Cub

More story and lots more originality than usual for this gerne. The music score unfortunately wasn't my cup of tea. There's a rule in cinema to avoid working with kids or animals, but not too much harm done in that section apart from the character of Sam. This could have done with a few more real scares, but points for bringing something fresh.

"Welp" generated quite a hype here in our lovely little country of Belgium because it allegedly is the very first horror movie to emerge from here; - or at least from the geographical Dutch speaking part named Flanders. That just isn't true since we previously had horror (and cult) classics such as "Devils of Darkness", "Lucker", "Parts of the Family", "Afterman" and "Engine Trouble". It's even debatable that this is the first horror film to be spoken entirely in Flemish because there exists also "Linkeroever", "Alias", "De Potloodmoorden" and an obscure little dud called "The Antwerp Killer". But, seriously, who cares if it isn't the first? It also isn't the most inventive horror movie and it certainly isn't the greatest horror movie ever made, but what counts most is that "Welp" is inarguably a highly entertaining Belgian horror outing with a tense & gripping atmosphere, strong acting performances and a bit of nasty gore footage. The protagonists in "Welp" are all junior boy scouts, which was a terrific idea of writer/director Jonas Govaerts, as this is a typically Belgian phenomenon. Practically everyone in this country joined some kind of scout federation in their youth. Yours truly didn't, and I can assure you that I was quite the outcast in school because of this. On Wednesday afternoons all my classmates went to the woods to play scout games, while I went home to my couch and watch horror movies that I wasn't allowed to watch yet. Ah, memories…

One of the boy scouts, Sam, is a bit of an outcast as well. On their way to the Southern Belgian backwoods (called "The Ardennes") for their annual survival camp, Sam spots a mysterious shape and secret hideout place between the trees, but nobody believes him. Little Sam is right of course, as the forestry area soon turns out to be the turf of a vicious serial killer and his bewildered infant sidekick. The other cubs constantly humiliate Sam and the scout leaders are too busy with making out and being arrogant, but they won't be able to ignore the deadly booby-traps that are placed all around the woods. "Welp" features a large number of clichés and stereotypes, but I suppose that is almost inevitable when you're making a slasher throwback movie. The parts that are similar to "Friday the 13th" and other classics could also easily be referred to as homages, for that matter. More important is that director Jonas Govaerts perfectly knows the true meaning of the term "horror" and he isn't afraid to break through taboos or insert shocking plot twists. For example, there are a couple of disturbing death sequences involving young children and even a scene where a dog is used as a piñata! Furthermore is the atmosphere of the film continuously macabre and unsettling, with an almost complete lack of humor in the script, but a strong presence of tenebrous camera-work and frightening music. The acting performances are terrific, too. The young actor Maurice Luijten impresses the most, but also Titus De Voogdt and the lovely Evelien Bosmans are very good as the scout leaders. Stef Aerts gives the best grown-up performance as the arrogant and self-centered scout leader Baloo. His behavior might seem exaggerated, but according to several former cub friends of mine, idiotic leaders like him apparently do exist.

To begin this review , I must say that taking into consideration that this was the director's feature film debut , he did extremely well. The direction was the best thing about this film. Now , the issue of this film comes from it's script.It lacked focus. The story is simple enough : 12 year Sam goes camping , he his bullied by the other scouts and even by one of the scoutmaster (And his evil dog!) . When Sam tries to warn everybody that he saw a character from an Urban legend , Kai (an animal/boy who eats people) he his laughed at so Sam ends up developing a rather strange and disturbing relationship with Kai that would turn this Camping trip into a living nightmare! So the story is fairly straightforward as you can see but the issue is the writers felt necessary to add small layers/subplot to it that makes it more complex then it should. I can go on to much details or I will spoil the films.Let just say that the director gave Sam a mysterious background that raises a lot of questions but none of them are answered by the end of the film. For me ,personally, Cub is very good up to it's last 10 minutes.Great atmosphere, great direction,great acting by it's lead actor but the above issue I have with the film gives us an ending that leaves things to the viewers imagination. Your personal enjoyment of that film will come to this at the end : If you like to have a clear ending to your film , I am afraid you will be disappointed by Cub but if you are the type of person that loves a film to end in an ambiguous sort of way I believe you would find much to like in that film. Outside of this , Cub do a lot of things right. So if you are up for a very dark little film that has a very strong and shocking yet confusing ending you could do much worse then this trip to the wood. I give Cub a 6 out of 10

At first this movie had a really weird juxtaposition between feeling like an introductory horror movie for a younger demographic while also having subject matter and language for adults. Then it switched to full adult and turned into a slew of violence with some perversions sprinkled in. However, that didn't happen until around the last third of the movie.

I wish it had hit its horror stride a tad earlier in the film, and then maybe we could have gotten a little more background on what was going on with the creepy characters and some of their origin.

The whole movie had an weird underlying sexual tension. The blossoming of sexuality with a bunch of young boys just discovering it, and the height of it with counselors in their early 20s. It was... interesting, for sure.

The whole thing felt like a narrative on the loss of innocence, on many levels. That didn't become super apparent to me until later in the film. Acting wise the kids did a great job, especially with what the two had to do towards the end.

Over all I was entertained and quite honestly shocked with what this ended up being... I wasn't expecting that. Would definitely recommend.

Cub was a captivating movie, filled with building but nicely crafted suspense. I felt at times that the plot was somewhat predictable, but I still enjoyed myself throughout the movie. The movie itself remains true to the horror genre, whilst mildly delving into the themes of puberty and social acceptance. The movie also packs a satisfying amount of gore, and doesn't blow all of it's atmosphere on pointless jump scares.

The movie does, however, follow some trends and themes set by other movies (which removes from it's originality in my opinion). Most of the characters are also very easy to dislike.

Overall, I would say that this movie is enjoyable and worth a watch, and I applaud it for it's independence and how refreshing it is compared to some of the current horror films around.