I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this (spoilers)

Of all the game-to-movie adaptations - Ubisoft tried with ‘Assassin's Creed’, ‘Prince of Persia’, and ‘Far Cry’ - it’s surreal that one based on a niche VR game like ‘Werewolves Within’ is what finally worked. After so many cinematic atrocities, we have a genuine banger based on a video game. We can stop pretending that ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ was a return to early career form for Jim Carrey now.

Werewolves are such compelling monsters that their stories can be told in any number of ways. They can be funny or terrifying, but they can also be tragic figures. As written by Mishna Wolff in ‘Werewolves Within’, they can also just sort of hover around the periphery of a very amusing ‘Clue’-style murder mystery before popping up towards the end.

Just like ‘Clue’, this is a film that’s easy to love, with screwball patter and pratfall-filled set pieces. The movie’s advantage is in its cast, a murderers’ row of talent (led by Sam Richardson, the one good thing about ‘The Tomorrow War’, and Milana Vayntrub, in a what should be her breakout role) working with dialogue far more airtight than the film’s central mystery. Once the guns, crossbows and blade-fingered gloves are handed out, the paranoia sinks in and the bodies start piling up, the film takes on an incredible group energy. It’s like a comedic take on John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’.

I hope ‘Werewolves Within’ (along with ‘The Wolf of Snow Hollow’) ushers in a new age of funny monster romps. I’ve been missing those lately.

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