PLOT: An alcoholic small-town cop transforms into a werewolf after being cursed by a pagan cult.
REVIEW: I’ll give WOLFCOP this; it makes for one hell of a trailer. An affectionate B-movie, Canucksploitation (Canadian Exploitation) throwback, WOLFCOP takes it’s one joke premise and runs with it. Given the low-budget, “home-made” vibe of the film, one should obviously walk into it with their expectations in check. While the seventy-five minute running time feels curiously padded, for a good chunk somewhere around the middle, WOLFCOP is a heck of a lot of fun, and it’s stunning to think no one ever thought about making a werewolf cop movie sooner.
The big problem with WOLFCOP is that the low-budget is all too obvious, from the hero Lou Garou’s (get it?) plastic-looking deputy sheriff badge, to some really poor FX in the finale that are too bad to be considered quaint. It also takes way too long for Garou – played by an appropriately grizzled and charismatic Leo Fafard – to finally become the titular “wolfcop”. Writer-director Lowell Dean might have been better off if the film had just started with Garou already established as a werewolf rather than concern himself with the mostly uninteresting origin, which involves shape-shifting aliens (?) and and some nonsense about werewolf blood being an elixir for the bad guys (although there’s a funny gag where it’s mixed with cocaine and snorted by the main baddie).
However, once we actually get the WOLFCOP the title promises, it becomes quite a bit of fun, and a very satisfying midnight movie – for a while anyway. A fun twist where Garou’s alcoholism allows him to stay in control of his werewolf self means we get an extended montage where the now transformed Garou tries to do his job in wolf form. There’s something about seeing a snarling wolf wearing a cop uniform and packing a pistol that can’t help but be amusing, and Dean gets a lot of mileage out of it.
While some of the SFX are quite bad later on, the werewolf transformation FX are surprisingly great, with Garou shedding his skin to unleash the wolf underneath, complete with buckets of blood (something this does not skimp on). The werewolf costume also looks pretty good, with it being designed well enough that Fafard is still able to milk some laughs out of the wolf’s facial expressions. The acting all-around is actually quite good, with Amy Matysio being a standout as Garou’s keen fellow-deputy, who accepts Garou’s new wolf nature without so much as batting an eyelash, and the absolutely gorgeous Sarah Lind as the town seductress with a thing for fangs and fur (lucky wolf).
Clearly, WOLFCOP is designed for the midnight movie circuit, and while some of it is a bit dull or dopey, there’s a good thirty minutes or so that makes it well worth checking out. When Wolfcop’s doing his thing – ripping the faces and limbs off bad guys and driving around in his tricked-out Wolfmobile – WOLFCOP just about works. And hey, it’s hard not to at least kinda like a movie where the big wolf/human love scene is set to Gowan’s “Moonlight Desires”.