Twitter Plot Summary: After an encounter with an occult group, tired cop Lou is transformed into Wolfcop!
Films that knowingly reference cinema’s cheesy and sometimes dubious past are all the rage these days, cashing in on the nostalgia factor that many film fans have for neon-soaked, 80s horror films, the films that, for the most part, didn’t realise at the time just how tongue in cheek they were. Wolfcop is a film which delights in this outrageousness, but just about manages to stay on the right side of the bad/good/so bad it’s good border. In this case, we have an amusing pastiche of mashup horror movies, an almost Grindhouse level of knowing camp that helps rather than hinders the premise.
Leo Fafard is Lou Garou, the man destined to become Wolfcop, although he already looks like he’s halfway towards being a werewolf as it is, such is his hirsute appearance. Lou is skating on thin ice in his role as deputy in the local sheriff’s office, apparently intent on drinking himself into oblivion rather than taking down the criminal underclass that plague the local area. That is, until an encounter with a cult group leads him to take on wolflike abilities. Yes, this is entirely bonkers. Just go with it.
It knows how to have fun, not against an occasional cheesy one-liner (”What the f**k are you?!” a robber asks Wolfcop. “The fuzz!” comes the response.) and just when you think it can’t get any more ridiculous there’s an extended sex scene between the transformed Wolfcop and femme fatale barmaid Jessica. If there was any doubt about the tone of the film, that entire sequence should cement it for you.
What it also has are some genuinely gruesome transformation effects that are almost on par with Rick Baker’s work in An American Werewolf in London, but with added grue and toilet humour. Suffice to say, if you’re a man you may end up wincing a little, and you may never look at a urinal in quite the same way again. The reliance on practical effects rather than CGI is most definitely a positive point. It might look silly on occasion but enhances the reality of this world. Plus, practical effects always look better than CGI.
It doesn’t outstay its welcome, but it is more than anything else an absolute hoot. Obviously this isn’t a film that desires a thorough analysis of its plot, in fact its breakneck pace certainly acts in its favour. If you added anything else to it you’d probably dwell for far too long on its plot about weird occult ceremonies at the hands of shapeshifting alien things, solar eclipses and strange prophecies.
What it perhaps should have done is spent more time enjoying Wolfcop running around town meting out justice to those on the wrong side of he law – if a sequel ever gets to see the light of day, this would most definitely be the best approach to take. Still, any narrative misgivings aside, can you really complain about a film called Wolfcop which stars a werewolf cop and has some really rather excellent special effects? No, thought not.
Score: 3/5
