In short: Werewolves Within (2021)

When forest ranger Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) arrives in Beaverfield, a tiny community at the edge of nowhere he is going to (sort of) police for the foreseeable future, he gets rather more excitement on his first day and night than one typically hopes for when starting on a new job. Apart from everyone – well, everyone but extremely lovely and adorable postal worker Cecily (Milana Vayntrub) – being your typical kind of comedy movie crazy, the village is also divided on the issue of a new gas pipeline that’s supposed to run through town soon enough, making for something of a less than peaceful environment. Things really escalate when a storm knocks out all connections – including the road – to the outside world. Someone (or something?) knocks out the town’s generators, too, and soon, a bit of a killing spree starts. The perpetrator seems to be a werewolf (SCIENCE says so), so the killer really could be anyone among the population, which doesn’t help the sense of distrust and paranoia between these people at all. You wouldn’t exactly need a werewolf for murder among these people. Finn – who is nice, communicative, into cooperation and extensive quoting of Mister Rogers to a fault – and Cecily are pretty much the only ones in town able to keep their heads.

At first, I didn’t quite get the raves Josh Ruben’s videogame based movie Werewolves Within received from all corners. Mostly because the film starts out very slowly indeed, putting what seems to be way too much time into characters that are mostly one-note comedy stock. And really, most of them never acquire that much coveted second dimension, but Ruben isn’t actually introducing the characters as much as he is seeding the murder mystery clues of the piece and introducing the audience to the physical set-up of Beaverfield, both elements that will turn out to be much more important than most of the characters involved are as characters.

It is exactly their slow and subtle introduction that makes these things work ones the film gets going, turning this into a very cleverly constructed mystery and, once the final act starts, a really great series of murder and chase set pieces. While the characters do mostly stay one note (well, apart from spoiler and spoiler, of course), our protagonists are very likeable (great credit to Richardson for turning a character who could be just too nice to be likeable into a guy so likeable you just gotta like seeing him being excessively nice) indeed, and the mystery and mood develop quite a bit of pull, an effect the film would not have managed to achieve with a faster start.

Plus, the werewolf is pretty great, the murders become rather fun indeed, and most of the jokes in the second half hit with great precision.