Screen Media | Buy at Amazon | Review by Dan Taylor
Technology has certainly had a major impact on my viewing habits, not to mention how long I'm willing to tolerate what appears to be an insufferable viewing experience. Thanks to advances like Netflix Instant View I can safely say that my days of sitting through every rental in order to get my money's worth are officially over.
Take last week, for instance. Feeling energized after a viewing of BLOOD GAMES, the Southern-fried 80s T&A softball-ploitation revenger, I decided to explore my Netflix queue and quench my thirst for more schlock. After five minutes it became clear that the shot-on-video PLATOON OF THE DEAD – with its sub-regional dinner theater acting and zombies lamely dispatched by laser guns – was not going to fill the void.
Enter BIG BAD WOLF, a low-budget werewolf romp I'd read an encouraging, if not glowing, review of some months ago. While werewolf flicks that don't feature Paul Naschy usually fail to intrigue me, the review singled out the underrated Richard Tyson (THREE O'CLOCK HIGH's Buddy Revell) which led me to immediately add it to my queue, where it lurked... waiting for rediscovery many months later at 1 AM on a Friday night.
For the most part, BIG BAD WOLF is a pretty rote werewolf outing. A pair of annoying frat dudes and their bimbo girlfriends are set to party at a remote cabin thanks to Derek (Trevor Duke), a dweeby pledge whose stepfather (Tyson) owns the backwoods hideaway. When an oversexed, wisecracking werewolf savagely attacks the college kids, only Derrick and pierced tomboy/love interest Sam (Kimberly Brown) survive.
From this point BIG BAD WOLF could have gone in one of two directions. Unfortunately, the movie I was plotting out in my head was better than the one unfolding before me on-screen. Turns out that the werewolf is exactly who we think it is and aside from a few very minor plot twists the remainder of the flick holds little in the way of surprise.
However, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy the ride, especially with Tyson at the helm as Mitch the world's greatest dirtbag stepdad and the wisecracking werewolf with a boob fixation. (I'm hard-pressed to call that a "spoiler" since the filmmakers make no effort to discourage this line of thinking.)
Few werewolves in film history have been quite as comfortable with their "curse" as Mitch Tablot (I'll give you a second for that to sink in). Forget any "whoa is me" hand-ringing from this lecherous lycanthrope. Nope, Mitch was happy to keep himself sequestered away to suppress his urges when the full moon appeared, but when his numbskull stepson brings the prey right to his doorstep, it's hard for Mitch to keep the beast in check. Tyson infuses his monstrous side with a snappy personality while his "human" persona is such a lurching, leering, iron-pumping, babe-scoping monster that his increasingly-annoying wife repeatedly assumes that he's drunk.
BIG BAD WOLF is one of those instances where even though I was disappointed in the perfunctory way the story played out, I didn't harbor any ill will to the finished product. Kudos to Richard Tyson for bringing his A game to a decidedly B flick and elevating the whole thing in the process.
