When choosing to watch a movie like writer/director Lowell Dean’s Another Wolfcop, you know you’re in for a bad movie but you’re hoping it’s the right kind of bad. The expectation may be genre claptrap, but hopefully you’ll experience a little invention, a dash of humor or a bit of fun along the way. You may not get Return of the Living Dead or Army of Darkness, but there’s always a chance for the rare pleasant surprise. With that in mind, Another Wolfcop is quite possibly the finest sequel to a Canadian werewolf cop horror/comedy ever made. Admittedly this is a dubious and specific category.
You will not need to have seen its predecessor to follow the plot. Wolfcop is the local celebrity of a small town in Canada called Woodhaven. He is a myth, howling off in the distance after eviscerating local criminals. There have been sightings, but the police, led by Chief Tina Walsh (Amy Matysio), deny the existence of any bestial members of law enforcement. That doesn’t stop the local convenience store, Liquor Donuts, from selling unlicensed Wolfcop merchandise and allowing the legend to grow.
Chief Walsh is just trying to protect one of her own, Officer Lou Garou (Leo Fafard). When transformed into his hairy alter ego by the full moon, Garou is a force of nature living his best life. The rest of the time he guzzles beer, watches too much television and fails to recognize Chief Walsh’s affection for him. Lou is a mess, but so is Woodhaven. The town has little going for it outside its strip club and Liquor Donuts. The economy is depressed, but help arrives when success-magnet Sydney Swallows (Yannick Bisson) reopens the shuttered brewery to produce a very special concoction. Of course, things are not what they seem and the werewolf has to battle a horde of lizard monsters for the fate of not only Woodhaven, but the world. This is great fun for a while.
Two of the cast stand out for giving comic performances that are equally effective but diametrically opposed to one another. Amy Matysio plays Chief Walsh as the straightest of arrows. She is always serious no matter how ridiculous or improbable a situation she must thwart. Matysio has large, expressive eyes that radiate with every emotion Chief Walsh represses. Lou Garou is the main source of her emotional tumult. He will never be good enough for her and he will never know how much that pains her.
Jonathan Cherry plays Willie Higgins, the owner of the local gun store, town conspiracy theorist and Wolfcop’s best friend. Cherry imbues Higgins with all the accoutrement of white trash. From his accent to his flannels there is nothing subtle about Willie Higgins, nor should there be. Cherry is fun to watch, and while the performance is over-the-top, the character never grows tiresome. As for Wolfcop himself, Leo Fafard is more convincing snarling in his grey fur than chugging beers as Lou Garou.
Another Wolfcop owes a debt to Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas and their creations Bob and Doug McKenzie. With its dangerous beer and plot for world domination, it proudly wears its adoration for Strange Brew, the lone McKenzie Brothers feature, all the way down to the hockey fights. While that comparison is rarified low-budget air, Another Wolfcop hits a snag about halfway through its 82-minute runtime. The movie begins with a bawdy energy that it can’t sustain under the weight of its meager plot, forcing it to stagger to a humorless conclusion. Dean makes great use of limited resources, producing a film that looks bigger than its budget, which is an important claim to make when discussing a good bad movie. Sadly, being a movie that would hold you while flipping channels late at night, a great bad movie, is a claim Another Wolfcop will never get to make. You need a third act for that, something this howler just can’t manage.
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