'Blackout' Movie Review

After messing with vampires and Frankenstein, in Habit and Depraved respectively, indie horror fave Larry Fessenden returns with his take on werewolves in Blackout. Set in a small town in upstate New York, painter Charley Barrett (Alex Hurt, son of William Hurt, which comes into play in one uniquely pointed way) makes his way through his last day in town, wrapping up loose ends, visiting friends one final time, and trying to right a few lingering wrongs on the way out the door. Complicating his exit, it turns out Charley is a werewolf and responsible for a number of recent deaths the elder powerbroker of this minor hamlet, Hammond (Marshall Bell), has chosen to blame on Miguel (Rigo Garay) despite a lack of evidence.

'Werewolves Within' (2021) Movie Review

Don’t you hate it when you move to a small town for work and it turns out there are werewolves on the loose? Yeah, that sucks. Unless you’re watching Werewolves Within, the latest from director Josh Ruben (Scare Me). An adaptation of a video game I’ve never heard of, Ruben and writer Mishna Wolff mix scares and laughs in a way that many attempts to do so fail to achieve. Playing like a horror whodunnit, the result is something akin to a lycanthrope take on Clue or Agatha Christie with monsters. (Literal monsters, not the metaphorical human variety, though the film has plenty of those as well.) It’s one of the most fun, entertaining movies to come out this year, and easily a top-tier video game movie.

'Slice' Trailer: Pizza, Werewolves, A Portal To Hell, And Chance The Rapper

You can’t never say A24 does the same thing every time out of the gate. Just when you think you have the boutique studio pegged, they drop a crazy-ass genre banger like Hereditary, a Muay Thai prison drama in the vein of A Prayer Before Dawn, or,  you know, a cheeky pizza delivery/werewolf/portal-to-hell horror yarn. Just watch the trailer for Slice below, it’ll all make sense. Well, sort of.

SIFF Review: 'Game of Werewolves'

 

Mixing horror and comedy is a tricky proposition. Leaning too heavily on one element over the other can lead to an imbalance, and too many attempts to synthesize the two genres result in movies that are neither scary nor funny. That’s what makes Juan Martinez Moreno’s “Game of Werewolves” (AKA “Wolves of Arga”) such a treat; it seamlessly blends legitimate laughs with earnest frights and gore.