Red: Werewolf Hunter

While I hadn't expected much going in, I did expect this movie to either maintain a steady theme of mundane, or be laughably poorly directed. What I got was a mix of both.

The story was ripe with plot holes and confusion from the start, with an incredibly clueless main actor, and a main actress who should have been able to act much better than what she delivered. The supposed werewolf hunters may literally be blind, since they don't even notice when a werewolf is transforming a few feet away from them. None of their weapons look anything short of comical, and none of the hunters know how to handle the weapons.

That being said, while watching it I could barely even bring myself to criticize the horrible acting, or moronic dialog, or even the plot, because they all blended together to create one mind-numbing, boring mess.

The only (and I mean ONLY) good quality about this movie was the antagonist, who showed a fair amount of acting talent.

I personally would have deleted everything except around 5 minutes of footage. Overall, this movie has a few rare moments of quality, but spends most of its time lulling the audience to sleep, and isn't worth watching.

Stephen Hattie is back as a werewolf, but this time he's the bad guy, and is opposed by a family of human werewolf hunters. The main hunter is a woman code-named "Red", and she is a special agent for some alphabet government agency. She has a boyfriend who she is bringing to meet the family (the remaining members of which are her 2 brothers and her grandmother, a former "Red"). They have the moral conundrum of whether to tell him about what they do, or not. Our lead werewolf has learned to control his changing, not just on the full moon. He trains the pack he took over (by killing the previous Alpha) and breaks the truce. The brothers are shown to be very competent, until it's time to kill them off. Decent effects, decent acting, obvious plot with a bit of a twist ending. Not bad, but not great eaither. Fun for a werewolf marathon.

As with Tin Man, this is better than one would expect for a made 4 TV SyFy channel movie. While the story is anything but original, it gives us a somewhat darker view of the Little Red Riding Hood story, along with a cohesive afterwards.

Dialog delivery is a little stiff, but considering the source, I really enjoyed this, and cannot wait for it to come out on DVD/Blu-Ray, to watch it again and again. Honestly, Underworld, it ain't, but it does have a good story, some great innovatives, and a plausible delivery. It runs well, exhibits well, and follows through to a satisfactory ending.

All in all we recommend this one for any werewolf fan. It is more than just your run of the mill formula.

It gets an 8.2/10 on the M4TV scale from...

the Fiend :.

The concept was intriguing, but considering it was SyFy(who have been responsible for a lot of terrible movies, bottom-of-the-barrel in some cases) I was also dubious. What a surprise to see that Red: Werewolf Hunter was actually watchable. It is not perfect, and not award-worthy, but alongside The Lost Future, Tin Man and Alice(does Neverland count as SyFy, if so that too) it is one of their more watchable efforts. The dialogue is weak and the acting apart from Stephen McHattie, who's a lot of fun if occasionally too strident, at times felt stiff including from Felicia Day, who seems very detached. The story, sort of a take on Little Red Riding Hood, is mostly interesting, dark and imaginative also with an ending that was surprisingly unpredictable in how shocking and bittersweet it was, but there were also some parts that felt underdeveloped. However, the production values are better than expected, the effects are nothing amazing with some jarring movements but there have been far cheaper ones from SyFy, but I loved the costumes and spot-on sets, the Gothic atmosphere and the photography, which is less haphazard than I thought it would be. The music is haunting and the direction is pretty solid. The characters are okay if not always engaging at first, but you perhaps learn to warm to them by the end. Overall, not great, but watchable especially coming from a channel as notorious as SyFy. 7/10 Bethany Cox

"Red: Werewolf Hunter" (2010) Stars Felicia Day as a modern descendant of Little Red Riding Hood, who brings her fiancé home to meet her family. It turns out that they're all very unique hunters and, before too long, Red is trying to protect her fiancé from her family!

Although this is a Syfy film, I found it entertaining enough and entertainment is the name of the game. The characters & locations are good and effects are decent; the story keeps your attention, and Felicia looks really good in tight jeans.

The film runs 88 minutes and was shot in the Toronto area.

GRADE: B-