Red: Werewolf Hunter

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!

Virginia 'Red' Sullivan (Felicia Day) is bringing home her fiancé Nathan Kessler, but she has a family secret she has to tell him. Her family has a long tradition of hunting werewolves. Normally the werewolves can only transform on a full moon. And the family have had a truce with the pack. However Gabriel (Stephen McHattie) seems to have the ability to change at will and the werewolves are on the hunt.

This is a lower budget production. It has a good premise. However the low budget really limits the style. It doesn't compare to a big screen movie. The CG werewolves and transformations look amateurish. It looks like something somebody made on their personal PC. They would probably be better off using real FX and keeping them more hidden.

Stephen McHattie is a great bad guy. He has good menacing presence. Felicia Day is pretty good as the lead. The acting is mostly fine by these lesser known actors. Too bad there isn't much behind them.

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.

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

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 :.