Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on September 16, 2005, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
One expects the promotion for horror films—or at least slasher films—to be as blatant and explicit as possible to attract mayhem-seeking fans, so it’s kind of odd that the newspaper ads for Cry_Wolf are so soft and indistinct that they make its villain’s blade look like it’s made out of felt. But that’s an apt metaphor for the movie itself, which has an enticing concept but blunts its own impact every step of the way.
There’s a reason for this, actually, and I’m going to have to be very careful about what I discuss here so as not to give away the movie’s last-reel plot revelations. The thing is, a lot of what goes wrong with Cry_Wolf has to do with those twists; this is the kind of film that seems to have been written backwards, starting with its surprise turns and then structured solely to set them up—but without assuring that the movie plays compellingly when viewed starting at the beginning.
The setting is an exclusive prep school where newcomer Owen (Julian Morris) is quickly taken under the wing of Dodger (Lindy Booth), who oversees a “liars club” made up of kids who meet secretly in the middle of the night in the chapel. The game they play there is supposed to be all about manipulation and deception, but all we see is one of the gang being secretly selected as “the wolf” by Dodger, followed by the others making random accusations as to who that person is. It’s understandable that they quickly tire of this sport and decide to undertake something bigger: A young woman has just been killed near campus, and they decide to play the entire campus for suckers by sending out an e-mail positing that a serial killer is now on the loose nearby. They even come up with a specific costume for him—and of course, it’s not long before someone similarly clothed starts skulking around, making the gang very nervous.
If I say no more about the plot from this point, it’s not for the fear of ruining the surprise (the story takes quite a while to get to its point), but because the script by director Jeff Wadlow and producer Beau Bauman becomes disorganized from here. Instead of ratcheting up the tension, and digging deeper into the idea of a select few throwing all their classmates into a state of fear, the ensuing scenes seem random, as if connective tissue is missing, and serve only to drop clues that can be flashed back to later when all is revealed. It’s not that the movie isn’t watchable; Wadlow has a nice way with transitions, and Booth and Morris make a more-than-capable pair of leads. There’s also a neat gimmick of having a scene set among library stacks where the overhead lights are motion-activated. But stalker-film fans may become edgy, wondering when the real mayhem and tension are going to start.
Once they do, and the question of who the menacing figure in the camouflage jacket and orange hunting mask is becomes key, any remotely observant viewer will likely figure out the solution to the mystery long before the filmmakers tip their hand. There are actually a couple of twists, but the second is no less figure-outable than the first. What’s worse is that the final destination of Wadlow and Bauman’s story forces them to undercut the effectiveness of what comes before it, and gorehounds will be disappointed at the lack of splatter in the murder scenes (but then, they’ll probably be forewarned by the PG-13 rating). In the end, the lack of any truly juicy suspense or genuine scares makes the title of Cry_Wolf all too appropriate.
