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Thursday, August 29, 2024

'Out Come The Wolves' (2024) Movie Review

Missy Peregrym fights wolves
I'm a sucker for any movie that's going along fine but then is all... "and now there are wolves." (Insert any variety of killer animal.) The hook here, in Adam MacDonald’s Out Come the Wolves, is the wolves, but that’s not really the point. The eponymous predators don’t show up until relatively late in the game—you know it’s coming, it’s right there in the title and prominently featured in all the marketing—but things are already harrowing and conflict-riddled enough by the time our furry pals appear.

 

Though he also directed heavy-metal horror Pyewacket, MacDonald seems to have a bit of a thing for stripped-down sagas of Missy Peregrym battling rogue wildlife in the remote wilderness. His 2014 film Backcountry saw the Stick It star face off against a pissed off bear and the general set up here is not too dissimilar. Although this outing may be even more bare bones. There three people and wolves, nothing else.

 

[Related Reading: 'Pyewacket' Trailer: Heavy Metal, Horror, and Satanic Panic]


This wolf is bloody and angry

Bowhunter-turned-vegan Sophie (Peregrym) takes her magazine editor fiancĂ© Nolan (Damon Runyan) to meet her childhood BFF Kyle (Joris Jarsky, who, along with MacDonald has as story-by credit, though Enuka Okuma has the sole screenplay nod). As the boys are out hunting—the purpose of the trip is for Nolan to get in touch with some sort of inner man-ness and write about it—they’re attacked by a pack of wolves and, as expected, it becomes an all-out fight for survival. 

 

As I said, the wolves don’t join the party until we’re fairly deep into the narrative. Until then, the tension derives from the push and pull of opposites. There’s the conflict between Sophie’s old life as an outdoorsy girl who hunted and was most at home in the woods, with who she is now. There’s city versus county, rugged nature versus civilized society, and Kyle’s manly man juxtaposed against Nolan’s mannered, affected city boy. Sophie and Kyle have all kinds of history, and there are, to be sure, a few secrets and skeletons buried along the way. This is already a tense, fraught cauldron of simmering pressure and interpersonal strife, and then, again, the film introduces the wolves.

 

[Related Reading: 'Project Wolf Hunting' Movie Review]


Joris Jarsky and Damon Runyon fight wolves.

Out Come the Wolves doesn’t do anything particularly surprising or unexpected, and it isn’t the most memorable movie or one we’ll likely talk about much down the line. However, what it delivers in the moment is a taught, effective, woman-versus-nature survival thriller. It’s exciting and harrowing, there’s a decent amount of gnarly, visceral gore, and it harkens back to ‘70s animal attack grindhouse features. (This is the kind of movie where the sound designers insert snarling animal roars in lieu of ATV motors, and it even goes out on a grainy freeze-frame of a character’s aggrieved face.) This doesn’t blow any minds, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do, tell an exciting, engaging story that entertains for about 90 minutes. And sometimes that’s enough.




2 comments:

  1. Hey, sorry to post here, but didn't see a contact link. So, I found myself on Rotten Tomatoes reading reviews of some of my favorite films, especially those that have bad scores, and read your review for Donnybrook. I find it so odd that it git so much hate, I love that fucking movie. I figured maybe we have similar tastes and maybe you'd enjoy my film. It came out last year. Mob Land. Horrible title and cover, but this is the industry we deal with. Not asking for a review (lord knows I don't need a bad one) only thought maybe you'd enjoy. Be well and speak soon. -nm

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  2. Hey, Nicholas, yeah, Donnybrook is fantastic, way better than it's reputation. (I also don't understand why it didn't click with more people than it did, but what the hell do I know?)

    I actually watched Mob Land when it came out last year (I was super slammed at the time, so I wasn't able to review it), and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's definitely not the movie the marketing was trying to sell, but I dig the small town neo-noir and Stephen Dorff doing his kind of Anton Chigurh riff.

    So, anyone else reading this, give Mob Land a watch, it's on Hulu.

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