Lone Wolf

Big hair big thrills shocking acting shocking plot

but quite entertaining... it's more of a background film but it was not bad... just not great eother

A small town in Colorado is plagued by grisly attacks involving a pack of wild dogs or some other animal, but they curiously only occur during the full moon. The brooding lead singer of a local rock band (Jamie Newcomb) teams-up with some fellow college students to resolve the problem.

"Lone Wolf" (1988) was made on a direct-to-video budget with no-name actors and a half-serious, half-hammy tone, yet it's entertaining as comic book horror in the mold of a fun slasher, but possibly featuring a wolf-like creature. You can tell the cast had a good time. It's superior to the contemporaneous "Night Shadow" and I'd watch it any day over "Silver Bullet."

What's interesting is that most of the students appear to be around 30. Sure, Colleen looks like she could be 18-21, but Julie and, especially, Deirdre and Eddie look past 30. The creators obviously kept the nature of the school ambiguous because of this factor, just calling it "Fairview School." I guess it's supposed to be a community college, yet all the school scenes were obviously shot at a high school (cited below). Hey, they had to shoot where they could afford.

There are four songs on the soundtrack by the hair metal band Tyxe, all written by Greg Leslie: "Raised On Rock & Roll," "Misunderstood," "Let It Rock" and "Rock You All Night." These songs are evidently from their 1988 demo, but further information on the group is pretty much nonexistent. Their style is akin to bands like Dokken, Ratt and Warrant.

The movie runs 1 hour, 37 minutes, and was shot in the greater Denver area, including Adams City High School and Jefferson County.

GRADE: B-

I remember this to be the first werewolf film I ever rented (but not the first one I ever watched; I was already familiar with Oliver Reed, David Naughton and "Eddie Quist" at the time, not in particular with their names, of course, but more with the werewolf films they're attached to). Ripe enough to tell right from wrong, but not aged enough to tell the difference between a good or a bad movie. So, I remember enjoying LONE WOLF back then, but as years passed by I knew I had to re-visit it eventually and re-evaluate things. Found me an old VHS tape of it and re-watched it. And boy, is this one silly and downright bad low-budget production at moments. Horrible 80's hair-do's and clothing. Horrible 80's hard rock music (it features a pretty awful rock band in the film, trying to struggle their way to fame but they never go beyond playing in the same club over and over again). Very bad acting from most of the cast members. A cast that's supposed to by playing teenagers in high school but they all look much older. Lots of colorful, oh-so-typical 80's lighting. Retarded attempts at humor on rare occasions. And so on and so on...

However,... the film does have two more or less redeeming qualities. One is that the plot is constructed as a mystery. Granted, it's painfully easy to guess who the werewolf is, but it is somewhat entertaining to see how the filmmakers are desperately trying to set the viewer off on the wrong foot numerous times. Secondly, there's the werewolf. And, yes, the film features a brief transformation-scene. Hooray for that! It looks a bit clumsy, but they did the best with the little means they had, and we get the works (teeth growing, pointy ears appearing, face stretching, claws bursting through fingers, hair growing). Other than this scene, the werewolf is previously shown throughout the movie mainly in brief close-ups (the eyes, the mouth, the teeth, the claws,...) or silhouettes. Fair enough. It all looks a bit fake, of course, but still neat to look at. There's a bit of gore too, stuff like hearts ripped out, a face torn in half and a guy getting his head ripped off. The film even has a little twist in its tail (sort of a surprise shock ending) that I totally forgot should have been coming because I was so amused by the dumbness of the rest of the movie.

I can't really recommended LONE WOLF to anybody, but it is a fun bad werewolf flick. I'd put it right up there with other late 80's straight-faced shenanigans like MINDKILLER (1987) and THE BRAIN (1988).

Low budget, horribly acted, dreadfully directed and featuring a bunch of thirtysomethings as high school students. Stereotypical 1980s fashions and musical styles abound. Ah, those were simpler days: the hair was big; a basic data search required genius-level computer skills; and anyone with a camcorder, a lousy script and a dream could make a direct-to-video werewolf movie.

This certainly isn't a good movie. It isn't even a competent movie. It may not even be a coherent movie. But its whodunit werewolf heart is in the right place; and there's corny fun to be had if you go in with the right expectations. Especially if you watch it with a good-natured group that's willing to enjoy the schlock.

Yes, this movie is objectively done badly, but it's that bad done fun, the characters are nice, the gore effects are cool and the werewolf definitely badass, plus there's a nice hard rock soundtrack. I prefer a small film like this to modern films of today.