Adam MacDonald, Damon Runyan, horror, Joris Jarsky, Missy Peregrym, movies, Out Come the Wolves, reviews
January 7, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Adam MacDonald
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Out Come the Wolves” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A woman, her fiancé and her ex-boyfriend fight killer wolves in a remote wooded area.
Culture Audience: “Out Come the Wolves” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching ridiculous and frequently dull horror movies.
“Out Come the Wolves” takes too long to get to the horror part of the story, by wasting time on a love-triangle drama with annoying characters. The wolf attacks and action scenes are very unrealistic in this substandard film. This is the type of time-wasting movie that will baffle viewers over how it got made in the first place because the plot is so weak and nonsensical.
Directed by Adam MacDonald and written by Enuka Okuma, “Out Come the Wolves” (which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city) has a very basic plot that is stretched to the breaking point by a series of dull and pointless scenes. The movie has only three characters, who are all staying at a (horror cliché alert) cabin in an isolated wooded area. And, as the title says, they get attacked by killer wolves.
All three of these characters are staying at this cabin because they are going hunting in the woods. Sophie (played by Missy Peregrym) is a beauty salon employee. Her fiancé Kyle (played by Joris Jarsky) is editor-in-chief of an unnamed publication. Sophie and Kyle have been dating each other for about a year. Sophie’s ex-boyfriend is Nolan (played by Damon Runyan), who has a part-time job at a co-op. Sophie and Nolan have known each other since they were kids.
Nolan (who’s scruffy and kind of a pessimistic jerk) was supposed to bring his girlfriend Leah on this hunting trip, but when he arrives at the house, he tells Sophie and Kyle that Leah can’t be there because of work responsibilities. Nolan lives about 30 miles west of this house, and he knows this wooded area better than Kyle and Sophie.
Kyle is pompous and pretentious. He has a condescending attitude about Sophie’s salon job, so they argue about that for a little bit. What does all of this have to do with the hunting trip and the killer wolves? Absolutely nothing. It’s just one of many monotonous scenes that lead up to the showdown with the wolves.
At least 45% of “Out Come the Wolves” consists of tedious conversations, as all three of these people play mind games and lie to each other. Even though Sophie and Nolan broke up years ago, he still has feelings for her but pretends that he doesn’t. Sophie doesn’t tell Kyle right away that she and Nolan were briefly a couple.
Nolan doesn’t tell Sophie and Kyle right away that Nolan and Leah actually broke up, which is the real reason why Leah isn’t there. Sophie doesn’t tell Nolan right away that she and Kyle are actually engaged. These irritating people, who are supposed to be in their late 30s or early 40s, act like they’re still immature teenagers.
Speaking of their teenage years, Nolan has a set of bow and arrows, with each arrow engraved with the word “killer” in a different language. When Nolan shows these arrows to Kyle, Nolan proudly tells him that Sophie gave these arrows to Nolan when they were teenagers. “She taught me how to hunt on these,” Nolan says of the arrows.
Before anyone thinks that Sophie is going to be like “The Hunger Games” bow-and-arrow warrior Katniss Everdeen, think again. Sophie bow-and-arrow skills are mediocre at best. When the wolves finally show themselves, they attack these humans for no reason, which is not how real wolves would act. Wolves usually attack humans when they feel provoked.
But that’s not the biggest problem with this idiotic movie. The biggest problem is that the movie expects viewers to believe that these “hunters” don’t bring enough bullets with them when they hunt. “Out Come the Wolves” only shows the humans using bows and arrows to try and kill the wolves. They only bring a few bullets for the one gun that that they bring.
And these hunters don’t have cell phones, a car, or anything reasonable that could help them in this emergency situation. They have an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), not an enclosed vehicle that would better protect them from dangerous wild animals. Many horror movies have characters do mindless things, but “Out Come the Wolves” makes the characters idiotic beyond belief.
If that sounds like spoiler information, it really isn’t. It’s really a warning to not waste your time on “Out Come the Wolves.” The acting performances aren’t very good, the scenarios are even worse, and there’s not much that’s scary about the movie. “Out Come the Wolves” is an utter failure at building suspense because it’s polluted with so many stupid decisions made by the unlikable characters in the movie. The wolves are the most interesting part of the movie, but they still look as fake as this sloppily made film.
IFC Films released “Out Come the Wolves” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 30, 2024. Shudder premiered the movie on November 29, 2024.