Cry Wolf

Review by Clint Morris

It’s rather ironic that one of the lasting scenes of the film on hand was a zoom-in on a school cafeteria menu advertising that day’s special: Toasted Cheese. Indeed.

There’s no way around it - Be it shredded, sliced, creamed, melted, grilled, or, yes, toasted, Cry Wolf is most positively cheese – but, and like a thin slice too close to the toaster, it starts to stick after a while.

No-frills filmmaking in the truest sense of the world – not surprising considering it’s the result of a filmmaking competition, much like Project Greenlight, that rewards its most talented entrant a movie deal – Wolf is a starless (well, the most familiar faces are TV regulars Jared 'Supernatural’ Padalecki and Gary ‘American Gothic’ Cole, as well as rocker Jon Bon Jovi, miscast as a puzzling computer teacher) horror horse around that’s got a lot more going for it than it’s vanilla-sounding synopsis and vacation video-style production values might at first have you perceive. First and foremost, it has quite a clever script.

Here’s the gist: A young British lad (Julian Morris), apparently a bit of a troublemaker, arrives at a preppy American school where he almost instantly strikes up a bond with a spunky redhead named Dodger (Lindy Booth). Through her, he learns of both the recent murder of a young girl in the woods, and a juvenile game that her circle of friends participates in - where people have to guess who’s lying. In a convoluted series of lefts and rights, both the murder and the game amalgamate.

With a bit of a dialogue polish, and possibly some bigger, more credible stars to help make the film just that little bit more convincing – some of the folks here would be lucky to get a job reading an auto prompter on late night infomercials, they’re that stilted and incredulous – Cry Wolf could have been quite the film.

At the same time, the filmmakers have done wonders for their small budget, and one wonders whether Hollywood could’ve made a better film if it had spent another $100 million on it. The most promising members of the production though are writers Wadlow and Beau Bauman, whose script is not only unique, but also very imaginative and appreciably full of surprises. They need to work on their dialogue a bit – so much of it seems to be left over from bad late-night 80’s TV – but on the whole, they’re a team to definitely watch.

Cry Wolf is far from the howler one thought it’d be, and though its bite is a little blunt, once its teeth sinks into you – mind you, you’ve got to stay with it for a bit until it does– you’ll be hard-pressed escaping from it’s grapple.

Give it a look – on video.

2.5 out of 5

Cry Wolf
Australian release: 23rd March, 2006.
Cast: Ethan Cohn, Julian Morris, Lindy Booth, Jared Padalecki, Jon Bon Jovi
Director: Jeff Wadlow, Doug Liman
Website: Click here.