Red: Werewolf Hunter

I don't normally post anything, let alone opinions, but this made for TV drek is a sure travesty of good talent. I LOVE Felicia Day, and waited with bated breath for this, along with Kavan Smith, deputy Andy from Eureka, another favorite of mine also gave me high hopes! But this film fell very short, so very short. Bad dialogue, stilted acting and horrible CGI werewolves, made this tough to sit thru. Please have the director taken out and flogged! Felicia Day and the rest of the cast maintained a dull monotone that was (I guess) supposed to set a somber tone, and the entire movie takes place on three sets, repeating set pieces over and over again from the same angle, never varying once!

the rest of the cast seemed to shamble along like zombies with hardly any emotion, keep in mind comedic actors have proved time and again that they have remarkable timing. If given a halfway decent script, they should have been able to do something with this. Don't get me started on the stick figure werewolves that we were to be afraid of. Steven McHattie is a veteran bad guy, his character was soooooo bad it hurt to watch. Again i loved the stars, and the premise, but the director really bungled this

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.

I really do NOT understand why people insist on watching movies that they know are movie of the week, straight to DVD, cable flicks or in this case SyFy movies and then complain about the production value, or the low budget.

Red: Werewolf Hunter IS a SyFy movie. It probably did not have a huge budget. It is still a very enjoyable film! A terrific cast including Felicia Day, Kavan Smith, Greg Bryk, and Stephen McHattie each delivered terrific overall performances. The premise was a new take on the Red Riding Hood theme and while a little underdeveloped is really a great idea. The special effects/ CGI were better then the other reviews may have you believe, and fun to watch.

My advise is to watch this with an open mind. Know when you begin that this is a SyFy movie and was probably made for less then James Cameron spent on his toilet paper when filming Avatar. It is not supposed to win Oscars. It is supposed to entertain, thrill and maybe scare you.

A terrific Friday night flick. Hire this with Dog Soldiers, The Howling, Teen Wolf, and The Wolfman, call over some friends, order some pizza, grab a few six packs and settle in for a fun night. Just not during a full moon!

After Tin Man and Alice, two excellent SyFy originals, I expected more from this film.

Felicia Day and Stephen McHattie are excellent as usual; however, its (not complete) lack of background music to set the mood and its weak story left a gaping hole in my heart.

The weak story: The idea that an entire town of werewolf denizens has a truce with a single family of Little Red Riding Hood descendants puts huge strain on my suspension of disbelief.

The cast: Felicia Day puts her all into this role and Stephen McHattie is a veteran in terms of horror villains. The rest of the cast, of whom I've never heard, also did fairly well in their various roles.

Character development: Practically non-existent.

In summary: Good cast, weak story, and I felt no connection to the characters.

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.