Let's just say it's a hard day's night when the moon is full. Neowolf is the story of perfectly coifed emo-rockin' werewolves traversing the deserts of the southwest in their slick tour bus searching for fresh blood to add to their band, and then flipsiding it to show how those being "auditioned" threaten to expose their secret and extinguish their kind.
Young, super-hot blonde Tony (Michael Frascino) has left his small town and his young, super-hot blonde small-town girlfriend Rosemary (Heidi Johanningmeier) to try his fortunes as a singer/songwriter out in the big, bad world. He's not devoured out there, but when he decides to return home he immediately meets with the big, bad wolf in the form of Neowolf's lead singer, Vince (Agim Kaba). After a night of passionate abandon in the tour bus, Tony becomes afflicted with a combination of The Lost Boys and Twilight personality disorders, and it's time for faithful Rosemary and her cute gay sidekick Kevin (Ryan Ross) to step in and save the day.
While there are a few good things about Neowolf (Kaba is sexy, Veronica Cartwright has a cameo, and there's a spirited onstage performance by Go Betty Go), it's mostly what you'd expect from a direct-to-disk dog even the director has disowned (by taking on the pseudonym "Allan Smithee" as his or her credit).
Shot on video by Kevin Atkinson, the visuals often show talent behind the camera… and then other times, it looks as though someone else altogether was lensing. Same with the flashy edits, practical effects and CGI: it's a very mixed bag, making for a rather uneven mess when all is said and done. There are a few funny moments with the actors — many of them unintended (Johanningmeier's overwrought reaction shots would make an awesome gag reel) — but some not (occasionally, a punch line is delivered with aplomb).
For a movie about supernatural, carnivorous rock stars, Neowolf is definitely a howler in the music department: Cheesy emo / lounge-lizardy / power-ballad tunes emanate not only from the onstage performances by Neowolf, Tony, and some of the other bands spotlighted, but there is also an egregious overuse of that lazy old go-to gimmick, the "musical montage" (aka, "we don't know what to do now, so we'll just string some scenes together and play a random song").
Neowolf gets put back into the DVD case with its tail between its legs, never to be seen again.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson