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DARKWOLF
Review by Chastity Campbell
Stars: Samaire Armstrong, Ryan Alosio, Andrea Bogart, Jaime
Bergman, Alexis Cruz, Kane Hodder, Steven Williams, Tippi Hedren
Director: Richard Friedman
Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround
Video: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Features: See Review
Length: 94 Minutes
Release Date: April 15, 2003
“Well,
if it isn’t the big, bad, wolf!”
Film *
Okay, before I can even begin reviewing this movie, I have
to tell you that while watching it, I couldn’t get the story of the three
little pigs out of my head. People
were dying, and blood was flowing, and all I could think was, “And I’ll huff
and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!” Want to know the saddest part?
A movie about the three little pigs would have been much better than this
one!
Darkwolf is a tail about a purebred female werewolf
who is getting ready to go through the change.
No, not menopause, but she’ll get a couple of paws of her own, if you
know what I mean! Anyway, Josie is
a down to earth waitress trying to make enough money to put herself through
medical school. Her boyfriend
is obnoxious and extremely jealous. Her
best friend is a flirt, and a homeless woman is watching out for the
unsuspecting werewolf to be!
For some reason, Josie doesn’t realize what is happening
to her. Now, it appears to me if
when looking, into the bathroom mirror I notice that my eyes are glowing red, I
might just catch a clue. It
unfortunately takes a half crazed cop and a brief episode in a bathtub (which I
will not go into) for her to understand all those weird feelings she’s been
having don’t add up to PMS!
Now it’s a full moon and the Darkwolf is on the prowl.
He’s hunting for the purebred to mate with, and he’s not letting
anyone stand or cower in his way. Just
so you can better understand the difference between these two werewolves, let me
break it down for you: there are
two kinds of werewolves, the purebred and the half-breed.
A purebred is a true descendant from the first bloodline of werewolves.
A half-breed is the result of a purebred and a human mating.
Josie represents the last of the purebreds and this
Darkwolf, who is apparently some type of dark prince, has decided to make her
top dog in his kennel! Hopefully
he’ll still respect her in the morning, but probably not…after all he is a
dawg!
There really weren’t any stand out performances in this
movie. The acting was all
mediocre at best. The one delight
for me was watching my number one favorite bad guy actor Kane Hodder as Darkwolf.
Hodder is famous for his mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore
machete wielding portrayal of Jason Voorheese in some of the Friday The 13th
movies. He’s always got just the
right amount of attitude to give the baddest of bad guys the edge they need.
I really wanted to like this movie because we have been too
long without adequate slash style horror.
With the onset of the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer
era, I was revitalized as a horror flick enthusiast. Unfortunately, Darkwolf is all gore without
anything more.
The CGI effects used to render both Josie and the Darkwolf
during their transformations were video game-esque at best. I can remember watching An American Werewolf In London
and being truly scared as he transformed into the werewolf for the first time.
I almost giggled at the cartoonish nature of the CGI effects for this
movie.
As expected, the heroine makes it through this nightmare
ride she’s been on since the sun set, and the good looking cop is a little
sliced and diced but still in good enough spirits to make a few jokes.
The bad guy is taken care of in true and proper bad guy fashion.
Or is he? That’s the
thing about these types of movies…if the last scene you see is the bad guy
laying on a slab in the morgue, there’s going to be a sequel!
So you have until then to grab a copy of this one on DVD.
Video **
Presented in a 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format, this
DVD was crisp and clean with very few visible flaws. Shot predominantly at night, most of the scenes tended to be
too dark. The natural
lighting from street lamps and overhead building lights was dull and dingy
without much quality to their luminance.
Also, the CGI effects were less than standard as far as I
was concerned considering this is a 2002 production. The digital transfer of this film only helped to
enhance the cartoonish nature of the effects.
Audio **
The audio was presented in a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround
sound format. The dialogue
was very hard to understand as the mix levels kept jumping up and down.
The balance between the spoken dialogue and the soundtrack was off as
well.
The sound effects for the werewolf transformations were
very nice however, in contrast to the rest of the disc. Even the features had problems with dropouts in the
audio.
Features ***
Even though I had some problems with this film’s audio
and video quality, the features are definitely something to howl about!
A twenty-minute making of Darkwolf question and
answer session with the cast and crew is just a button push away.
Throw in a gag reel showing how much trouble the cast had remembering
their lines and the actual feature trailer for Darkwolf and you’ve got
yourself some nice features.
Still screen menus with scenes from the movie embedded take
you from place to place, and you’ll find some trailers hidden for you on the
second features screen. One for the
Johnny Depp flick From Hell heats up the screen, while The Fury
and The Omen take you into the depth of the paranormal.
Also, a set of very confusing scenes from Phantom Of The Paradise
are included for your viewing pleasure.
You have the option of viewing this movie with Spanish, or
French subtitles, as well as choosing the 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound Spanish
option if you prefer to hear the movie in another language.
All in all, a nice set of features that would make any disc
owner proud!
Summary:
