Hey, I love werewolves. In if you go by the big three (Dracula, Frankenstein, or Wolfman) I want to be The Wolfman or a werewolf. Shit, most of the time he’s normal and more often than not he is shown as a sympathetic character. He doesn’t want this curse; he doesn’t want to kill people. But he must. Now, I also like cheese. Give me a good Wisconsin cheddar and a sleeve of Ritz crackers and I will be good all afternoon. So when I saw The Bray Road Beast was about werewolves right there in Wisconsin I said this has to be great. Right? Well, not really. Even though this is credited as a documentary I had my doubts and still sort of do have some questions but OK, I’ll call it a documentary. The Bray Road Beast is written and directed by Seth Breedlove who appears to specialize in cryptids.
Most animals, even mythological ones that may or may not exist or existed, had to start somewhere. Through a series of films Breedlove makes under his Small Town Monsters film company he investigates many claims regarding legendary creatures. The Bray Road Beast is rumored to be a werewolf. Or at least a wolf-like creature. The film is just slightly over an hour long so it’s never boring. Where the film falters for me is it just never seems to go very far. Mostly reenactments and animation are used for storytelling which range from goofy to beautiful to disturbing. The music also plays a part in making this one feel other worldly and again at times the tunes are creepy while at other times comforting. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. So, let’s go right in the middle of the (Bray) road for this one and give it two and a half Chupacabras out of five.
Don't like when they don't embrace their own monster, or genre or even their cheesy-ness. Some films that aren't great are made enjoyable by just embracing their nonsense.
ReplyDeleteI agree Joe, and with this one it was just a little too vague.
ReplyDeleteNot quite sure what you mean here. This is a documentary pure and simple as are all Seth Breedlove's films. Basically a longer episode of IN SEARCH OF with Leonard Nimoy. Except he be dead, sadly. Oh yeah, or that OTHER guy from STAR TREK who does that THE UNXPLAINED show. So yeah, I'm still not really sure what you were looking for other than a cryptid doc (and this, as I recall, was a pretty good one for the reasons you mentioned).
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