Calling all furries and furry haters alike! Director/co-writer Justin Marmion’s movie Lone Wolf is one of the most what the f*ck movies of the year — and that’s saying something in a year where audiences received multiple Nicolas Cage films. If a furry-themed movie in and of itself is not enough of a horrifying situation to you, then Lone Wolf is perfect, as it has the added layer of being a serial killer flick with a body count on mass-kill levels.

A serial killer known as “Lone Wolf” has been plaguing a city, forcing victims to behave like animals in an attempt to bring his sick furry role-play fantasy to life. Meanwhile, life goes on for a group of young girlfriends — Charlie (Jane Gardner), Gabriella (Kennedy Wunderle), Hanna (Alexandra Dustin), and Valentine (Victorya Danylko-Petrovskaya) — as they prepare for a long-awaited furry convention where they can party in their role-play costumes. After making it into a coveted after-party to meet their furry YouTube idol, “Tyrone the Tiger” (Robin McIntosh), the girls’ night of fun and freedom turns to terror and captivity, as the party is crashed by an uninvited beast.

Of all of the indie movies I have ever seen, I am sad to say that Lone Wolf has some of the worst sound mixings I have encountered — which is unfortunate, as I would not be surprised to see this kind of movie gain a cult following if the dialogue were more audible. With the sound volume all the way up, I still could not follow some conversations, which are all vital in a movie like this where there were quite a few characters and settings — perhaps too many.

Even still, Lone Wolf has ‘cult classic’ written all over it not only because of its controversial and polarizing topic of furry-life, but also, it has that unique lightning-in-a-bottle feel that only “so bad they’re good” movies can capture. Personally, I found the awkward line deliveries, casting of older characters for younger roles, and canned sound effects charming, somewhat.

Lone Wolf seems to be a first-time feature for Justin Marmion, and though this fact shows in the writing that has a student project feel to it and in the film quality that is something like a shot-on-video exploitation movie, Marmion’s passion for telling this story shines through. Lone Wolf made some… interesting… directorial choices, like using green screen backgrounds seemingly unnecessarily, or using laugh tracks and other obvious voiceovers where even silence would have been better.

The movie requires a lot of suspensions of reality and also suffers from glaring continuity errors and choppy editing, but looking past all of the production inadequacies, there is something special — and ballsy — about someone standing up and saying f*ck it, I’m doing a furry movie. The movie has some pretty amusing shots here and there, one that I imagine would be iconic for any furry fetishists as the main pack of furry queens try to recreate “The Walk” tracking shot from Reservoir Dogs.

Lone Wolf is the cringe-worthy kind of movie that might be enjoyed whilst drinking with friends, and its world of fun and frolicking weirdos make me question whether I, too, would like to be sucked into this world of role-playing. Lone Wolf did not have a balanced horror-to-furry ratio for my taste; I would have appreciated the film more if it had started the slashing earlier or had dedicated more time to the Lone Wolf’s seemingly heartbreaking backstory that was glossed over, rather than spending over half of the runtime fleshing out the social world of furry-ism. These social settings did, however, offer a stage for the movie’s soundtrack to shine — though the music was often too loud in comparison to the dialogue, rockstar Jessie Deluxe’s terror-tunes were the movie’s main saving grace.

5 out of 10