[Review] "Another Wolfcop" is a howling good time

If you grew up loving eighties horror as I did, then it’s likely you have an insatiable craving for it these days. The sometimes stunning, sometime goofy practical effects. The senseless gore and violence. The cheesy one liners. It all made the decade the best horror has ever seen. Lately, we’ve gotten some incredible films like Hereditary, It Follows, The Babadook, and so on, but none of them indulge that hunger for something a little more, well, stupid. Luckily, Another Wolfcop is here to give you more stupid than you can possibly handle…

---

​…A sequel to the 2014 Wolfcop, original writer/director Lowell Dean returns with another entry in his franchise featuring a gun toting, beer drinking, badge wearing werewolf. Leo Fafard also returns as Lou Garou/Wolfcop, as does his friend, Willie (Jonathan Cherry) and ex-lover/sheriff, Tina (Amy Matysio). With all that pesky exposition from the first film regarding Lou’s journey into becoming a werewolf out of the way, Another Wolfcop skips the bullshit and throws the audience right into the LSD trip that is the sequel. This time around, Lou and company discover a sinister plot to take over Woodhaven when an eccentric businessman named Swallows (Yannick Bisson) moves in with a new brewery and hockey team. That’s right, a hockey team is involved in the takeover, and the beer being sold at the brewery is called Chicken Milk. Yum. Oh, and Kevin Smith (Clerks) even makes an appearance as the town mayor, Bubba Rich. Starting to understand what kind of movie this is?
 
Fans of the first film who wanted more of the same, but weirder, get exactly that. Another Wolfcop isn’t just over the top, gory, and dumb as a frat guy drunk off of a case of Chicken Milk, its fucking WEIRD. Having a werewolf who also happens to be a cop is enough for me, personally. But throw in undead robots, lizard men from who cares what planet, and stomach-bursting worms with human faces, and you have yourself a cocktail with a dangerously high alcohol content spiked with a whole lot of fucking crazy. Be still my beating B-movie heart.
 
Another Wolfcop is what I would call a blue-collar horror film. This movie doesn’t ask you to use that thing rotting inside of your head called your brain. No, this is the kind of movie that encourages fans just getting home from a hard day at work to kick up their feet, crack open a beer, maybe smoke a joint, and forget about anything and everything that sucks in their lives. Lou Garou, in many ways, relates to the average horror fan. When he’s not out ripping the heads off of criminals and eating their faces, he’s at home getting drunk, watching shitty movies, and enjoying the gift of films that don’t need to be taken as seriously. It’s great to have arthouse horror films like the ones mentioned above, but in a world that’s so dominated by civil unrest and barrage after barrage of human suffering and bullshit dropping out of politician’s mouths, films like Another Wolfcop are a sorely needed relief for horror fans.
 
This movie just wants to have FUN. It still blows my mind that more horror films don’t use over the top practical effects the way Another Wolfcop does. The effects themselves look great (gore hounds will be delighted), but even if the practical effects were subpar, the mere fact that they’re so ludicrous gives a sort of beer goggle effect for the audience. How can you not enjoy watching Lou grab a crony by the skin of his back and slowly rip it off like a T-shirt? How do you not laugh the way its intended when a goofy looking lizard alien bites into Lou’s crotch? The effects/kills in Another Wolfcop do exactly what they’re supposed to do, which is give the audience an enjoyable eighty minutes of unbridled lunacy. Nothing about Another Wolfcop feels average, or even worse, normal. Every scene tries to top the other, and though it doesn’t always succeed, the effort by Lowell Dean is obvious. Dean is the kind of director you want to get a beer with and ask “what made you think of that? How did you do this? Answer me honestly Lowell, were you drunk the whole time?”
 
You have to wonder how intoxicated Dean was at times while writing the script, because there is some shit in Another Wolfcop that you cannot unsee. Never mind pot smoking worms that look like chestbursters with mustaches, or Lou’s limp werewolf dick flopping around in the opening minutes. I’m talking about werewolf sex that makes the bestial lovemaking in The Howling look like a sweet, elegant wedding. Remember when we had the (privilege?) of seeing Lou’s junk get werewolf-ified in the original Wolfcop? That was nothing compared to this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dean had one too many viewings of Team America and decided he must do the same, but with werewolves. Kidding aside, even though the comedy is pretty outrageous, the jokes don’t always land, and sometimes feel a bit repetitive. It was funny the first time around, watching a werewolf cop make time to scarf down a box of doughnuts, but already jokes like that have begun to fall flat and grow stale. For the most part, the comedy works, but some one liners will have you rolling your eyes like dad just pulled out his favorite knock knock joke.
 
While Another Wolfcop is meant to be pure, unadulterated fun, I couldn’t help but feel that the film was a little too senseless for its own good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled the finale involves Wolfcop carrying a scythe on a hockey rink full of ice skating villains, but at a certain point, you have to start asking yourself if you’re ever going to actually care about what’s happening on screen. Because let’s be clear, Another Wolfcop is loads of fun, but it is a DUMB movie where it is absolutely essential that you completely turn your brain off to fully enjoy it. The characters are mostly fun but pretty one note, with very little depth, which is disappointing, because unlike Robocop, which Wolfcop takes some inspiration from, I could care less about the actual character of Lou. He doesn’t have any sort of character arc. He learns nothing. He doesn’t listen to what anyone says. He sleeps with his friend's sister after they explicitly beg him not to, then rubs it in Tina’s face. He’s your basic, irredeemable asshole. There’s nothing wrong with a film taking a chainsaw to logic and realism, I prefer it does, but when you don’t have characters worth rooting for, the overall appeal is weakened. I don’t just want to laugh at these characters, I want to laugh with them, and the only way to get me to do that is for me to care about them. Not to mention, I’d prefer to see a little more of Lou being a badass the way he is in the opening scene (the action is far too sparse for my taste).
 
Another Wolfcop isn’t for everyone. It requires a specific taste, an animalistic desire for outrageous stupidity encapsulated by a storm of blood and beer. But if you’re that horror fan looking for a good time who wants to take a sledgehammer to their brain with over the top gore, sex, and werewolves, then Another Wolfcop is the film you’ve been looking for. Hell, couple it with a double feature including the original and a six pack of Chicken Milk, and it just might be the most howling good movie night you’ve had in a while. AROOOOOO! 

By Matt Konopka