Though advertised as a horror comedy, Jim Cummings’ werewolf movie, which he wrote and directed as well as starring in, is less frightening or funny than irritating. Cummings plays John Marshall, a deputy in the titular Utah town where his father (Robert Forster), an aging man with heart trouble, is the sheriff. When young women start getting murdered in extremely brutal fashion when the moon is full, some of his colleagues on the force suggest that a werewolf is responsible, but John angrily insists that no such creature exists and continues investigating, though none too effectively, on the premise that the culprit is human. Yet the movie shows a CGI werewolf at one of the killings and repeatedly suggests that a drug addict living in a remote trailer is a lycanthrope. In the end, there proves to have been considerable misdirection afoot in Cummings’ script, and when the final resolution comes, it may be surprising but is certainly not terribly satisfying.
The real problem with the film, however, is the character Cummings has fashioned for himself, and the way he plays it. John Marshall is a recovering alcoholic with anger-management issues; he is also recently divorced, and obsessive about controlling his teenage daughter (Chloe East), who is—inexplicably, given her father’s penchant for falling into wild rages over anything—living with him. One wonders how, even in a supposedly wacky horror farce, so unstable a guy could remain an officer of the law, and even expect to succeed his father—whom he’s prodding to retire—since in Cummings’ unsubtle hands the fellow comes off so manic and unhinged that he often seems completely deranged.
There is some compensation in watching Forster bring his years of experience to his final role, in just a few strokes, he invests the sheriff with a leonine gruffness touched by intimations of his own mortality—as well as an abhorrence of the kind of violence the murders have brought to his town. Pleasure is also to be had in the performance of Riki Lindhome as Julia Robson, John Marshall’s partner and easily the most competent, levelheaded member of the department. Lindhome brings a bit of Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson to the role, providing a calming presence all the more welcome beside Cummings’ wild-and-crazy routine. But, of course, he remains the fulcrum of the movie and the main reason why a viewer is likely to find it exhausting instead of fun.
The DVD and Blu-ray both boast some extras—four brief behind-the-scenes featurettes, one a series of encomia to Cummings from his co-workers (13 min. total)—but this is not a necessary purchase.