Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Envision the trailer for this movie voiced over by the late great Don LaFontaine… From the director of ‘I Am Omega’, written by the director of ‘Transmorphers’ and featuring international superstar Jeremy London, star of the smash hit movie ‘The Terminators’ comes the last the last word in the war of the Vampires versus the Lycans…. (wait for it….) ‘Wolvesbayne’! Coming to a home theater near you! All those movies we mentioned sprung from the loins of that wacky little movie studio The Asylum, but not this one though it does feel like an Asylum movie, basically because it was made by a bunch of Asylum alums. It is just beautiful to see some rejects from The Asylum break away and move on to bigger and better things, at least theoretically, and do the damn thing.

London is hard driven asshole real estate developer Russell Bayne who needs to secure just one more property somewhere in L.A. to build his super mega development project. Unfortunately this property is owned by Alex Layton, played by the long time voice of Kim Possible, Christy Carlson Romano, who is all grown up now. Alex isn’t selling but as a pissed off Russell exits her store in a huff, Alex ‘s sixth sense kicks in and she warns the jerk that he is in grave trouble. We call that ‘foreshadowing’ in the business.

Next thing you know, while helping a damsel with a broke down VW, Russell is attacked by a werewolf. Gotta hate it when that happens. You might ask the question, as the movie plays on, why this werewolf shredded this poor woman yet allowed Russell to live so that he can become a werewolf since it seemed as if this were done for a reason, but that question will not be answered so don’t ask it.

In the grand scheme of things, at least in regards to how this movie plays out, Russell becoming a werewolf really doesn’t have a lot do with anything. The movie is actually about a vampire named Von Griem (Marc Dacascos) and his attempts to revive

the first vampire Lilith (Yancy Butler – who was awesome in this movie) and the efforts of The Association (I think) led by Van Helsing (Rhett Giles) to stop this from happening. Russell apparently has access to one of the stones necessary in reviving Lilith, again his being a werewolf really doesn’t apply to this, and Von Griem needs Russell’s info to finish his task. This all leads to a big vampire / lycan / creature hunter showdown at an old movie theater with the fate of humanity lying in the balance.

Though ‘Wolvesbayne’ was better than 90% of the movies that I have seen coming out the studios of The Asylum it was still odd to watch because it felt more like a pilot to something more than an actual free standing movie. The story had so many characters running around and had so many story elements that were introduced it looked like it needed a few more episodes to adequately sort it all out. Chief among these was the title character, I guess, of Russell Bayne. The movie is called ‘Wolvesbayne’ which initially sounds like a movie about a wolf named Bayne but it’s also a plant that is lethal to werewolves, at least in this movies free flowing interpretation. But the movie starts out being about Jason London’s character becoming a werewolf but then this part of the movie gets compressed an awful lot. Baynes acceptance from being a regular asshole to freedom fighting werewolf was Usain Bolt fast and there was also this alleged relationship between Bayne and his muse Alex which was quickly glossed over. By the time we were approaching the conclusion ‘Wolvesbayne’ stopped being a Bayne movie and turned into a Van Helsing movie since Rhett Giles got to do all the hero stuff with Bayne basically just getting in the way. Thus we have the whole ‘pilot’ feel because no doubt in future episodes Bayne would eventually figure this whole wolfman thing out and turn into a badass worthy of having his name in a movie title, but there aren’t any future episodes. At least that I know of.

Still, despite the incomplete sketchy feel of ‘Wolvesbayne’ it wasn’t so bad, all things considered. The cast was a spirited one and seemed to be having fun with the whole thing, particularly Yancy Butler who was at her eyebrow arching best straight chewing up scenery with her Wicked Witch of the West routine. Giles, Dacascos, and even Jason London were treating this small movie like they weren’t going to see a paycheck for a while pumping out plenty of energy and then there was Kim Possible who was shooting folks, slashing people, making out with old dudes and showing a little skin while pushing out as much hotness as eighty five pounds worth woman can put out. Budgetary constraints meant we saw more vampires with inexpensive flaring fangs disappearing into CGI smoke than we see bloodthirsty werewolves, because I suppose werewolves are way more expensive, but whaddayagonnado?

Now if ‘Wolvesbayne’ was some kind of pilot I don’t know if my fragile psyche could withstand watching it in TV show form every week, but if they wanted to make a TV movie every year or so I’d be more than happy to watch that. Make it happen.