DarkWolf (2003) is a direct-to-vid that came about because Richard Friedman
wanted to create a film with a low budget and high production values. To him
that meant lots of CGI, animatronics, and T&A.
He got the T&A right
As for the rest, he bought an expensive gorilla suit and ... er ...
converted it into a male werewolf. He then created a female werewolf with the
worst CGI this side of a video game.
In other words, as the great philosopher Aristotle once said about one of
the forgotten Greek tragedies, "Assuming the reality of existence, and
within that reality presupposing the existence of a good werewolf
story ... this ain't it."
(I may have paraphrased a bit. My ancient Greek is rusty.)
In order for the story to work, Friedman needed to create a whole new
werewolf mythology, and then explain it to the audience. Here is how it plays
out. A huge biker-looking guy with glowing red eyes enters a strip club and
grabs a pair of boobs (nobody said he was stupid, just nasty). The LA police
arrive hot on his heels, subdue him, and throw him into the back of a wagon.
He breaks through the metal separating the back from the cab, kills the driver
and one of the cops, then leaves as a wolf. That leaves a veteran cop and a
female rookie to track him down and subdue him.
They stop off at the precinct to grab some silver bullets and get a bunch
of the exposition out of the way, then it is off to question a homeless lady
(Tippi Hedren) who, it turns out, is hundreds of years old, and protector of
the perfect female werewolf (Samaire Armstrong). La Perfecta works as a
waitress, and has no idea she is a werewolf. Ol' DarkWolf must mate with her
during the full moon that night, or his race dies forever. If he succeeds,
normal werewolves die forever, as do humans. The female rookie cop (Jaime Bergman) rather quickly
becomes wolf food, although Wolfie does manage to expose one of her breasts
before dinner. With her out of the way, the LAPD has nobody else they
can assign to
the case to assist the grizzled detective, despite the department's apparent
werewolf preparedness (they do keep silver bullets on hand) and the fact that
the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Online opinions seem split on the acting and the story line, but there's agreement
on the bad gorilla costume and the even worse CGI. Within a lackluster effort,
the only bright spot for me, besides the T&A, was Samaire Armstrong as the female wolf.
She had a vulnerable quality I quite enjoyed, and then she grew balls when she
needed them.
