Review: Another WolfCop
Lou Garou (Leo Fafard) continues his life in Another WolfCop as a small-town sheriff’s deputy in Woodhaven, Saskatchewan, while somehow continuing to conceal his identity as the local legend “WolfCop.” He drinks his way through shifts, he tears apart fleeing criminals, and he generally kinda sucks at his job.
If you’ve seen the original WolfCop, this all feels pretty familiar pretty quickly. Lou’s supervisor Tina Walsh (Amy Matysio) helps him hide out while transformed, and covers for him with the rest of the department. This plot choice, while avoiding similar ground as the original film, kills some of the stakes of Lou maintaining his secret when combined with the fact that the town generally loves the idea of the WolfCop patrolling the streets. A local convenience store owner even sells unlicensed, branded merch based on the lycan deputy.
Another WolfCop tries to avoid treading familiar territory in favor of a “shifter” threat that appears to be a combination of the Alien and Basket Case franchises, to very mixed results. The puppets used to show off a newly birthed shifter look much cheaper than the rest of the effects in the film, which is a real shame. The effects that did get a budget, though, are a treat—fountains of blood, severed limbs, viscera and open wounds are among the highlights Another WolfCop has to offer. The killer shifter embryos, however, look very rough in comparison.
But there is fun to be had with Another WolfCop. If you enjoyed the original story of Lou Garou, werewolf deputy in WolfCop, there’s still some charm in the performances to be found. Fafard has settled into the role well, looking to be more well-adjusted as Garou, at least as well as a sheriff’s deputy who sprouts fur and tears his own skin off once a month can be. Amy Matysio plays a good straight woman to Fafard’s more ridiculous moments, including a pretty damned funny sight gag early on that I won’t spoil.
And for people who enjoy watching some monster-on-monster action, there’s two ways you get it, in Another WolfCop: first, a knockdown, drag-out fight between a transformed Garou and a robotic killing machine named “Frank” (yeah, they go there. Another WolfCop basically owns a condo “there”). Second, we get yet another so-overlong-it-stops-being-funny-but-then-goes-back-to-funny love scene between a non-transformed Lou and another were who snorts moon dust like cocaine. So, Another WolfCop is fun for the whole family, is what I’m saying here.
Overall, the second go ‘round for Lou Garou and the residents of Woodhaven will have its mileage vary greatly depending on what you thought of the first movie—the puns are a little worse, the effects budget in most places is a little better, and you get to see Kevin Smith die horribly in an uncredited cameo (that’s telegraphed fairly early on, so hardly a spoiler). And, in true Canadian fashion, it ends in a beer-soaked fight on a hockey rink, following Lawrence Gowan of Styx singing “Oh, Canada.” I am not making that up.
