When SyFy announced it was making movies based on fairy tales, but with a much darker tone, some had to wonder if it was making MST3K fodder...considering it used to have that show.
The first one, Beauty and the Beast, which included a witch who wanted to take over a kingdom by turning the prince into a beast, and a sexy heroine wearing a dress that was bit too short for that time.
Fodder for the angry bots!
Then we hear Felicia Day is going to do her version of "Little Red Riding Hood", only she battles Big Bad Werewolves.
This try, at least, is much better.
Day is a capable heroine as Virgina "Red" Sullivan, who's part of a family of werewolf hunters. They even had to wipe out a nearby town when it was turned by werewolves.
So, when she bring in a guy named Nathan (Kavan Smith) to meet the family, they're not too sure they can handle welcoming someone new. He's equally skeptical about her claim that they hunt werewolves.
An ill-advised walk in the woods by Nathan that night changes all that. He meets a creepy guy named Gabriel (Stephen McHattie), who turns out to be a new breed of werewolf. He can change whenever he likes, and he's telepathic.
He also bites Nathan. Red and her brothers Jake and Marcus don't notice, but they have to tell him everything.
They mention the rules of werewolf hunting: silver kills them, but someone who has been bitten can escape the curse if he kills the one who bit him, and before the turned one kills anyone else.
Red should know. Her grandfather had that experience.
So what's a werewolf hunter to do when she does find out Nathan has been bitten? Can he be saved?
Meanwhile, Gabriel is playing The Most Dangerous Game, capturing tourists who may get killed or turned by werewolves.
There are very long scenes of Jake and Marcus looking for werewolves. Red kills a couple of werewolves, but doesn't have much to do, until tragedy strikes in a big way.
It's best to approach this movie as if this is a variation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This time, though, it's about a warrior who would like a life that's more normal, and how her destiny won't allow it.
Also, the movie gives out too much information in the first 20 minutes. It would have been better for Nathan to settle in, but also wonder why Red's brothers hunt at night. Then after the second commercial break, he'd get bitten by Gabriel.
Also, the CGI is, well, kind of strange. The "change" from human to wolf is weird, along with how they move from a distance. But this is cable TV.
The story was more interesting than most SyFy movies, and Day does a good job here.
Someone suggested it could become a series. The way it ended, I'm not sure, unless it starts with Red getting new powers and some assistance. You'll see what I mean.
All Felicia hopes is that this will beat Sharktopus in the ratings. Maybe it will, but it's already way ahead of Mega Python vs. Gateroid, the first SyFy movie that sounds more like the main event at Wrestlemania...and that doesn't even include the prospective battle between '80s teen idols in that movie. Does this mean we'll have someting similar in 2020? Yikes!
