Review: Wolfcop – “A skin-splitting, claw-sprouting full moon party”

Written and directed by Lowell Dean, Wolfcop is a monster movie borne from a Canadian film competition. The title alone should have been enough to win it, but combined with a proof of concept trailer and a lot of social media buzz, Wolfcop tore through the competition to win a Canadian theatrical release and million dollar budget.

Every cent of those Canadian dollars is on the screen, and Dean and his crew have crafted an Edgar Wright-y werewolf movie that is ridiculously good fun and out in the UK on the 13th of October.

Piss head cop Lou Garou (Leo Fafard) is a burn-out small town beat cop. Crime is rising in his community of Woodhaven. Casual villainy and wrong-doing is openly committed on the streets, and a vicious gang called the Piggies are getting away with murder.

One night Lou drunkenly stumbles across a sacrifice in the woods. He wakes up the next morning with unshaveable stubble and a five-pointed star carved into his chest. In the words of Jack in American Werewolf “Universal Studios and Lon Chaney Jr. maintained that’s the mark of The Wolfman!”

The transformation scene is the most pivotal part of any werewolf movie and when Wolfcop’s comes it is fantastic. Courtesy of some great physical effects work by Emerson Ziffle, Lou’s lycanthropic transmutation is brutally gory, painful and dick first!

Fuelled by bourbon and donuts, wolfed-up Lou sets out to sniff out crime and put the fear into Woodhaven’s scumbags in a souped up Wolfmobile. Leo Fafard goes a long way to making this all work. He’s like a grouchy Mark Ruffalo and in spite of an enormous screen presence, can still perfectly balance initial bumbling with subsequent physical intimidation.

Slickly stuck together and highly polished from it’s sweet title sequence to its rad Wolfcop rap track over the credits, and with a cool retro electro score; Wolfcop is a skin-splitting, claw-sprouting full moon party that will leave you wishing it was longer, before sitting up and begging for a sequel.