WEREWOLF RISING

Emma (Melissa Carnell) may have a fresh face and gym body, but don’t be fooled: she’s secretly an alcoholic. We first meet her as she returns from 15 years of living in "the city" to relative quietness of her sleepy town in the Arkansas mountains. It’s here that she hopes to retreat and recover from her addiction.

Before long she’s bumped into childhood pal Wayne (Brian Berry). He seems nice enough at first; even revealing that he too has battle with similar issues.

He seems positively normal compared to sleazy fellow neighbour Johnny Lee (Matt Compko). However, they’re both more than capable of being creepy bastards, as is evidenced when they individually show signs of being attracted to Emma.

Emma can handle them, just about. She’s more focused on enjoying what solitude she can and overcoming the urge to chuck drink down her neck. But then she finds other problems to contend with …

A barking mad local (Bill Oberst Jr) sneers and howls semi-naked at the opening to the nearby woods – which should be enough to freak any isolated female out, especially when Johnny Lee reveals to Emma that said local is an "escaped convict" of sorts.

But, who or what has he escaped from? The clue is in the title.

Sure enough, it’s not long before Emma’s sleepy town is invaded by hungry werewolves led by one beast (Taylor Homeman) who seems particularly fixated on her.

Employing their in-built red night vision, the wolves attack the town at night – resulting in a great deal of bloody throat tearing.

Can Emma keep her amorous suitors at bay, refrain from getting pissed and learn the secret of her own lineage in time to save the day?

Writer-director B C Furtney’s plot isn’t always as easy to decipher as the above synopsis may make it seem. His inexperience shows itself mainly in the muddied screenwriting (character inconsistencies; garbled background information; unexplained occurrences).

Happily, he’s more competent at directing his small cast. The performances, though of the enthusiastic B-movie variety, are warm and engaging throughout. Carnell is a likeable lead. Oberst Jr steals the show though despite not being on screen that often, offering an intensity that even the werewolf assaults can’t match.

Speaking of which, there’s plenty of red stuff spattered during the lycanthrope attacks. I even didn’t mind that the wolves are simply men in furry suits and rubber masks. This detail lends the film an element of camp that can’t help but entertain.

Are the werewolves metaphors for the realisation of Emma’s inner demons? Dunno. They could be, but Furtney never explicitly explores this possibility. It doesn’t matter: substance is not what’s being sought when you track down a film like WEREWOLF RISING.

Briskly paced, cerebrally unchallenging and unafraid of revelling in its merging of cheap effects with grisly splatter, WEREWOLF RISING turned out to be much more fun than I’d anticipated.

Oh, and it’s worth the price of admission alone for the sight of local lassie Beatrix (Irena Murphy) baring all during a midnight tryst with one of the beasts. Very nice indeed.

Image Entertainment’s UK DVD presents the film uncut and in an anamorphic 1.78:1 aspect. Picture quality is decent, clean digital visuals offering healthy amounts of detail and fairly strong contrast during darker scenes. The overall sheen is one akin to a film you’d most likely see on the Scy-Fy channel.

Strong English audio comes in options of 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. The latter in particular boasts good separation and a keen balance between music, sound design and dialogue.

A static main menu page leads into an equally static scene selection menu allowing access to the film via 6 chapters. Considering WEREWOLF RISING is only 76 minutes long, I suppose that’s acceptable.

There are no extra features on offer, unless you count the trio of trailers which are defaulted to open this disc: CAMP DREAD, VARSITY BLOOD and THE INVOKING.

WEREWOLF RISING is cheap and silly but undeniably committed to its cause. It benefits from decent performances, attractive photography and gutsy gore. Oh, and it has Murphy in the buff. So what if the monsters are men in rubber suits? Take it as paying homage to B-movies of the 1950s, perhaps, and enjoy.

Review by Stuart Willis