WOLFCOP (Lowell Dean). 79 minutes. Opens Friday (June 13). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NN
Low-budget, 80s-style Canadian horror-comedy WolfCop announces its campy aspirations, and entire plot, in its title. Aiming for so-bad-it’s-good status, this derivative effort gets stuck in moderately bad.
Instead of non-actors monotonously flubbing their lines, a very capable Leo Fafard slums it as Deputy Sheriff Lou, an alcoholic with a perpetual hangover who wakes up to a full moon after a satanic ritual turns him into the titular lycanthrope.
Now he’s fighting crime and cults with his ability to literally sniff out the bad guys. There’s a small-town conspiracy he nibbles away at, but that feels like unnecessary padding in a movie where the audience is meant to just show up drunk and relish watching faces being ripped off Hannibal-style. All that sleuthing might send the audience out for a bathroom break or beer refill.
The makeup department has fun with the transformation scenes, mimicking buckets of blood, torn flesh and swollen genitals that are put to good use when WolfCop makes time for some cross-species fornication.
Such sight gags are good for a smirk in a film where the comedy orbits the ticklish concept without getting much mileage out of it.
