werewolf the beast among us

Universal Studios is sitting on a cash cow of classic monsters and they know it; Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, all with trademarked make-up effects just waiting to make someone a fortune. But to date, no one has found a way to crack the safe. 2004’s Van Helsing was supposed to do the trick, combining all the famous faces for one big monster mash. But when it crashed and burned at the box office, everything went back into the vault.

Now we have Werewolf: The Beast Among Us, essentially a direct-to-video sequel to Van Helsing but without all the overhead costs (like expensive Australian actors). Instead Ed Quinn leads a team of monster hunters into a small European hamlet – which oddly enough seems to accept accents from any country – plagued by a string of werewolf killings. Young Daniel (Guy Wilson) volunteers to protect the town and impress his girlfriend and winds up in the thick of the furry battle.

There’s nothing about Werewolf that is particularly impressive or particularly terrible. It simply exists. Like one of the undead, it shambles from scene to scene doing what you expect it to do with only brief moments of unrated gore to shock you out of your cinematic sleep. In an odd twist to the legend, werewolf victims rise to become strange zombie / vampires, which only adds credence to the theory that whoever wrote this thing probably tries to adjust his TV every time a black-and-white movie comes on. Extras include deleted scenes, commentary and a featurette or two.