Movie opens with Scott Cowley (Andrew Bowen of Mad TV) on a hunting trip in Cameroon with his brother Charlie. A creature comes out of the jungle and rips Scott's leg off. Charlie can only watch him die.
Present day, Scott's wife (Sarah Aldrich of Port Charles) is in a new, unhappy marriage with Scott's friend Mitchell (the under-appreciated Richard Tyson of Two Moon Junction and Hardball), who was also along on the hunting trip years before. Son Derek (Trevor Duke) doesn't get along with stepdad Mitch, and things only get worse when he steals the key to Mitch's secluded cabin and heads out with some frat buddies, their girlfriends, and his pal Samantha (Kim Brown of The Guiding Light). Just when things are heating up at the cabin, a werewolf bursts in and kills everyone but Derek and Sam, who narrowly escape. The two lie about what happened at the cabin to the local sheriff (David Naughton of American Werewolf in London), thinking that no one will believe that a werewolf was responsible for the killings.
Derek and Sam have suspicions about Mitch, but don't know how to prove them. Enter Uncle Charlie, who has suspicions of his own ever since the Africa trip. He and the kids set out to prove that Mitch is the werewolf. A clever cat and mouse game ensues, that leads to a final confrontation back at the cabin.
This was well written for a relatively low budget horror flick. There is some actual character development and some welcome bits of black humor. The directing and acting are uniformly good, also unusual for a teen oriented film, and the characters are all pretty likable and behave in an intelligent manner to deal with the problem, for the most part. Richard Tyson shines in an admittedly limited role as the sinister stepdad/beast. Trevor Duke as Derek fares less well as the wishy washy, ineffective hero for the bulk of the movie. The gore special effects are more than adequate, though the werewolf transformation sequences leave something to be desired.
All in all, Big Bad Wolf moved along at a good pace, was interesting if nothing new or special, and had a good conclusion. Maybe not in the same league as the Universal Wolfman, or Brotherhood of the Wolf, it's still way better than most of the recent crop of werewolf flicks.
Present day, Scott's wife (Sarah Aldrich of Port Charles) is in a new, unhappy marriage with Scott's friend Mitchell (the under-appreciated Richard Tyson of Two Moon Junction and Hardball), who was also along on the hunting trip years before. Son Derek (Trevor Duke) doesn't get along with stepdad Mitch, and things only get worse when he steals the key to Mitch's secluded cabin and heads out with some frat buddies, their girlfriends, and his pal Samantha (Kim Brown of The Guiding Light). Just when things are heating up at the cabin, a werewolf bursts in and kills everyone but Derek and Sam, who narrowly escape. The two lie about what happened at the cabin to the local sheriff (David Naughton of American Werewolf in London), thinking that no one will believe that a werewolf was responsible for the killings.
Derek and Sam have suspicions about Mitch, but don't know how to prove them. Enter Uncle Charlie, who has suspicions of his own ever since the Africa trip. He and the kids set out to prove that Mitch is the werewolf. A clever cat and mouse game ensues, that leads to a final confrontation back at the cabin.
This was well written for a relatively low budget horror flick. There is some actual character development and some welcome bits of black humor. The directing and acting are uniformly good, also unusual for a teen oriented film, and the characters are all pretty likable and behave in an intelligent manner to deal with the problem, for the most part. Richard Tyson shines in an admittedly limited role as the sinister stepdad/beast. Trevor Duke as Derek fares less well as the wishy washy, ineffective hero for the bulk of the movie. The gore special effects are more than adequate, though the werewolf transformation sequences leave something to be desired.
All in all, Big Bad Wolf moved along at a good pace, was interesting if nothing new or special, and had a good conclusion. Maybe not in the same league as the Universal Wolfman, or Brotherhood of the Wolf, it's still way better than most of the recent crop of werewolf flicks.