Alpha Wolf is a Top Dog Among Monster Movies

OK, before I even get started, full disclosure here.  The starring couple in this film, real life husband and wife, Casper and Jennifer Van Dien, are people are I consider my friends.  Jenn has worked on two movies with me and was the subject of one of my very early interviews for Cult Goddess Magazine.  That said, I'm rarely hard on independent productions as it is because I know what it takes to get a movie from concept to completion and that task alone deserves some respect, even if this golden age of everyone have a high quality camera just a cell phone away.  Besides that, I have no editor (at the moment) telling me what to review, so if the movie had turned out to be a lemon, I just never would have published a review.

So, dear readers, there is your grain of salt. Now, read on.

I saw "Alpha Wolf" as an included with Prime flick as part of my October monster movie viewing.  It's no secret that I'm a werewolf fan and most of all an "old school" werewolf fan.  I prefer my wolves to be either well trained animals, or if they're anthropomorphized, men in make-up and/or suits.  This movie delivered on the use of practical F/X, if not with the most frightening of wolf designs. The image on the box cover is a pretty accurate representation of what to expect.  CG is used mostly for non-wolf F/X, sparingly and with varying degrees of success.

The title gives you the main gist of the movie.  A self proclaimed Alpha Male is bitten by a werewolf and has to come to terms with his newfound powers or curse, depending on your point of view.  All of this happens amid a get away with his wife and her loyal dog.

All around solid performances as you would expect from an experienced cast such as this.

There's a bit of a slow build up, which serves to create some tension and suspense and then it's followed by a good bit of action and intrigue.  There are some easy to spot plot elements and maybe a surprise or two.  The werewolf legend gets some new additions as it often does in modern movies.

You can see the cannon fodder victims coming as soon as they hit the screen, but that just adds to the retro feel.

Overall, if  you're a werewolf fan and hunger for something new, this is a movie you should see.

By the way, never let a Van  Dien drive  your Jeep through the woods in a monster movie.

Blood Redd - Matriarchs and Monsters

At first glance, "Blood Redd" seems like a run of the mill werewolf/red riding hood crossover.  It even follows that path for a good 20 minutes or so, which had me thinking maybe I had made a bad choice, but then the movie hits its stride at about the half hour mark and it evolves into a very interesting look at werewolfism.

This is going to be one of those movies that's tough to review fairly without giving too much away.  It's currently available as part of Prime and well worth the watch.  We're treated to a grotesque autopsy at the film's opening and this is pretty indicative of the gore effects to follow.  The movie is mostly solid, and at times impressive, in the special F/X department. We don't see a whole lot of our monster, but there's some great shadow work and the glimpses we do get are well worth the wait.  As a werewolf fan I was very happy with the resulting beast when I finally saw it.  But I really like practical werewolf F/X, even when they're kind of dated, like in my own "The Lunar Pack", which was all make-up, masks and fun fur.

After the autopsy we start to meet some of our characters.  In the beginning they seem like caricatures of the people populating a lot of other b-horror films, especially the teenage girls and clueless cop, but give it time.  Some of the acting seems very off the shelf, standard for indie cinema, say your lines and move on, as well, but in this movie bad actors don't last.  Not just because their characters don't live long enough, which is how some horror movies deal with the problem of "Bob really wanted to be in a movie and he let us film at his house for a role", but because as their characters developed most of the actors seemed to develop with them.  Stephanie Huller and Torey Widener are the best examples of this.  During the first act both of their characters are pretty two dimensional as the film sets  up the story and their performances reflect this, but by the end of the movie they've turned in some pretty excellent moments on screen, especially playing off of one another.

The movie's look at the werewolf, how the curse works and the way the female characters handle themselves all give it an original flair. This isn't a rollercoaster ride of werewolf attacks or simple reimagining of  "guy gets bitten and now he has to find a cure or risk killing his friends".  Instead, we're led down a path of discovery, new ideas and family bonding that is largely new to the sub genre (at least in my experience).  There are some old gags thrown around such as the wolf's hearing and sense of smell, etc.  But overall this is a very original take on werewolves that makes good use of special F/X, but doesn't rely on them as the only selling point of the movie.

From a technical standpoint the camera work ranges from mediocre to very sharp, well lit and nicely composed. The audio is the same, with only a few lines lost to characters whispering or music interference.  The  score is supportive without being terribly noticeable, which is how it should be.  My own film, "Savaged", had a completely different feel before we replaced the placeholder music with the finished score.  Music can make or break a movie and in a suspense film like this, it often improves the movie without being overtly present.  It was really only during one discussion that I questioned the score at all.

If you're a fan of werewolf movies, like suspense and are willing to watch something without "name talent" in it, then please give this one some of your time.  Do be sure to give it at least 30 minutes to grab hold of you.  I know it's unusual today to wait for a movie to develop, but the slower pace of this movie is because it's more about story telling and character growth than grabbing you by the throat and shaking scares out of you.

It's really everything an independent monster movie should be.  Thought provoking and different from the mainstream stuff a bigger studio would pump out hoping for mass appeal.