There are few things a microbudget Canadian thriller director loves more than a judiciously-placed woodland setting. That's certainly true of actor-director Adam MacDonald, who previously crafted wilderness chillers "Backcountry" and "Pyewacket," both of which use Canada's voluminous forests to spine-tingling effect. In his latest, "Out Come the Wolves," he dips back into the woodsy well for another tale of human conflict reflected in the chaos of Mother Nature. Shame, then, that the skimpy structure leaves little to feast on; it's a bit too gamey for its own good.
Like "Backcountry" before it, "Wolves" centers on a city-fied Canadian Couple, Sophie (Missy Peregrym) and Nolan (Damon Runyon), who retreat to the woods so that Nolan, a food writer, can work on a story about hunting to reconnect to the food we eat. So naturally, they call on Sophie's old friend Kyle (Joris Jarsky), an avid hunter, to stay with them, and show Nolan the ropes. From frame one, it's clear Kyle still carries a torch for Soph, and he rather suspiciously waits to announce that his girlfriend couldn't make it last minute. So it's just the three of them, throwing back beers and tossing charged asides about their checkered pasts. You see, Kyle and Sophie slept together once, and Nolan can tell Kyle's still not over it, especially after he bristles at the news that the pair are now engaged. So all of Kyle's gruff instruction about how to handle a gun or a bow and arrow carry an additional threat. (In one particularly on-the-nose move among many, all of the vanes on Kyle's arrows read "killer" in another language.) Sophie is oblivious: "This could be the beginning of a beautiful bromance," she soothes Nolan.
But said bromance goes south quickly when, during their big hunt the next day, the pair run into a ravenous wolf who makes mincemeat of Nolan's fleshy bits. Kyle manages to fight it off, but in a moment of mixed panic and selfishness, chooses to leave a bleeding Nolan behind to die. It feels like the kind of moral dilemma that should fuel a more interesting backwoods thriller, where Sophie would fight off the advances of a covetous, murderous ex. Instead, the pair bicker a bit, but then jet back off into the woods to find Nolan, only to run into the same wolves who seem to have a taste for Canuck blood.
If this still sounds suspiciously like "Backcountry," you're not hallucinating. "Wolves" feels like an unabashed remake of his prior film, from the character dynamics to the man-vs-beast struggle it becomes in the back half (in the prior film, the offending animal was a bear). It even shares some of the prior film's cast: Peregrym played the girlfriend last time. On a baseline level, it's effective; you can feel MacDonald making the most of a strained budget, though the over-saturated photography leans a bit too hard on intense close-ups and shaky camera movements. (Killer gore effects, though, especially as the maulings get worse.)
But, shockingly, the front half with the humans is better than the warmed-over rehash of "The Grey" we get in the final 45 minutes. The performances are strong, but workmanlike; still, the actors chew into it with some relish, between Peregrym's Hilary Swank-like elan and Runyon carrying himself with the smarmy sincerity of Rob Heubel taking a dramatic role. It's Jarsky who feels like the weak link, though; where Kyle feels written to be menacing, Jarsky comes across as too much of a sad sack to be threatening. He hardly gets any time to let Kyle wrestle with the implications of his inaction in the middle stretch before MacDonald is racing to get to the gnarly, teeth-gnashing set pieces in the sub-90-minute runtime.
Still, maybe that's the product of the vestigial expectations the first half of "Wolves" engenders in the viewer. There's something to be said for pulling the rug out from under your audience: "Out Come the Wolves" teases out a murder-in-the-woods psychodrama, only to sic some sick puppies on our blood-filled heroes for some good, old-fashioned "The Edge"-style mayhem. Sadly, MacDonald coasts a bit through the survival horror parts, and the confusing geography of the woods makes all the zipping around on 4x4s and motocross bikes feel somewhat purposeless. Individual sequences pop, and MacDonald knows how to effectively stage the tension of standing silent and hoping your next, agonizing movement won't be your last.
As the saying goes, inside of me are two wolves: one wishes "Out Come the Wolves" dared to explore the wounded masculinity and murderous love triangle of its first half, while the other wonders if that'd be any better or more interesting than the bone-cracking, arrow-shooting carnage of its second. Either way, I'm thinking MacDonald may want to finally venture out of the forest for his next work. The well may have run dry here.
Currently streaming on Shudder.
