Movie monsters maliciously, morbidly munching on many humans mercilessly by moonlight might be menacing when it moves with momentum but does minusing the monologues make it misguided or masterful?

Scream of the Wolf (previously known as Wolf Manor) is a British horror comedy film about how the cast and crew of a vampire movie are hunted by an actual werewolf on a full moon night.

Directed by Dominic Brunt, it was filmed in Shropshire, Great Britain, UK on a modest budget of GBP 250,000 according to IMDB. It’s full of gorgeous wide shots of the British countryside. It gives a good sense of how isolated the setting is. It has some creative jump scares and fake-outs. Except for those few moments, there’s no suspense because the pacing is off. There’s too much time between kills where little to nothing happens that could have been cut from the film. As far as practical effects go it does have some impressively brutal gore but I didn’t like the Werewolf makeup. The ears were too big and droopy. Also, there was no snout. It didn’t scream Werewolf to me, pun intended.

Written by Joel Ferrari and Pete Wild, Scream of the Wolf comes off as campy more than anything. Meanwhile, its attempts at being comical feel forced with its hit-and-miss humour. They could have focused more on the murder mystery aspect since it had the basic slasher formula of people getting picked off one by one by an off-screen killer shown in first-person perspective shots. The conclusion is confusing too. How many werewolves were there anyway? It’s never explained.

The film stars James Fleet, John Henshaw, Nicky Evans, Jay Taylor, Shaune Harrison, Rupert Procter, and Sade Malone. They do a good job all around of making the most of the material. None of them are particularly bad. No one could be pointed out as not being believable in their roles, respectively.

Overall, werewolves are my favourite movie monster. I enjoyed this film despite the many flaws, nay, possibly because of them. This comes off more as one of those so bad it’s good films. This is a very charming film when it tries to be a classic creature feature and does it ever try hard. The writing is what sinks the film rather than keeping it afloat. Sadly, the after-credits scene is more interesting than the actual movie.

My biggest problem with it is the title. Why is it called Scream of the Wolf? It’s never explained. A Nightmare on Elm Street uses clever wordplay. Friday the 13th and Halloween take place on or around the titular days, etc. This title doesn’t make sense because wolves don’t scream. There’s a missed opportunity where the werewolf growls while silhouetted in the moonlight when he could’ve screamed or at least howled be he didn’t. What’s with that? Why not call it Howl of the Werewolf or keep the title, Wolf Manor? I recommend it to fans of The Howling, Bad Moon, Howl, and An American Werewolf in London. I recommend it to fans of those films. And remember, feel free to wolf this film down without feeling sheepish.