Seriously ‘Never Cry Werewolf’? Seriously? Have you no shame? In case you were unaware of the synopsis of this film, don’t worry about it. Just know that it’s ‘Fright Night’ with werewolves. It’s almost criminal how this movie straddles alongside ‘Fright Night’ but here’s the thing… I’ve seen this movie years after its initial release which means I’ve seen it after the more recent remake of ‘Fright Night’ and as it turns out ‘Never Cry Werewolf’ is actually the remake with the higher entertainment value, even though it’s not a remake… but it is.

Jared (Peter Stebbings) has just moved into the neighborhood. He’s moody, wears grungy jeans, and rides a Harley which all screams badass with every step. Next door is hot high schooler Loren (Nina Dobrev) who has caught Jared’s eye. Sure, Jared probably shouldn’t be checking out high school chicks, no matter how cute they might be, but apparently Loren looks just like his little Melissa from a hundred or so years ago when middle aged dudes scoping high school chicks wasn’t only okay, it was actually encouraged.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First Loren has to do a lot of ‘Fright Night’ stuff such as spy on her new neighbor, observe her new neighbor eat a trollop, break into her neighbors house, do a lot of werewolf research, lose a friend or two to her new neighbor, and tell anybody who will listen that her new neighbor is a werewolf which of course makes her sound like a total crackpot, and all other kinds of highly derivative acts. About that werewolf research that little Loren was doing… did you know that if a werewolf rips the skin off of the neck of a hanged criminal, said werewolf can change into a werewolf anytime it wants to? Bet you didn’t know that. I could say you didn’t know that because it’s completely not true and they made it up just for this movie, but since werewolves aren’t real I guess you can pretty much do whatever you want with werewolf mythology I imagine. I think I’ll write a werewolf movie were werewolves can fly. That would be awesome.

So considering that Jared is eating her friends and stuff and will probably kill her bratty little brother (Spencer Van Wyck), Loren has to do something about this, so it’s time to arm up with some silver and fire… because Jared is really, really scared of fire. I mean if you light a match around this alleged badass he’s back pedaling like he’s in an NBA

fight. She also needs some help, like from noted great white hunter Redd Tucker (Kevin Sorbo). But we know he’s a fraud, just like the guy in Fright Night was a fraud, but at this point that’s neither nor there. Just know that Jared, the R. Kelly of Werewolves, is dead set on violating this high school chick no matter what he has to do.

If you like your monster movies hardcore, if you have a special affinity towards ‘Fright Night’, or if middle aged dudes perving on high school chicks make you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this movie, one which I’m told started out life as a Sci-Fi Channel original. If that’s true then this is definitely in the top five of the movies that channel has shown, which of course makes it about average for a regular movie. So pushing aside the derivative nature of this little movie and the uncomfortable love thing going on, ‘Never Cry Werewolf’ isn’t all that bad, truth be told. In fact, the only thing that’s really egregiously wrong with this movie is that it’s a blatant remake of ‘Fright Night’ without giving any credit to ‘Fright Night’.

Nina Dobrev really looked like she was giving it her all in this movie, which is saying something because often we’ve observed these young starlets treat these movies like the throwaway stop gaps they are, until the next job comes along, but girlfriend was all in. And she is cute so I guess if you have to perv on a high school chick, it might as well be her. Peter Stebbings was just fine as the Werewolf, the special effects weren’t gawdawful, and of course there’s the Sorbo Factor. You can’t ever discount the effects of the Sorbo Factor in these movies, unless that movie is named ‘Flesh Wounds’. Not enough Sorbo Factor in the world that could’ve saved that one.

No sir, this movie isn’t nearly as bad as you would think it to be, and in fact I rather enjoyed it. They should just probably give credit where credit is due is all.