night, and I love the first half of this movie. This is lower budget fare, but it dealt with that well until the action starts with Kevin Sorbo. The costume makeup is bad. The action is horrible. The CGI is passable for a TV movie. Sorbo is playing the comedic role but he's not good enough as a comedian. It is all downhill after the fight in the gun shop.

I see other reviews are hip to the mind numbing mediocrity of Canadian movie industry output by the low scores this pointless flick got. Feel sorry for your Canadian cousins as we must endure this mindless juvenile dreg on all our cable channels – we have no choice – plus we subsidize these "Ed Wood" film makers with our taxes.Enough background on the reasons for Canadian film mediocrity. I just want to point out a few common traits of all these Canuck film bombs. First, all through the screenplay and dialogue you have the typical preachy Canadian politically correct ideals pushed down your throat, regardless if it destroys continuity, character development or time period or props. Messaging, always political messaging – in this bomb there was the inevitable scagging of all the urban centric political bogey men - firearms, hunters, males and hunting. The next thing is the juvenile dialogue and conceptualization in Canuck flicks – that's on display here in spades. Then there are all the technical issues like cheap sound, camera work, props, makeup and of course, acting. The people these low budget directors recruit from college drama clubs are unskilled, stiff and of course juvenile.All in all this is another Canuck stinker that broke out of the public subsidized Canadian arts gulag and jumped the maple leaf curtain to US cable distribution – still stinks south of the 49th doesn't it. Can't recommend this movie to anyone with tastes more evolved than a high school junior from Podunk Nebraska.

I don't get the lukewarm reviews as "Never Cry Werewolf" (2008) is a worthy addition to the werewolf genre. Yes, it rips-off the plot of a popular film from two decades earlier, "Fright Night" and, yes, it is a made-for-TV flick, but despite these factors it delivers as a half-serious/half-comedy werewolf flick.PLOT: A mysterious man (Peter Stebbings) moves in next door to teenager Loren (Nina Dobrev) and she concludes that he's a werewolf. Of course, no one believes her so she enlists the help of a washed-up reality show actor (Kevin Sorbo).Like I said, "Never Cry Werewolf" only plays it semi-straight, so don't expect the dead-serious vibe of, say, "wolfen" or even "Red Riding Hood." Stebbings is reminiscent of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine here and is excellent in the role. But he's clearly at least 36 years-old and so it's a bit disturbing that he's literally sniffing around a 16 year-old girl.Nina is good as the protagonist and has a cute look, but I prefer her friend in the story, Angie, played by Melanie Leishman. Melanie may not be as cute but she has better curves. In any event, her role is too small.As always, Sorbo is extremely likable. He plays a reluctant hero in this one.The film was shot in Brantford & Hamilton, Ontario, and runs 87 minutes.FINAL WORD: Although "Never Cry Werewolf" loses points for blatantly ripping off "Fright Night," the bottom line is that it's entertaining from beginning to end. The werewolf lore is sound and the cast is solid. In addition, the werewolf looks menacing and there's a lot of goofy gore. It's just a fun film. What more do you want from a low-budget werewolf flick? GRADE: B-

For a Sci-Fi(I'm sorry, SyFy:)movie this was a pretty good amount of fun...if you dig 1.werewolf movies 2.corny horror and/or sci-fi movies you will enjoy this. It had a good amount of humor and didn't even bother to try and take itself seriously. The acting was decent and the characters were familiar archetypes, the effects weren't horrible(but they weren't stellar either), and it was just fun. Just remember it's a Sci-Fi flick so shut off your higher brain functions and enjoy...it's got werewolves!:) Lately Sci-Fi has been the "Disaster of the Week Channel" and totally veered away from monsters and creepy stuff, so this was nice to see...