Director: William Brent Bell
Writers: William Brent Bell, Matthew Peterman
Stars: A.J. Cook, Brian Scott O’Connor, Sebastian Roché
1 Hour, 29 Minutes
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A family was vacationing in rural France. The family dog goes berserk and runs off, and the husband goes after him. He’s killed by the werewolf, who then eats the son too. The mother wakes up in the hospital and is interviewed by the police. The news reports that it’s an animal attack, but they can’t figure out what kind of animal. The mother explains that it was more of a hairy man than animal; she’s pretty torn up, so her testimony isn’t too reliable.
Talan Gwynek is then arrested for the murder. He lives two miles from the attack, but he had no motive or criminal history. The public defender, Kate, is an American lawyer, and she’s pretty sure she can get him off, since it was just an animal attack. The lawyer goes to visit him, and he’s got a strange disease called porphyria. He’s over seven feet tall, has huge hands, limited mobility, and he’s really hairy. His bones are too long and too weak for his body. Still, the guards are terrified of him, but she demands they take the cuffs off. Things go badly, and he scratches Gavin in the scuffle.
Talan’s father recently died in a car accident. His mother thinks the police have targeted Talan because they want the family’s land to make a nuclear waste dumping ground. The police immediately deny any connection to the waste dump proposal.
They look at the bodies in the morgue, and there’s surprisingly little left of the man and the boy. Talan cannot remember what he was doing the night of the attack, as he has “episodes” every once in a while. Evidence shows up that may indicate that the father’s car accident was suspicious. Could the police be involved in a cover-up? Meanwhile, Gavin starts getting sick.
The inspector gets a call from a farmer who’s livestock was just attacked by “a monster from hell.” It turns out there’s a large grizzly bear on the loose, but the police kill it.
The bear attack isn’t quite enough to get Talan off the hook. They transfer Talan to the hospital, where they can test for porphyria, which involves a strobing light. When the light is applied, he “Hulks out“ on the guys in the surgical theater. Eric starts researching werewolves and sees on the recording that Talan bit Gavin, it wasn’t just a scratch.
Tonight is the full moon. Gavin tests himself for porphyria, slicing his own eyeball with a glass slide in the process.
They track Talan to a building downtown, and after a standoff, Talon finally changes into his final form and kills a bunch more cops. Then he jumps out the twelfth-story window and runs away when he hits the ground.
Gavin tells Kate about his injury, the infection, and what he thinks may happen to him, and then he gives her a gun “just in case.” The others go hunting for Talan and leave Gavin behind. They track Talan to a cave full of human bones. Gavin finds a secret room back at the house. Inside the room is a secure chair, presumably where they would tie Talan up once a month. The inspector shoots Talan about a dozen times.
Meanwhile, Gavin finds Talan’s mother and beats her to death. Rather than become a werewolf, he shaves his head. Rather than a hairy werewolf, he now looks like the guy from “Split.”
They load Talan’s body into an ambulance, but he escapes once again, running on all fours like a big dog. Before long, Kate’s the only one left, and Talan catches her. Gavin intervenes, and soon it’s werewolf versus werewolf.
Commentary
This isn’t a found footage movie, so why did the director use a hand-held shaky-cam so much? It’s generally used as a trick to make boring scenes look interesting. The problem is that the exposition in this movie isn’t particularly boring, so the shakycam is just obnoxious.
Porphyria is a real disease and the symptoms are often cited as one of the possible sources of the original vampire myths. It involves an aversion to sunlight, anemia, and other blood-related symptoms. It’s not really that similar to a werewolf’s symptoms, but this is a story, not a medical drama.
The movie starts out a little slow, but it picks up about halfway in. It’s got a lot of surprises, and the ending is very good. I very much recommend watching this one.