Werewolves Within (R)
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review sites: Bloody Disgusting; Dread Central; iHorror; PopHorror
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; Hulu; iTunes; Vudu; YouTube
This is based on a VR game of the same name, which I've never played. In fact I don't recall whether or not I'd even heard of it before the movie came out. But the plot has apparently been somewhat modified for the movie.
A forest ranger named Finn Wheeler moves to the small town of Beaverfield, where he soon meets several of the local residents. The most important of these to the story is a mail person named Cecily Moore (Milana Vayntrub), who becomes a sort of friend (and potential love interest) to Finn. The other townsfolk are divided over a proposed gas pipeline (or oil, I'm not sure which) that would run through the town. The man behind this plan is Sam Parker. Some of the townies are in favor of the pipeline, because they could sell their land for a lot of money, while others are more concerned with the environment. The latter includes an environmental scientist named Dr. Jane Ellis, though she mostly keeps to herself. There's also an innkeeper named Jeanine Sherman, whose husband Dave is believed to have run off with another woman. (However, at the very start of the movie, viewers saw him attacked by someone or something unseen, which given the movie's title, we can presume to be a werewolf.) There's also a woman named Trisha Anderton (Michaela Watkins, whom I know from The Unicorn). Her small dog is also killed by an unseen assailant, which terribly upsets her (I might even say disproportionately). And she has a lecherous husband named Pete. There's also a happily married and wealthy couple named Devon and Joaquim Wolfson. And there's a mechanic named Gwen and another guy named Marcus (who may or may not have been Gwen's husband or boyfriend or something, I wasn't clear on that). And on the outskirts of town there's a very antisocial (and possibly violent) trapper named Emerson Flint.
On the day that Finn arrives, there's a major snowstorm that keeps everyone (except Emerson) in Jeanine's inn. The power soon goes out as all the generators around town have been damaged, apparently by something with very sharp claws. When Finn goes out to check on the generators, he not only finds the claw marks, but also Dave's corpse. Everyone then barricades the inn to keep the killer out. Meanwhile, Dr. Ellis runs some DNA tests on hairs found on both the dog and Dave, which turn out to be a mix of canine and human, something that doesn't exist in her database. She comes to the conclusion that the killer is a lycanthrope. Everyone becomes suspicious of everyone else in the inn, but Finn tries to keep the peace. We don't learn till near the end of the movie whether or not there actually is a werewolf, and I'm not going to spoil that. (But I'd still consider this a werewolf movie, either way. But it's mostly a horror comedy, with some psychological thriller vibes.)
Well, I guess I don't want to say any more than that about the plot, but it's a fairly funny movie, with a good ensemble of characters, and a decent mystery with several red herrings. Some critics have called it possibly the best movie based on a video game ever made. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's definitely better than a lot of video game movies I've seen.