"Alpha Wolf" has all of the low-budget eccentricities that those of us who are B-movie fans like. There are lovably bargain-basement werewolf costumes and there is amusingly awkward acting and there are nice California countryside settings. What more could a bad movie fan ask for?
Over-aggressive Casper Van Dien and his wife and their dog are going up the country to re-connect with nature and with each other. Before long there is a werewolf attack, Van Dien gets bit and all low-budget lycanthrope hell is breaking loose.
Van Dien's real-life wife Jennifer Wegner carries much of the movie, even as she struggles with a script that contradicts itself on how long she's known Van Dien's character! Van Dien himself turns out to be playing such a jerkoff that even fellow werewolves can't stand him, and only Wegner's dog Larry is loyal and trustworthy.
While bad CGI (is there any good CGI?) is used for fires and such, good old practical effects are used for the werewolves and in the violence scenes and there is some blood-splash here and there, a heart gets ripped out, a guy gets brained with a hammer and so on, with the gore shown briefly and the violence on the moderate level. There is also a jaw-dropping surprise involving were-transformations that I'll let you see for yourself. Even though it has a "You've got to be kidding me" quality to it and should have been done better, I don't believe any other moviemakers have ever used this idea, so "Alpha Wolf" deserves credit for that.
Other than that, characters regularly contradict themselves here and the script seems to have been written by utter amateurs who never even bothered to double-check it. Luckily this becomes part of the fun and one soon begins to sense the ghost of Ed Wood hovering around.
Even the fact that the real-life couple Van Dien and Wegner's love scenes are actually awkward, or that Van Dien appears to have had plastic surgery, does not detract from, but adds to the overall enjoyable air of B-movie angst. You know who you are if this sounds like something for you, so head on over to You Tube or Hulu to catch it!
