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Film: American Werewolves
Year: 2022
Director: Seth Breedlove
Writer: Seth Breedlove
Review:
This is another documentary that was sent over to me from Justin Cook as a screener to watch ahead of its release. I’ve seen five of these docs that cover different cryptids from writer/director Seth Breedlove. I like the route that he takes with these so I was intrigued to check this out.
Synopsis: each year dozens of encounters with uptight canids are reported in North America. These beings often behave in similar ways with many reports recounting a creature that is aggressive, ghastly and disturbing. While many theorize that the Dogman is some sort of unidentified species of animal, many believe that what they were confronted by was something else. Something more.
For this documentary, we are getting something a bit different than in others I’ve seen. This one is mostly focused on interviewing different people who have encountered what they believe to be werewolves, dogmen or a similar creature of sorts. I did like that this kicked off with a disclaimer that there’s more than one way to read the information and that this one isn’t pushing you one way or the other. It is taking these people’s stories and giving them to you.
This movie does an interesting job at giving the lore of werewolves. They have a couple of experts on and they point out that this goes as far back as the Greeks. The term they used was lecantropy which would evolve into lycanthropy. I also didn’t realize that the word ‘wer’ means man. Werewolf is literally a translation to man wolf.
We also get stories from a couple different places. The first grouping is near to where I currently live in Bucyrus, Ohio. It is around here that it seems werewolf lore is combined with wendigo mythology as well. They also go down to Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky. It is here that it seems the werewolf is intermixed with dogman and even Rougarou myths.
I like that Breedlove interviews a cross-section of people. We have hunters, police officers and just normal people as well. There are also the experts mixed in which gives a different perspective on things. I can appreciate that for a documentary. The only thing that could make this better would be some detractors though. That would cover all angles in my opinion.
Something else that I wanted to bring up would be the filmmaking. How the interviews are shot are good. What I appreciate with Breedlove is that he livens up his documentaries with reenacting what we are hearing or for this movie, he has someone in a great werewolf costume. It is creepy with its realism which I enjoyed. Much like the others from him I’ve seen, I do think that he knows what he is doing and makes these documentaries well.
I would say that if you are interested in werewolves, dogmen or cryptids and want to see a documentary about people’s encounters with them, I recommend this. I personally don’t believe in them, but I cannot discredit any of the people interviewed here. Don’t come into this expecting to learn anything new regarding the lore. What this is good for is learn about local urban legends and myths about what I said above. This is an above average documentary for me, much like the rest of the ones from Breedlove and Small Town Monsters.
My Rating: 6.5 out of 10
American Werewolves debuts on major streaming platforms on July 5th, from 1091 Pictures, including iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu and FandangoNOW.