Horror, Not Horror: Werewolves Within

 "Horror, Not Horror" movies are those that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold.  I'm not a big horror fan (Toast is the horror buff here), but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.

2021, John Ruben - netflix

So let's say you're tasked with writing a screenplay for a film based off a tabletop game where the participants try to work out who amongst them is the murderer...or werewolf...or both.  Where do you turn to for inspiration?

Werewolves Within is written by comedian/author Mishna Wolff, and stars comedy performers Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, Michaela Watkins, Harvey Guillén, Sarah Burns, Cheyenn Jackson and others.  Nobody is a huge name, but most of these are probably "hey, it's that guy from that thing" and they're all dependable character actors and comedic presences.  Altogether, that spells a very different "horror" movie, except that's the bait-and-switch.  Werewolves Within is not a horror movie at all but a sort of madcap "whodunnit" (or perhaps "whoisit") that quite clearly takes its inspiration from the 1984 board-game adaptation classic (yeah, I said it) Clue.

Clue was a murder mystery comedy filled with bigger name comedic players all portraying characters with outsized personalities in a film whose whole point was to toy with the audience by creating an unsolvable mystery (one whose obfuscated clues could still work with no less than three different endings).  Werewolves Within doesn't go quite as ambitious as to have three different endings, but it works very hard, and very adeptly, at making everyone in the closed door/confined small town mystery a viable suspect to be the werewolf.  Grudges are set-up, fraught histories established, tensions are played out, and the acrimony is fierce, thinly veiled under neighbourly pretexts.  It doesn't take much for everyone to throw everyone else under the bus and point fingers (and guns...small town America is well armed).

Beyond just the delightful hysterics, and the ever-so-adorable will-they/wont-they of perky/confident mail carrier Vayntrub and stammering/optimistic new-to-town Ranger Richardson, there's a scathing view of America in a microcosm, taking aim at both the extreme right and left, and the people that exploit them, as well as jabs at science vs superstition/faith/belief, and the bitter cynicism directed at positivity and earnestness.  In the end, the philosophy is kind of that America will wind up eating itself as proven by the Grand Guignol of mishaps and murders that take place in the third act of the film.

This is a damn fun movie, just super entertaining with winning performances all around, and still managing social commentary without shoving any particular agenda down the viewer's throat, except maybe perhaps just be genuinely nicer to each other.  I could see this being as beloved as Clue, if only we weren't so inundated with content all the time.

BUT, hey, is it horror?

Nope, it's comedy, it's farce, and maybe even mystery, but it's not horror.

[Toast's take: we agree]