Kevin Smith made the political horror-comedy “Red State” in 2011 and when he toured around the country, he outlined his overall vision for the movie as a cross between “Quentin Tarantino movie by way of The Coen Brothers.” While such ambitious aims were noble, Smith fell vastly short in the eyes of most (although, its “Burn After Reading,” close-the-file ending with John Goodman, wherein weed saves the day remains great). Similarly, director Josh Ruben’s political horror-comedy “Werewolves Within,” a Ubisoft video game adaptation, is a genre mishmash based on the vision of other filmmakers, perhaps best described as a post-Jordan Peele monster mystery by way of Rian Johnson’s ornamental whodunnit camp. Unfortunately for Ruben, like Smith, he’s no Tarantino, Peele, or Johnson, and “Werewolves Within” doesn’t quite stick the landing like his terrific 2020 comedy horror “Scare Me.”
Opening with a Mister Rogers quote, “Listening is where love begins…” before cutting to a “29.5 Days Later” title card after the cold open, the cheeky tone of Ruben’s sophomore film wastes no time in making itself known. Driving to his new position in the small town of Beaverfield, park ranger, Finn Wheeler (“Veep’s” Sam Richardson), listens to a ‘scream your heart out,’ self-help tape; the voice of an old lady saying the word “balls” a lot. Arriving at the snowy village’s mansion-like inn, Finn is introduced to many of the town’s visitors and occupants, setting up a colorful cast of characters.
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These include, but are not limited to: a yoga studio millionaire (Harvey Guillén), a paranoid environmental specialist (Rebecca Henderson), pipeline proposing gun-nut (Wayne Duvall), and Beaverfield’s new mailwoman, Cecily (an outstanding Milana Vayntrub), whose motormouth antics quickly connect with Finn’s quick-talking neurosis. Taking the ranger on a tour through the town full of trails and freakshows before stopping in at her “kitsch kingdom,” Beaverfield’s local dive, called “The Axe Throw,” and bonding over beers, their shared passion for national parks, and, well… ax throwing, Finn confides in Cecily that he believes he and his girlfriend are on a break, but she confirms what he’s really been suspecting: she simply broke it off. Finn becomes smitten with the postal worker as she sheds her work clothes and shows off some cleavage, setting up what seems to be a roll-your-eyes obvious crushing on the final girl trope. Still, the film does eventually arrive at plans to subvert the presentation of its sexist formula.
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When the corpse of a missing person is found mangled under someone’s porch, and a neighborhood dog ends up eaten by a mysterious canine, Finn realizes that something other than selfish white folks might be haunting Beaverfield. Discovering a beast with gnashing claws has taken out the town’s generators, everyone holes up together in its decorative mansion, where the film swerves into “Knives Out” political finger-pointing. The word lycanthrope is mentioned by the science expert, and before long, the entire ensemble is looking for the wolf among them.
Briskly paced and always snappy in its multi-character banter, the most enjoyable parts of “Werewolves Within” occur around the hour mark, when its garishness starts to give way to how well-cast all the parts are when confined in a single space. Although the first 30 minutes can feel repetitively earmarked, by the time its moonlight, suspects are crowded in several over-dressed rooms together, the ensemble’s chemistry makes all the socially assigned silliness sing. The inherent maladjustment of trapping caricatures in a situation requiring them to forcibly rely on each other for safety, but never quite drop their suspicious eyebrows down, makes for a strong comedy arsenal if an extremely uneven one.
Not quite as on the nose as last year’s overtly satirical “The Hunt” — which also starred Duvall as a MAGA hat-wearing moron (his Bruce McGill-like presence is utilized even better here), the movie isn’t so overstuffed with references to hot-button topics like fracking or Antifa that you might as well just stay on Twitter, but it also never really stops to truly interrogate many of the problems it’s purporting to tackle. Calling out the fact that labeling a well-known movie-staging situation a “Mexican stand-off” might be problematic now is about as deep as the political commentary well goes, until the very end of the film, that is.
What initially seems like a juvenile “grow some balls” jokes wind up being an honest statement on the limitations of kindness in today’s nightmarish, heteronormative, political landscape. In the film, three major character names are Charlotte, Chauncy, and Cecily, and the three most important character traits to Finn are compassion, consideration, and care. Living in a rage-infused time where casually throwing out slang like “murder weapon” or “innocent AF” is how getting to know someone goes, writer Mishna Wolff has scripted a kitsch/camp exercise full of semiotic millennial excess. “Werewolves Within” may be an ever-obvious euphemism for terrible white people, one whose brazen self-awareness is not exactly revelatory. Yet, the narrative provides enough thoughtful laughs that fans of politically-tinged genre fare featuring phallic fire totems should chuckle enough and have fun. [C+]
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