Game of Werewolves (2011)

That was an excellent one.

Thanks for the memories!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The sub-genre known as the horror-comedy is one that, to say the very least, has produced quite a lot of uneven films. Most often, the horror is diluted by the comedy or the laughs are too lame. Every so often, though, a movie comes along which gets the balance just right. Attack of the Werewolves is such a film. It begins quite excellently, with a voice over giving us the historical back-story over a series of very beautiful drawings. After that we are right into the story about a writer who returns to his ancestral family village only to discover a curse involving bloodthirsty werewolves.This really is a skillful mix of frights and laughs. The former is provided by the title monsters, helped by some nice atmosphere and tension. The latter is provided by a genuinely amusing script with several funny lines and additionally some hilarious sight gags – in particular, look out for the finger/dog scene. The cast all acquit themselves very well, the only one I recognised was Carlos Areces who played the writers old friend, I last seen him play the Sad Clown in the insane comedy The Last Circus from cult director Álex de la Iglesia.This is overall a very refreshingly good film about a traditional monster type. It deserves far more people to see it.

I'm a big fan of horror comedy since I first saw Young Frankenstein. This movie is not quite as funny as Pirannah 3DD, and not as badass, just because seeing Ving Rhames say "I ain't scared of no punkass water," or "BRING ME MY LEGS!" just puts a movie on the HNL of badassery; but it has a plot and dialogue that makes it entertaining enough. Contrasting that to the one Hollywood alternative that has a werewolf in it, which is the Twilight quadrupleogy? Is that what you call it when you make a trilogy into four movies to sell more tickets? Anyways, I have seen this movie panned for the special effects; but I've seen films such as Exorcist: The Beginning, that had a much larger budget and spent a great deal of it on really crappy CGI. The werewolves look just fine as monsters to me, and the wire work was decent. If I were the producer/director,with a few millions more in the budget, I could have made a movie with better production value, and even a better aesthetic (like making the werewolves more wolfish; but faulting a director for not having enough money is not his fault. The unemployment rate in Spain right now is so high, that it amazes me an armed revolution has not taken place yet over there, and obviously working in film production must not be easy, and like seriously, I know a couple of girls that are Twilight fans, and they both told me Breaking Dawn part 2 sucked). Still, this film was very engaging and interesting story, so much so, that you will tend to forgive the plot holes.

I saw this film as part of the Imagine film festival (SF/fantasy/horror) Amsterdam 2012. All classical ingredients for a horror movie were included: old buildings, isolated village, an ancient curse, main character related to cursed family, no outside help to be expected, and so on. Nevertheless, entertaining throughout, due to a perfect mix of humor and tension. This combination works out perfectly to fill up a feature film length (97 min).Music was classical/symphonic with low bass strings on one hand, and non-classical parts on the other hand. Nice contrast working out very well at appropriate places.Surprising twists throughout. In short: expect the unexpected at all times. Even when you think you can predict what follows, something else happens. This film ranked 10th for the audience award, with an average score of 8.08/10.

First of all, I'd like to say that I appreciate someone trying to return some manner of bestial ferocity to mythological creatures. For those of us tired of melodramatic art movements, like Gothic Romanticism, it's a breath of fresh air to see a monster who, for once, isn't sexy and erotic.On the other hand, this is still an ode to Gothic horror -- it just has all the soap opera parts ripped out and replaced with black humor. So, if you're expecting a radically different approach, then I think you'll be a bit disappointed.The plot is straight out of a Lovecraft or Poe tale, and, indeed, it name-drops both authors halfway through the story. The setup is pretty standard for Gothic horror: a small, rural village; a cursed bloodline; a horrible secret; and, of course, a large mansion. Still, the tropes are used well, making for an engaging and frequently funny story. The humor is very black -- think more like Re-Animator than Evil Dead. Unlike An American Werewolf in London, the comedy part dominates the movie, with little time actually given to gore, horror, or special effects. Of course, this is understandable, given the small budget, but it would have been nice to see more horror, at least.