Review: We’rewolves-Werewolves: the Dark Survivors (2009)

Directed by: Edward Bazalgette | 88 minutes | fantasy | Actors: Rachael Ancheril, Christian Bako, Rob Bird, Brent Crawford, Sydney Kondruss, Stephanie Langton, Chris Mathers, Michael Scratch, Joanna Swan

“We’rewolves: the Dark Survivors”, by director Edward Bazalgette, is a fake documentary along the lines of “The Blair Witch Project and” [Rec] “. In this mockumentary, co-produced by Animal Planet, Detective Jack Breedlove (Chris Mathers) and zoologist Ivy Carter (Stephanie Langton) investigate a number of bizarre murders that have taken place around North America’s Great Lakes District. Attacks by a wild animal are initially thought of, but further clues seem to point to a darker and more ancient secret. In itself it is a nice fact: a documentary about the search for the truth behind werewolves, with a focus on the origin of these legendary monsters. Unsurprisingly, this really involves a lot of stuff: archeology, ancient manuscripts, rabies, heredity, and even the Vikings that once would have landed in America. Clearly, this is too much of a good thing. Mysticism and old myths can often be explained in a scientific way and it seems interesting to do research on werewolves from this line of thought. But to really combine everything and in this way, in non-chronological order, to merge the Europe of the seventeenth century, the Vikings and werewolves into an overarching whole, is a lot of fun.

The film really does not know how to get interesting for a second, and that is quite unusual in a zeitgeist in which vampires and werewolves are making an immense comeback. At the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century, a revival started, partly with “Underworld” and “Blade”. Since 2008, the movie market itself has been inundated with films like “Twilight”, “Cirque du Freak” and even arthouse productions like “Let the Right One In”. This profusion of genre films makes a fake documentary completely unnecessary and many will see werewolves that cannot stand sunlight and drink blood, families hiding to keep their secret and the transformation of form (by far the best scene in the film). ) sometimes have to think about the aforementioned films or wonder whether the director is not confusing all the myths to try to get something interesting out of them. This does not work at all. A theme that seems to gradually disappear from its own success, with the idea of ​​a fake documentary, cannot but degenerate into a meaningless production. “We’rewolves” is a totally nonsensical film about humanity and being a wolf, natural urge and pack behavior. Wolves again, sigh …