Review of "Cry Wolf" (2005)

Cry Wolf (2005)

Written by the co-authors of Robot Monster and the "infamous Bobby Ewing is in the shower and not dead" episode of Dallas.

If you have seen Robot Monster or that infamous episode of Dallas, where a whole season was a "dream", then you will know what's going on in this movie. This has only two possible outcomes : 1) you love been lead astray along long twisty, dark avenues that lead nowhere and seemingly come out of left field or 2) you are angered, outraged and throwing your remote at the TV for the very same reason.

This all takes place at an elite boarding high school, where 8 elite students are bored with their "elite" existence. The 8 are made of a clichéd range of elite students including the misunderstood troublemaker, the sport-jock-meat-head, the I-think-I'm smarter than everyone else and even "the alternative" I'm doing this to get back at my parents. They play a game where they deceive each other to gain points. It is taken to an extreme, when they all agree to come up with a new game based on the events in town (a woman is shot in the face and her body is dumped in the woods). They decide to create a spam email, in which they fabricate a serial killer and his modus operandi.

This build up is typical, predictable and boring. It takes more than 1/2 the movie to get to the point where we start to wonder :

1) did the killer magically appear through some mass belief ("we-think-therefore-we-are" principle), or

2) is there a real serial killer out there and

a) did he just happen to read one of these emails and become interested or b) was it just cosmic fate where the fictional and reality coincide in the same place (Twilight Zone principle).

3) or the realization that this movie is going nowhere, and we know it's going to annoy us to no end, yet we want to stick around for the car crash just so we can throw anything within reach, at the screen.

Both Bon Jovi and Gary Cole make appearances in the movie, but you wouldn't really take notice due to the bad accents, limited screen time and canned dialog. There really isn't much to this movie. It is trying to "thrill" us, the same way a magician at a 6-year-old's backyard birthday party would pull a rabbit out of a top hat. I say for the sake of your home entertainment system, and your mental state, you avoid this movie and instead read a book or perhaps perform ritualistic body modification on yourself. Anything is better than watching this.