★★★
“Werwolfs, not werewolves…”
There’s an interesting idea here, which somewhat works. But it’s perhaps a little too grounded for its own good. It starts in a London flat, where senior citizen Anna Marshall (Walter) ambushes an intruder, handcuffing him to a radiator. Turns out he’s not just a burglar. He knows about her past, and wants the truth. So she tells him a story… At the very end of World War II, her identity was Brana Brodskaya (Vega). She was one member in a small group of Russian soldiers, who have been given a very important task: transport a box back from Berlin to Moscow. Oh, and bury it every night. Inevitably, their curiosity overcomes them, and the box is opened, to reveal Hitler’s corpse inside.
Naturally, the remaining German forces are very keen to re-capture the Fuhrer’s body, to preserve the myth of his escape and survival. The group become bogged down in a Polish village, under attack from Nazi Werwolfs. Not, please note, actual werewolves. Though I have to say, that would have been pretty damn cool [I’m a big fan of Dog Soldiers, which does pit British soldiers against actual werewolves] The Werwolfs were resistance forces, left behind by the Nazis behind Allied enemy lines, as they advanced towards Germany. This is fact. As depicted here, they wear animals pelts when they attack, while burning mushrooms and lichen which cause their target to hallucinate. This is… rather less certain, albeit also kinda cool.
Brodskaya is, clearly, the moral compass of the group, who tries to keep her comrades on task too – neither of which prove easy. When half of them split off seeking the “spoils of war”, she goes after them to stop them from committing war crimes on the civilian population. The locals are just tired of the conflict, and have little patience for either occupiers or liberators, not trusting either side. Parker does a good job of depicting the murkiness of a situation like this, where the lines of morality aren’t as clear-cut as you would initially expect. But the heroine is mission-oriented as well, and when control of the cargo is lost, she leads the charge to recover it, knowing the threat its loss would pose.
Unfortunately, I found there to be significant issues with pacing, especially in the middle third which seems to contain several too many underlit action scenes in the woods. I’ve read multiple complaints about it being marketed as a horror movie, and certainly, if that’s what you are expecting, you will be severely disappointed. I had no such prejudices and so didn’t mind too much. Though I would have extended the flashback further, since there seems to be a lot of interesting material covered at the end, in a bit of an info-dump by Marshall. Between that and the non-lycanthropic werewolves, this is why I reckon there’s a lot of potential left unexplored here. An excellent concept, let down by only average execution.
Dir: Ben Parker
Star: Charlotte Vega, Tom Felton, Barry Ward, Harriet Walter