Recap #351: Wild Country (2005)
Title: Wild Country (2005)
Summary: On a hike in the Scottish Highlands, a group of teens find an abandoned baby and, in delivering it to safety, cross paths with a bloodthirsty beast.
Tagline: There’s no escape from the beast within.
Initial Thoughts
Welcome to the first half of Snark at the Moon! 2026. Excited to be back with a set of recaps and comments. It’s always a great time, working on a project with bat! And, of course, happy Hunter’s Moon!
I haven’t watched this movie in years, and I can’t wait to give it another try. I remember absolutely loving it the first time I watched it. Hope it holds up all this time later!
[bat: I’ve never seen it, so this will be all new to me!]
Recap
Love the opening credits, very dramatic black and white trees and the camera swirling through them, though it’s abstract enough that it doesn’t trigger my vertigo.
[bat: The opening credit graphics are very cool. Means there’s a little bit of money involved!]
Cold open on Kelly Ann giving birth, and, to be honest, the noises she makes sound pretty horror movie all on their own. God, she looks so young, too.
[bat: Yeah, don’t watch or read the Call the Midwife books or series if you don’t want to know about the horrors of giving birth.]
[Wing: I am 100% fine with learning nothing more about pregnancy and giving birth than the tiny bit I currently know. No thanks, couldn’t be me.]
The baby cries as he’s taken away; Kelly Ann’s not allowed to hold him even once.
Kelly Ann and her, I assume, mother, are awkwardly alone together in Kelly Ann’s hospital room until a priest comes to join them. Immediate thought is that he’s the father, but that’s not the intention of the movie, I don’t think, only me applying real world monstrosity to it.
[bat: HULLO to the Angel Islington, better known as the 12th Doctor, or in reality Peter Capaldi.]
He doesn’t even talk directly to Kelly Ann at first, only asks her mother about her though she’s right there in front of him, but finally does in order to tell her that she made a couple of adults very happy with the boy she birthed, she made a family today, she did the right thing, etc., all that talk around the fact that a baby tore out of her body and she didn’t even get to see him before he was taken away.
(Reminder: I am adopted, and I look at it as the greatest gift my birth mother gave me. However, she chose to give me up for adoption. Kelly Ann very much seems forced into this, and though she’s far too young to be a mother, too much of this is tied up into shame, lack of abortion as an option, familial and church pressure, etc.)
[bat: My maternal grandmother was adopted; my grandmother’s adopted sister’s husband adopted her eldest daughter after they married. Adoption is a wonderful option and if people have the ability to do so, should. But yeah, the forced adoptions bit is bad, because even ‘well intentioned’ things can be bad.]
Kelly Ann tells him to get the hell out, and I adore her.
The baby is crying in the background throughout all of this, haunting the scene, haunting the narrative. I look forward to this coming back later.
[bat: I’m disturbed they had the baby so close that she could hear it. Like, wtaf.]
[Wing: Right? Like, is this punishment? Feels like it might be punishment, and not even necessarily intentional punishment, just that lingering instinct in the back of their minds that they don’t have to worry about how she feels about the entire situation, don’t need to worry about what hearing him might do to her, because she deserves what she gets. Which, honestly, unintentional punishment would be even fucking worse. Like, she’s not even a person to them anymore, in some ways. All she is now is her mistake.]
Kelly Ann’s mom also had her too young, and that’s part of the terrible awkwardness between them.
Six weeks later, Kelly Ann’s sent out on a youth trip with the St. Aidan’s Youth Club. Not sure I’d be ready to go tromping through wilderness six months after giving birth, especially if I still had to pump breast milk, as Kelly Ann is, enough to fill two … bottles? I know zero about this; is she doing this on purpose to keep her milk flowing? Would it have dried up without a baby to feed? Without feeding a baby, would it be normal to still be producing breast milk six weeks on?
I have so many questions. Am I going to look these up? Nope!
[bat: I would guess she’s doing this on purpose. As to why, we’ll find out!]
In the background, the news drones on about Scotland’s high rate of teen pregnancy and how it is tied to lack of education and a high level of social inequality. “The girls from poor areas have little incentive not to use birth control.” Oooooohkaaaaaaaay?
Which then switches over to a report about human remains being found in a ravine near Loch Ness. NESSIE! [bat: I would like to see Nessie roaming about in the woods of Scotland, for sure!] [Wing: Why doesn’t that movie exist? (If it does, no matter how rare and/or terrible, I trust bat to find it for us to recap.]
Though more likely, our first werewolf bit, and I am here for it.
Oh, wait, someone is coming around to pick up the bottles of breast milk. Is she — providing milk to the adopted parents? That seems like it’s asking a whole damn lot of her. Or that it’s been shoehorned into the story to give her a reason to still be producing milk when she needs to feed a werewolf baby in the not so distant future for plot purposes.
[bat: Werewolf wet nurse, ahoy?]
Looks like yes, she’s supplying them — or at least someone — with milk because they pay her for it. This poor kid.
Enter Louise, blonde and mouthy. I like her already.
Ah, we’re back with the priest from before, Father Steve, along with a couple boys. David, who is yawning and maybe spends all his time getting high, and Mark, who Louise calls their wee, cute mascot. He’s real grumpy about that.
Did I mention I already adore her? Because I do.
The countryside is very pretty, dotted with cows and other farm animals, lots of green, trees and grass and moss. Good thing it’s so pretty, because damn, this is an awkward drive inside the van.
[bat: I laugh because it looks like they’re driving through Tillamook.]
Father Steve tells us this is Sawney Bean country, which I have no idea what he means. Good thing the teens don’t react either, so he’s going to tell us the story, which is apparently of the Scottish Cannibal. Okay, Father Steve, you’re redeeming yourself a bit here, telling horror stories.
Basically, Sawney Bean the Cannibal used to live up in the hills with his wife and 14 children and 30 grandchildren — an inbred cannibal clan, if you will. They’d ambush travelers, drag them back to the cave, and eat them. Pickle the bodies of some to get them through winter.
[bat: What’s the equivalent of banjos… out of tune bagpipes? Should we be hearing horror bagpipes?] [Wing: Horror. Fucking. Bagpipes. I need this to be a thing.]
Years and years go by before one of Sawney’s victim’s escaped and led the king’s army back to the cave. Sawney and His Cannibal Clan (name of my new rock band) were dragged to Edinburgh and burned alive.
Never one to pass up nicely cooked meat, Sawney gnawed his own flesh while the flames cooked him.
Of course, rumors continue, and people say that some of his grandchildren escaped and to this day, locals have the blood of Sawney Bean the Cannibal running in their veins.
Adore this story. A++ for content, Father, but only a C for your storytelling itself.
Until he starts evil laughing at them and forces someone out to open the gate. Ridiculous jump scare, but teasing Mark about having to get out and deal with the gate, including pretending to drive away, did make me smile.
[bat: It was cute.]
The kids layer up in waterproofs, given maps, and sent off on their own to wander overnight to Blane Home Farm, which is allegedly an excellent bed and breakfast. I assume Father Steve will be staying there while the kids rough it.
[bat: I dunno, I’m sure this was a thing for many years, might still be, but I would be screwed. I can barely read a map and I cannot work a compass for the life of me (unless it’s the one on my phone) and while this is “sheep-shagging” country and not the moorland, I would still be more than a little upset. I am not an outdoor bat. I NEED MODERN CONVENIENCE.]
[Wing: The best indoor bat I know. I would have been okay at their age; I used maps regularly, and really enjoyed tramping around rural areas. Might still be okay with the map now. I did just buy a current road atlas before my last road trip, and though I didn’t have to use it, I could have, and that was a nice backup to have. (It’s very cool, it has both the regular road atlas state and city maps but also national park maps.)]
You know, with all the talk of teen pregnancies, and Kelly Ann having, you know, so recently given birth, I’m not sure sending four teens off into the wilderness alone is the best way to try to avoid teen pregnancy, especially something sponsored by the church.
Oh shit, and we have a surprise fifth person: Lee, who is, apparently, Kelly Ann’s baby daddy.
[bat: Surprise, surprise. David set this up?] [Wing: I assume yes. Guess he can’t be without his bro overnight or something. Or possibly Lee wants to talk to Kelly Ann and knows better than to try to do something with Father Steve around.]
Louise tries to calm Kelly Ann down when she, understandably, storms away, but in the end, Lee runs after her and they have it out. He thinks she’s been avoiding him, she snaps at him for not coming to see her even once during her pregnancy, he claims that’s the way she wanted it, Father Steve told him so — and there it is.
Father Steve told Lee that she wanted to give up the baby and didn’t want to talk about it with Lee — or talk to Lee at all, I guess.
I hope someone eats your face, Father Steve.
Lee doesn’t stop while he’s — well, already behind, but less behind — and keeps babbling about how he was pissed off at first but now he gets it, the baby’s in good hands and that’s all that matters.
My beloved Kelly Ann kicks him straight in the balls. I adore her.
The others finally catch up to them, Louise keeps Kelly Ann from further kicking his ass (he’s not worth it, she says, and she’s not wrong, but also, give him at least one more kick in the balls, please).
(It’s fucked up that he doesn’t have to deal with all of the bullshit Kelly Ann does, though he was just as involved in creating the pregnancy. And he just took Father Steve at his word and didn’t even try to talk to Kelly Ann? What the actual fuck. I hope someone eats your face, too.)
They’re distracted by a strange animal cry and then, in the distance, something that Kelly Ann thinks is a baby crying.
(Though the closed caption gives it away as sheep bleating before the kids figure it out.)
Sheeeeeeeeeps. They’re both terrifying and adorable.
[bat: Sheep can be woolly arseholes and absolutely not the sweet and slightly stupid critters you see depicted. Ask me how I know how.] [Wing: You can’t tease us like that! There’s clearly a story, and we clearly need to know!]
The shepherd goes creepy past them, checks on Lee (“he tripped” they claim, and he wheezes out that he’s never been better; again, I laughed). Shepherd continues to creep at them, tells them he knows lots of places, and then warns them to clean up after themselves.
Shepherd is wearing a coat with wild sheepskin around the collar and over the shoulders. If this isn’t an intentional wolf in sheep’s clothing red herring, they’ve really missed a trick. I’m going to assume it’s intentional.
[bat: I applaud the visual foreshadowing.]
Lee gets all mouthy with him — though not until he’s walked away — and David brings back Sawney Bean the Cannibal, because Shepherd just might have two dozen cannibal cousins in a ten mile radius.
(Now we have horses! Love a horses!)
Meanwhile, Father Steve Who Needs to Have His Face Eaten arrives at the bed and breakfast, where he promptly finds dead birds in a bucket outside one of the windows.
[bat: I opened the front door and found one last week. Had to bury it in the side yard. And that was after I found the dead bird the farm cats stashed back in July. Good times *sarcasm*. I have become used to finding dead critters. Not something I ever thought would be a part of my life.] [Wing: My partner, Ostrich, keeps having to deal with dead birds who fly straight into our living room windows. We’ve never had it happen any of the places we’ve lived together, and it only started happening here a few months ago. Live, birds! Live and watch where you’re going!]
(Speaking of B&Bs, we’ve been traveling a lot and Ostrich has a new complaint, that AirBNB should only be AirB because there sure as hell isn’t any breakfast provided.
He’s not wrong, but also, we don’t even use AirBNB, which makes me laugh every time he complains.)
[bat: My friend stayed at an AirBNB here and there was NO breakfast. It was decidedly BYOB. Ostrich is right.] [Wing: Oh god, don’t encourage him. (Yes, I realize I could make sure that didn’t happen by simply not telling him about this, but I will tell him and then deal with his gloating.)]
New character, the delightful cute Missy Graham, who has gorgeous red hair and a fun hair pin in the back. We don’t get to see her for very long at all, which makes me sad. Probably be dead soon, too.
Back to the kids, who are putting up their tents. The girls have very competently gotten their tent up. The boys are struggling. Good.
They’re camping near some ruins. Do I know of what? NOPE. Looks like a fun, creepy place to camp, though.
Kelly Ann continues to be deeply unhappy that Lee joined them, especially when he gets out the alcohol. Which she turns down, and I’d guess for a mix of she’s selling her breast milk and maybe doesn’t want alcohol in it, but also, fuck Lee being there. I wouldn’t blame her one bit if she didn’t want to drink a damn thing around him. Fucker.
Louise calls Lee on his bullshit after Kelly Ann heads off on her own to find a spot to piss. Shout at him some more, please.
When she’s done, branches start crackling, the bushes rustle, and suddenly creepy ass Shepherd is there and Kelly Ann screams enough to get the others to come running. Lee is the fastest and drives him off, then tries to settle Kelly Ann, who only accepts that comfort for a second. Don’t blame her for that, either.
Meanwhile, creepy as Shepherd runs off across the fields under the dim moonlight. When he finally comes to a stop, he bends over, hands on knees, panting and laughing, and for a moment looks like he could be the werewolf, of course. It’s a lovely little shot.
Until the snarling and the running and the screaming and the delightfully gushing blood.
[bat: Ooooh! Well, that’s what you get wearing for sheepskin and wandering round like a bipedal sheep.]
Louise is worried about camping where they’re set up, worried that creepy ass Shepherd will come back. Don’t worry, honey, he has bigger (bloodier) things to worry about now.
(YES. First asshole getting his face eaten! Hope there are many more to come.)
They know they can’t make it the next eight miles, though, and then they talk back and forth about whether he’ll come back (with or without his inbred cannibal cousins), whether they should let some “sad old pervert” chase them away (thanks, Kelly Ann).
They decide to go ahead and camp there, while Lee and David will take turns at watch.
Lee’s up first, and he and Kelly Ann have a private moment. She apologies for kicking him the balls, which, girl, don’t do that. While they’re joking around a little, they see Louise switch tents and climb in with David, who promptly kicks Mark out of the tent, fully tangled in his sleeping bag.
Lee actually dares to try to kiss Kelly Ann. She threatens him with another boot in the balls. Read the fucking room (or field), Lee, goddamn.
Again, she hears a baby crying, though Lee doesn’t seem to hear anything.
She flat takes off on her own, straight to the ruins, and sure as shit, she finds a baby among the stones.
(Lee follows her, the entire way telling her that he won’t follow her.)
Whoever did the folio work for this did an excellent job with the crunching footsteps on crumbling stone. I adore that sound.
Lee’s biggest contribution is that the area smells and to do a jump scare when a sheep appears out of the darkness and escapes up the stairs.
[bat: Your chances of being killed by a sheep are never zero.] [Wing: We should recap Black Sheep.]
The crying little baby lies in a bed of furs and is surrounded by a charnel house, blood and broken bones and gristle everywhere.
Including people, as Kelly Ann and Lee find when Kelly Ann climbs down to get the baby. It is creepy Shepherd (I’m pretty sure), which means the werewolf that killed him was here not too long ago.
Baby werewolf quickly bonds with Kelly Ann, probably because she’s holding him and also smells like milk and he’s hungry.
(I mean, is that actually a spoiler? It seems pretty clear that a living baby in a bed of furs in the middle of a charnel house must also be a werewolf and not a stolen human baby, but perhaps I’m wrong.)
[bat: Maternal instinct is strong. I would be hard pressed to pick up a random baby lying in the middle of an obvious crime scene but my maternal instinct is wonky.]
[Wing: Same. Ostrich would be right there carrying him to safety, though.]
They don’t even make it out of the ruins before we the viewers get to see the return of a werewolf who is about to get real grumpy real fast.
Back at camp, Mark, who is still sleeping outside, wakes up to the sound of Lee’s footsteps pounding toward him. His eyes do a fun little flash that based on what I know about the rest of the movie is unintentional, but I do like it.
Lee frantically tries to get everyone moving by shouting this at Mark: Get up, wee man. We need to go. There’s a fucking head up there!
Which made me fucking cackle. What a thing to wake up to, clear as mud, etc. And so goddamn dramatic, I adore it.
I suppose you can live a few minutes more, Lee, just for making me laugh so hard.
And then. AND THEN. Mark comes in with: Where did you get a baby?
I am once again cackling. Though, I mean, valid question.
Oh shit, Lee gets even better the second time around. He tears into the tent where Louise and David are together and makes demands of them, too: Listen, we have to get out of here. The sheep-shagger’s head’s up at the castle. The sheep-shagging pervert, his head’s up at the castle, cut off!
[bat: I wondered, since this is a mixed camping trip, if this would happen. Are they encouraging this behavior to adopt more children out to “good Catholic families”?]
[Wing: I … had not thought about that reasoning, just assumed the adults were being useless and absent. That is terrifyingly possible, I suppose.]
Damn, this kid knows how to bring the drama. I cannot stop laughing and love everything about this.
AND THEN. Totally chill and no longer dramatic: And Kelly Ann found a baby.
OH MY GOD I CANNOT. Okay, I hope you survive at least another 10 minutes, Lee, you’re cracking me up.
While the others are freaking out — mostly because they assume Lee is taking the piss — Kelly Ann hides herself in the girls’ tent to feed the baby because he’s hungry.
While she sits there silently crying.
Because they took away her baby.
FATHER FUCKING STEVE, I HOPE A WEREWOLF TEARS OFF YOUR HEAD AND HIDES IT IN THE MURDER CASTLE.
Despite, you know, the blood and death in the ruins, Kelly Ann is determined to feed the baby, who, to her dismay, has at least one tooth and so breast feeding him is a little more painful than she expects.
(Love this minor detail sort of tossed out as if it is unimportant, and yet. And yet.)
They pack up (somewhat) quickly, and Louise takes a moment to coo over the wee baby and marvel that a mother would leave their baby out there to die when they could have put it up for adoption.
Well damn, Louise, don’t walk yourself down that path of being awful to Kelly Ann.
[bat: Firstly, Louise, they didn’t abandon the baby. It was in a makeshift cradle, in the werewolf den. By that logic, KELLY ANN STOLE IT. Well intentioned or not, she fucking stole the werewolf baby. So yeah. I realize Louise doesn’t get there’s werewolves afoot, but c’mon.]
None of them have a working phone [bat: ODD, since we saw David with one earlier.] [Wing: To be fair, the movie actually addresses this, which surprised me. David’s phone is dead, believable, I guess, and Lee dropped his while he was panicking in the murder castle. Still, mighty convenient.], so they have to set out in the dark to make it the rest of the way to the B&B so they can get the baby to safety and call the police. Which, fair enough, but you sure weren’t willing to make the rest of the trek in the dark when creepy Shepherd pulled his shit.
Often I complain about things being too dark, but I love this dramatic shot of mostly darkness, just a hint of the grass, and then their flashlights so small and vulnerable in that vast night.
[bat: I am impressed with how they are handling the “darkness” in this. Usually you can’t see for shit or it’s obviously lit to look “dark” when it’s clearly not.]
Even better when something makes a terrible noise behind them.
And Mark has disappeared. He was just right behind them, don’t you know.
[bat: Start with the wee one!]
They, understandably, assume he’s just fucking with them, because that’s the vibe of this group.
Then David sees his torch on the ground, and when they all rush over to check, they find it surrounded by bloody foliage and wrapped in guts. Delightful.
What’s left of him is dragged into the bushes and, to their credit, when they take off running, it is after him and not away from the danger.
Of course, they find a lot more blood and death, so that’ll learn them.
Louise (understandably!) loses her shit and Kelly Ann — who, remember, is still hauling around a baby — is the one who has to try to calm her down.
Louise screams, everyone shouts, the baby sobs, and apparently Mark is David’s brother? I did not catch that earlier (or remember it from last time I watched this).
[bat: Apparently real life brothers? Same surname, so maybe? One has more acting credits than the other, but the other is more known? Dead-ended between wiki and IMDb, so it’s a best guess.]
They don’t have time to mourn for long because lo, in the trees, a snarling beast with bright, shining eyes comes for them.
[bat: Hullo doggo! We have your wee bairn!]
They flee into the darkness, it gives chase, there’s some unfortunate shaky cam. Kelly Ann is the first to fall over, but the guys get her back to her feet and all of them intentionally hold perfectly still.
I … am not sure why they think this will work. Not like it’s a t-rex, Dr. Grant.
Nor am I sure why it seems to work. [bat: PLOT SAYS SO.] [Wing: Adding a tag!] The werewolf runs past them, despite the noise and the lights and, you know, the smell of the fucking baby all over a couple of them.
Lee tries to be logical about everyone staying together, no one gets left behind. David cares much more about what the fuck the thing that killed his brother is, which is fair. I’m still over here wondering why the actual fuck the werewolf hasn’t attacked them again.
[bat: Maybe because they have the baby and it’s still living, so the were is seeing what their endgame is?]
Louise argues with the boys about what it could be, whether it is maybe something from a zoo or a safari park. They didn’t get a good look at it, maybe it’s a lion. Again, fair. [bat: Are there bloody safari parks in Glasgow? I genuinely don’t know.]
[Wing: I can’t decide if I hope yes, because I want to go to it now, or hope no, because that’d be fucking hilarious. Louise: Maybe it escaped from a safari park! From another country! Across water! It was determined!]
Though, for people who were losing their shit about thirty seconds ago, this is far too calm a conversation. (And again, WHERE THE FUCK DID THE WEREWOLF GO?! Why isn’t it eating their faces?! Or dismembering them and taking their heads back to the castle, whatever.)
Lots of shaky cam, heavy breathing walking in the dark. Boo.
Louise is very confused about why the baby was in the murder castle. [bat: NOW you ask questions??] Lee suggests that the beast was saving it for later, which again made me cackle. [bat: Clearly monsters can’t be parents?? YOU entered THEIR den, you know.]
Of course, this only makes Kelly Ann more determined to protect the wee boy. She’s pretty sure his parents are back in that pile of bones in the murder castle. [bat: …yeah.]
Louise asks if the beast is still following them. I have the same damn question, Louise, though I suspect for a different reason.
David thinks it has stopped following them.
Why? Why do you think that? Are you only trying to reassure Louise? Which, fine, cool, but also, WHY ISN’T THE WEREWOLF ATTACKING YOU? You’re not a threat to it, even with having the baby. This feels very forced to fit what the creators want rather than a logical extension of the plot.
[bat: The baby has become the mcguffin. It’s the Maltese falcon at this point.]
Meanwhile, my girl Kelly Ann is certain it is still following them. Which, yes, cool, but also, WHY ISN’T IT — you know what I’m about to say.
[bat: I’d guess it’s still topped off by the pervert shepherd. And Mark.]
[Wing: But it’s not hunting them because it’s hungry, it’s hunting them because they stole the werewolf baby! BE MORE LOGICALLY CONSISTENT, MOVIE.]
Kelly Ann has to stop a moment to readjust the baby, who is slipping, and as soon as they get ready to move again, we get a flapping bird jump scare that terrifies Louise enough she falls down a small incline and lies moaning at the bottom while the others shout down at her rather than, you know, going to check on her.
And when I say slight incline, I mean slight. It’s not even big enough to be called a hill. A dip in the land at best.
Though apparently it was enough that she’s done some serious damage to her shoulder, fuck.
So the way they’re acting, it’s a much deeper slope than it appears, so maybe I just have no perception skills here. Which is valid, because when David goes down to help her, he appears to be at quite an angle.
The werewolf appears along the top of the incline farther away, and here it does look like a solid drop, so apparently the darkness and camera angles are fucking with my sense of perception. Not a surprise.
Lee and Kelly Ann scream at David to hurry. He’s still only partway down the incline that may or may not actually be steep, so shouting at him isn’t doing much good.
They try instead to scare off the beast, shouting and throwing stones, which is very brave but also, of course, fails.
Poor Louise is stuck watching it come for them. She finally starts actually trying to get up. I know she must be in a shit ton of pain with that shoulder, but there is a monster! Hunting you! It killed your companion! Maybe embrace that pain and move!
Or stop screaming, tell your friends to run, and use your death as a distraction while you try to gouge out its eyes or something, come on.
Kelly Ann orders Lee to go down and help David and Louise. He doesn’t want to leave her and the baby alone (UNLIKE LAST TIME, HUH, LEE) but does listen to her and head down to try to help when Kelly Ann reassures him that she and the baby are safe up there.
Girl. The werewolf was literally just on the same level as you like a minute ago. YOU’RE NOT SAFE.
Louise does not make it off the ground but can only sit there, cry, and watch it come.
And pray when it reaches her. This poor girl.
We don’t get to see much of the werewolf SFX, which is probably good, because what we do see isn’t great. (Not the worst, either, though, not by far.) Still, Louise is mostly in shadow with just a bit of light on her face, the werewolf comes slowly snarling out of the darkness, it’s a lovely (if a bit difficult to see) horror moment.
[bat: It’s the same SFx people who did Dog Soldiers (2002) but maybe budget constraints? Oh well. We’ve seen a lot worse.]
[Wing: We have definitely seen worse. I saw something somewhere that said the design here was inspired by American Werewolf in London, which I can vaguely see.]
I’m pretty sure David has been climbing down this incline for an hour now, good lord, what is taking so long? Lee’s going to beat you, and he only just started making his way down.
Holy shit, I was exaggerating, but Lee and David do make it to the bottom at the same goddamn time, what in the actual fuck where you doing up there, David?!
And then. AND THEN. Louise orders them back because it isn’t attacking her, it’s gone after Kelly Ann instead.
I TOLD YOU THAT YOU WEREN’T SAFE UP THERE, KELLY ANN!
Kelly Ann watches it coming for her for far too long while everyone else screams at her to run and the baby cries. My girl does not run, though, she attacks the werewolf with flames and knocks it back down the hill.
Where it promptly kills Louise, excellent work there, Kelly Ann, WTF.
(Every time I watch this, I hope for more fire from that clever thing she tries. Set it on fire!)
Kelly Ann blames herself, the boys fight over whether they can escape, whether the animal is actually clever, etc.
Then Kelly Ann decides they need to kill it first. With their single small knife against its claws and fangs. Or they could sharpen sticks, make spears. They could go back to the castle where it lives, get out of the open, find a place they can defend.
And maybe get lucky and kill it.
Not the worst plan (…ish), but could you now have thought about this before approximately half of your crew was brutally killed?
They get back to the castle in much faster time than they did leaving it, and the werewolf doesn’t attack them at all. Possibly it’s afraid of them now, but considering it immediately killed Louise after Kelly Ann hurt it, I am skeptical.
I love this movie, but the werewolf not attacking them with multiple opportunities is getting to me. It’s so forced! Figure out a better way to make the plot work if you don’t want them to be dead yet! Don’t just have the werewolf fuck off for random amounts of time, ho hum, nothing major happening here, certainly those vulnerable humans didn’t steal my werewolf baby or anything.
It doesn’t even come across that it’s playing with them, not like it sort of felt when it was killing creepy Shepherd. I wouldn’t really believe it was playing with its prey while the stolen baby was involved, anyway, but at least try, writers!
[bat: Another great concept lacking in execution. I have theories but I’m holding onto them until the end.]
David reluctantly joins Kelly Ann and Lee inside the murder castle. I don’t know, David, you might be better off staying away from them, considering the track record of your brother and your girlfriend (…ish) dying, all to get to Kelly Ann. And they know it’s after Kelly Ann; that’s part of the argument that it’s clever, it used Louise to draw the two boys away from Kelly Ann and the baby so it could go after them.
Their sticks sharpened into spears really do look like ridiculous weapons here. Also, instead of, you know, going up into the murder castle and finding a spot that is defensible, they go down into the charnel house lair again, because sure, why not, big open, dark space, totally safe.
The only thing it has going for it is that it already smells look blood and shit.
And now piss, as the boys mark their territory? Or, as they say, show it who’s boss. Yeah, I bet that works well, you fools.
[bat: Men. *sigh*.]
Kelly Ann is as unimpressed as I am and finally starts climbing up the tower. The stairs are narrow, steep, and spiraling, which is a pretty defensible position, at least theoretically. They could definitely do with some better weapons, though. And, to be fair, who knows what lurks above them.
Eventually, they settle in the tower in the dark, and then all they can do is wait.
And apparently sleep, because the next day dawns with all three of them alive, the boys asleep, and Kelly Ann feeding the baby.
[bat: I do love that David points out not everyone survived the night. How the fuck are they going to explain the deaths of their friends, assuming they also survive, when they are to meet the priest at the collection point? Will the bodies still be where they dropped? Or did the werewolf move them into the charnel den? Wouldn’t they have heard that? Or did the werewolf just eat them during the night? And Kelly Ann has another baby. A stolen baby. Yeah, I wanna know how they’re going to explain this to authorities.]
[Wing: I love that your brain immediately went there. It comes up later, briefly, and you have set it up perfectly here.]
Unfortunately, the werewolf is definitely still waiting for them, lurking outside. While they watch it in return, Kelly Ann sees how loose the stones are in the window and comes up with a way to kill it.
We get some unfortunate first person shaky cam werewolf vision when it returns to the charnel house part of the murder castle, which you know is my favorite thing ever. We also get a better view of the werewolf SFX, which still aren’t the best, but I’ve also definitely seen worse. It’s not too bad at all for low-budget werewolf horror, and there is some good color work and fang placement.
[bat: In the long shot, all I could think was ‘GMORK?’ but the closeup… well, it’s not bad. We’ve decidedly seen worse. The worn away fur and bare skin on the face is pretty original. The teeth/fangs are cool. But yeah. B+ effort here.]
Kelly Ann’s great plan is to go down into the charnel house part of the murder castle armed with her pointy stick and … shout at it?
Kelly Ann. Kelly Ann, Kelly Ann, Kelly Ann. What are you doing.
She taunts the werewolf then turns and runs up the twisty stairs, because certainly she can outrun a werewolf. Up steep, crumbly, twisting stairs.
[bat: You are LITERALLY STEALING A BABY, Kelly Ann.]
…though to be fair, maybe she has a reason to think she can outrun it. After all, they keep managing to escape it because of Reasons, I guess.
Unsurprisingly, she falls on the stairs, she and the werewolf fight over her pointy stick, and the boys throw big rocks down onto the werewolf until it disappears into stone and dust and moans of pain.
To their credit, they do rush down to check on Kelly Ann as soon as that’s done, carrying their own pointy sticks, and Lee also goes to see if they’ve actually managed to kill the werewolf. (Which they don’t know is a werewolf, just to be clear, because I refuse to not call it a werewolf.)
David goes down as well, but much more reluctantly.
The poor werewolf is still alive, nearly crushed under the rocks, and the boys then beat it to death with (slightly) pointy sticks and their own feet.
Which is kind of heartbreaking, if you know the truth, which is that they stole its baby and the beast is only trying to get it back. Of course it killed their friends, THEY STOLE THE BABY.
[bat: Which I’ve been screaming for how long now? Sorry if I spoiled that but it was so damn obvious. To me, at least. There’s probably someone out there who wouldn’t imagine that right off the bat.]
[Wing: Yeah, I don’t actually know how people reacted to this when it first came out. I should look into whether people were talking about whether it was obvious or actually came as a twist to them.]
Of course, in their minds, they rescued a human baby from being eaten by the same monster that must have killed and dismembered his parents and then that monster went on to kill people they cared about, so of course they have all this rage.
Nice storytelling for rewatchability (or if you figure out that twist ahead of time).
And to again give them credit, they don’t celebrate the monster’s death. It is very clearly vengeance for Louise and Mark, and they are just as clearly deeply mourning their people, especially David, who looks not triumphant but gutted.
[bat: I’ll give them that. Them and their ‘best intentions’ paved the road to hell here.]
Unfortunately, their success is short lived because almost immediately, another werewolf comes into the charnel house part of murder castle. The SFX on this one, or at least this one from the side, reminds me more of feral hog than wolf, but honestly, that would still be terrifying.
It leaps basically straight past Kelly Ann, who has the baby, and Lee, who was also a part of killing the first werewolf, to immediately tear out David’s throat, sending blood gushing. [bat: That random last gush made me laugh.] Seems very convenient. Even if this one cares more about avenging its mate at the moment, and so is willing to ignore Kelly Ann and the baby, Lee was right there! Closer than David!
Anyway, Kelly Ann and Lee hoof it out of the murder castle, leaving David still alive as the beast mauls him and then the beast mourning the dead werewolf. Which is fucking heartbreaking.
Nice top-down visual of the dead werewolf, the mourning living werewolf, and David and his blood splattered all around him.
However, from the top down, this werewolf looks more like a bear than a wild hog or a wolf. It’s like a rorschach test! [bat: Are we sure it’s not a YETI?] [Wing: For those who haven’t watched it, La Furia Del Hombre Lobo, which we’ve previously recapped for Snark!, involved a yeti attack turning a man into a werewolf. Yeah.]
Recap #315: La Furia Del Hombre Lobo/Fury of the Wolfman (1972)
More first person werewolf vision, how I love you. Or, no, the opposite of that.
In daylight, these fields sure do look flatter and more open, filled with far fewer things to trip over and, oh right, slight inclines to steep hills to fall down, depending on which angle you see in that scene where Louise dies.
They know they can’t outrun the beast and scramble up into a tree instead. Lee helps Kelly Ann first (who is, I remind you, still carrying around the baby strapped to her chest) and only barely makes it up onto a branch ahead of the werewolf’s snapping maw.
Lee sits in the middle of a branch, not near the trunk at all, and, at least from the angle of the camera, not all that high above the fairly large werewolf.
Which he promptly starts taunting. [bat: Wanker.]
He may have redeemed himself a little over the past night, but that branch either needs to break out from under him or the werewolf needs to be large enough to grab his dangling legs. (And honestly, again from this angle, it looks like the werewolf could easily do just that, but we’ll see.)
Kelly Ann tells him to stop taunting it so it might go away, which is interesting logic. Even if she thinks this one is clever enough to know when he is making fun of it, which she might, she also knows that the last one was clever enough to trick the others away from her and the babe so it could attack them. She still has the babe. Ergo, even if this one does know when Lee mocks it and when he stops, this one isn’t going anywhere.
Sure enough, it does not go anywhere.
Kelly Ann and Lee talk about the baby who has no name, what his name should be (Jack), and then, finally, about their baby. It’s awkward and a little painful, Kelly Ann admits she did want to see him while she was pregnant, Father Steve lied to him, and though Lee admits he wouldn’t have been a good dad, which they both know, he promises her that she would have been a good mom.
She wishes she would have kept the baby, and while I continue to think she is far too young to have a child of her own, it should have been her choice, Father Steve, Kelly Ann’s mother, and everyone else who pressured this poor girl.
Father Steve, you in particular are an absolute shit.
I suppose this isn’t the worst time to finally have this conversation, since they clearly aren’t going anywhere other than this tree with a beast waiting on them to fall, and oh, also, a baby they stole rescued, but it’s also kind of an odd time to finally have this conversation.
[bat: At least they had it, considering they might die.]
[Wing: You know what, fair. When you’ve watched everyone around you die, perspective changes, I suppose.]
Lo, the werewolf is walking away.
Kelly Ann thinks they should stay in the tree awhile longer, but then Lee hears an engine and assumes the noise scared away the beast. Unfortunately for him, it did not, and he and the beast play ring around the tree for awhile, until Lee decides to sacrifice himself for Kelly Ann and goes tearing away from the tree.
And the werewolf chases him!
Is this one still set on vengeance more than the baby? From the point of view of them actually rescuing a human child, it sort of make sense that the beasts would go after whatever human was closest and/or the most vulnerable, and for this one in particular, it could make sense that it is much more interested in vengeance now than food.
HOWEVER. On rewatch (or if you figure it out sooner), why the actual fuck does the werewolf not stay focused on Kelly Ann and the baby? Is this a one werewolf cares about the baby and one cares more about its mate? I have so many werewolf lore questions in general, as I always do, but this, again, feels less like werewolf lore and more like forcing action against logic just to fit the plot (or at least this pre-twist plot). As with the first werewolf not attacking them nearly as often as it could, I find this very frustrating.
[bat: Again, I have ideas but I’m waiting till the end to see if my theory is correct.]
Kelly Ann lingers awhile listening to Lee scream before finally running away, past a calm herd of sheep and through a copse of trees that involves far more shaky cam than I can handle, so I may have missed something here. Mostly I hear baby crying, rarely what sounds like a beast noise in the background, and more delightful crunching footsteps folio work.
When I glanced over to check at one point, it looked just like we were back in werewolf vision, and I expected the beast to be right there, but nope.
Kelly Ann follows the sound of an engine but ends up stuck at the base of … a wall? Another randomly tall slope? Too much shaky cam even when she stands still, having trouble actually looking at this part.
The baby cries, she cries, the werewolf appears at the top of the wall/hill/whatever that was, which sends her running around the side of the wall/hill/whatever it was, and then up another kill and through some bushes.
She falls, runs some more, I am very tired of her running through all these different fields.
[bat: Welcome to Scotland!]
[Wing: LOL. It’s less about the number of fields and more about the amount of running time being padded by running across them, but fair point.]
She falls again, the werewolf appears to be gone, there are furry cows and fog descending, and then she sees someone on a four wheeler. She babbles at him about finding a head and something chasing her, he goes to see what’s upset his cows, finds a dead cow and is more worried about it dying from foot and mouth or mad cow disease than whatever this weird girl carrying a baby is shouting at him.
Which, fair, can’t really blame him about that.
My actually issue with this scene is, when the fuck did the werewolf have time to kill this cow? Did it kill it last night and just leave it there rather than dragging it back to its den in murder castle? Did it just decide to fuck off for a second and kill a cow rather than killing the very vulnerable and slow human with its baby?
Someone has lost the plot, and it sure as shit isn’t me.
The cow’s body starts twitching and tearing and a beast explodes out of and kills the man.
What. [bat: Ew.]
Though, the gory SFX here are pretty fun, half his waist torn away, blood and guts, and then the cow also torn open with blood and guts. I can get behind this chaotic mess.
What I can’t get behind is what the actual fuck this werewolf is doing. SHE IS RIGHT THERE! WITH YOUR BABY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
Kelly Ann screams, the baby cries, the werewolf slowly ambles toward them despite its normal speed, and Kelly Ann manages to escape on the four wheeler, because of course she does. And the werewolf does nothing. NOTHING.
I need a moment.
Fucking hell, what are you even doing, werewolf?!?!?!?!
Okay, a bit of shouting, a little deep breathing, and I’m back.
[bat: The fact this movie is roughly, what, 75 mins? And they still couldn’t make a coherent (enough) storyline out of a cool concept? I dunno. I’m glad it’s short; I tend to pick ridiculously long films so that was a refreshing change. Yet, still, a film this short should have a fully formed and tight storyline. This doesn’t, not exactly.]
Just in time to rejoin Kelly Ann as she makes it to the B&B, with the baby strapped to her chest and looking more like a duffle bag than a baby at this point.
Oh fucking hell, hot B&B host fucked Father Steve without knowing he was a Father. Steve, you are a fucking asshole, and I continue to hope a werewolf eats your face.
[bat: I was gonna say she probably has a priest fetish or something but no, she really didn’t know. She’s not remotely broken up about it, either. Like, wouldn’t the booking info state he was a priest? He totally lied, you just know he did. He was wearing civilian clothing instead of his vestments, which I’m not sure is allowed? Maybe now it is. I know roughly zero about this. STILL. I didn’t need to see his bare ass, though I’m glad it was a man forced to be caught bare arsed and not a woman, there was a surprising lack of nudity in this, and I’m pleased.]
[Wing: The surprising lack of nudity is a good point!]
Hot B&B host calls the police and gives Kelly Ann space to get cleaned up. She tries to take the baby, but Kelly Ann refuses to give him up. Even without the whole baby ripped away from her only a few short weeks before she came on this trip, I wouldn’t blame her for keeping the baby nearby after she lost all those people while trying to protect it.
Father Steve creepily comes into the room where she’s supposed to be cleaning up, and I hate him. Someone eat his face soon, please and thank you. I might even forgive some of the plot weirdness for that.
[bat: Peter Capaldi does creepy weird well.]
He wants to talk to Kelly Ann before the police get there in case there’s anything she wants to tell him.
Like she killed all her friends so she could kidnap a baby? The fuck are you talking about, ass?
Oh, no, actually he thinks they’re all in on it with her because birth mothers be crazy and he should have been more vigilant and seriously SOMEONE EAT HIS FACE. Where’s an inbred cannibal cousin when you need one?!
[bat: Would he have made this argument if the child had been a girl? The fact it’s a boy, he thinks she stole it back? Lord. Also, who the fuck allows a priest to dump four teenagers in the wilderness overnight?]
He creepily strokes her hair, accuses her of stealing a child, and demands to know how she thinks his mother feels, what with having her child stolen away.
You know, exactly what he did to Kelly Ann, and my girl fully calls him on that. My girl! I love you.
Oh shit, also, we get this delightful bit from Kelly Ann: I can smell her all over you. Her in the kitchen. You reek of her.
KELLY ANN THE FUCKING WEREWOLF COME ON AND EAT HIS FACE!!!!!!
This is enough to drive Father Steve away, which is delightful, and I’m as proud of Kelly Ann as she looks of herself.
Father Steve goes looking for Missy, who is outside in the yard feeding her chickens. He demands to know if she told Kelly Ann anything, but nope, she did not. She promises not to say anything but also warns him that if she’s pregnant, he’s paying for the abortion. AS HE SHOULD. [bat: COULD HAVE JUST USED A CONDOM for fuck’s sake.]
(Still no face eating.)
Upstairs, Kelly Ann cleans up a little, at least washes her hands and face, and then cuddles the hungry baby boy, calling herself his mummy. Oh, kid.
Werewolf appears in the yard, Father Steve locks himself inside the house and, more importantly, locks Missy out of the house to save his own ass, and someone really needs to eat his face. Missy screams, the werewolf snarls, Father Steve is a useless sack of shit.
We get a nice shot of Kelly Ann from the back, the baby, still shaped like a human, in her arms, but her hair loose and rough and wild — a little bit what it’d be like if she was, you know, turning into a werewolf herself or something. There are some fun noises, too, that could be the baby breast feeding again but could also be her body starting to break down into the change.
She dramatically flings back her head just as the werewolf snarls the loudest outside. Love that ridiculousness.
And then we get this gloriousness!
Love that kind of werewolf shot.
Missy dies, which is the opposite of what I wanted, Father Steve continues to be useless. The werewolf smashes against the front door, sending Father Steve fleeing upstairs, finally shouting for Kelly Ann and admitting she was right, there is a wolf.
Only to shut himself in the bedroom with Kelly Ann the werewolf and her cute little breast feeding werewolf son.
[bat:… wait. Lee wasn’t the dad. The werewolf was the dad? Who the fuck is the werewolf? Because I was like, how the fuck does breast feeding the baby turn her into a werewolf? Hm, I remain wholly unclear on how this broke down but it was a nice twist I did not see coming. Should have, clearly the werewolves keep multiple females in the den. Wild.]
[Wing: The baby bites her while breast feeding! It’s that throwaway moment earlier, when she talks about it having a tooth. Which is a little detail I fucking adore. (But also hate, because babies biting during breast feeding sounds like horror in itself!)
I’m not sure there’s a way to know who the werewolf actually is, because I’m not certain they can change back after they turn, because if they can, why wouldn’t one of them shift back to get the kid while they look human? On the other hand, if they can’t, why would they give birth to a human-shaped baby? Like I said earlier, I have so many werewolf lore questions!]
All of that and we don’t actually get to see her eat his face, only hear him scream as she seems to lunge at him from her werewolf perspective. Then immediate jump to black screen and the beginning of one of my favorite songs kicks in, “Little Red Riding Hood.” [bat: Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs! Nice!]
Well, we do then get this adorable shot.
[bat: That’s some really terrible early 2000s CGI work but it is fucking adorable.]
Final Thoughts
Okay, my ongoing issue with the werewolves not attacking when they have the chance, I continue to adore this movie. It’s silly and cheesy but has some good heart to it, the SFX aren’t the best but aren’t bad for a low budget horror, and that ending is a lot of fun.
I do want to have a little chat with the writers and the producers about how to make a plot work without forcing unbelievable actions on your characters, but I’ll be gentle, I promise.
[bat: Okay, I give it an A- for a twist I actually didn’t see coming, at least not in the way it ended up playing out. I was for certain the weres were totally recruiting Kelly Ann, though I guess they already had done so. BUT. Does that mean it was really her baby? Do the adoptive couple already know they have a baby werewolf? Or were the werewolves the adoptive couple? IS THE DAD WEREWOLF NAMED JACK?? I HAVE QUESTIONS.
But then that begs why Kelly Ann was so upset about Lee not being involved. Like, uneven storytelling here. At least it’s a story we haven’t really seen before in Snark! recaps.
Most of the actors don’t have a wiki or any subsequent info online. That said, the actor who played Lee – Martin Compston – made a film entitledStrippers vs Werewolves in 2012. Now I kinda wanna watch that.
Overall, solid choice, Wing!]
[Wing: Holy shit, I want a story about werewolves who can’t have their own babies and so adopt and/or steal human babies to turn them into werewolves.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Even for all my complaints, I adore this movie, and everything is always even more fun when we recap together!]
In case you were wondering, this is my favorite version of the song, not the one actually used in the credits, though that one is delightful and has a very different vibe.