“I'm still not convinced these things didn't just escape from the local nut-house and forget to shave or trim their nails.”
Pity the werewolf. He’s been saddled with sub-par films for years now. You could count on one hand the number of truly great (or at least enjoyably pulp) lycanthrope films released over the years. The debut effort from Neil Marshall aims high, but ultimately falls very short of entering the pantheon. The plot very much resembles that of 1981’s Southern Comfort, where a routine training mission in the middle of nowhere (bayou country for Comfort, the Scottish highlands here) quickly spirals out of control when the team encounters hostile locals, with both films eventually ending up in claustrophobic environs. Marshall’s follow-up film to this – and the one his reputation deservedly rests on – The Descent, was very much a film about female empowerment, which makes the sausage-fest of this film feel oddly out of place. To be sure, Marshall makes outwardly “guy” films, but the lone female character in this film is oddly inserted and ends up only confusing and muddling the plot. The plot promises more than it can realistically deliver, parceling out bits of intrigue that never add up to anything, and the revelations leading directly to the climax inspire reactions of “Huh?” rather than anything approaching satisfaction. The acting is usually strong enough (it’s a shame Christopher Eccleston was too old to play a private, because the lead role was basically written for him), dialogue consists of mostly standard guys-ribbing-on-each-other quips, and most of the werewolves themselves seem to have been done practically instead of being CG creations, which garners a lot of goodwill. That said, Marshall clearly has the training wheels on this time out – the noose-tightening command of suspense and the suffocating claustrophobia that characterized The Descent are sorely lacking here, and his action setpieces are nowhere near as well-orchestrated as future efforts such as Centurion or Game of Thrones. It’s a long way from here to the Battle of Blackwater.
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