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Alma & the Wolf is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Michael Patrick Jann
FEATURING: Ethan Embry, Li Jun Li, Lukas Jann, Jeremie Harris, Kevin Allison
PLOT: Ren, a deputy in an out-of-the-way town, investigates a dog-killing wolf at the behest of his old high school crush, Alma.
COMMENTS: A word of advice: don’t go into Alma & the Wolf expecting a standard werewolf movie, or any standard horror movie, for that matter. Focus instead on Ethan Embry’s fine portrayal of Ren, a peaked-in-high-school separated dad struggling with a drinking problem. You’ll be much happier with that approach.
“Nothing good ever comes from here, but lucky for the wider world, nothing ever leaves,” Ren says of the rural town of Spiral Creek. Ren himself is a former high school pitcher whose career ended prematurely with Tommy John surgery and whose life has been in a downward spiral since. Now a failed husband and deputy cop who’s been on this rural beat forever without much hint of promotion, he’s pinned all his hopes on his son, Jack, who’s following in his athletic footsteps and has serious athletic prospects. Ren is also interested in Alma, who seems (at times) to reciprocate his feelings, despite being a hot mess alcoholic herself. (This is a very boozy movie). Rounding out the small-town cast are a newbie cop Ren can bounce backstory off, a comic relief sheriff more interested in promoting Buddhist breathing techniques than hard policing, and a handful of colorful, trashy yokels.
As good as the acting is—Embry, as mentioned, is excellent, and the rest of the cast supply no weak notes—the special effects are noticeably poor: the mangy wolf costume is neither realistic nor frightening, there’s a head-on-fire effect that looks like it might have been made in ChatGPT, and at one point the use of rubber glass to substitute for a shattered windshield is painfully obvious. Given that Alma is more focused on drama and psychology than actual horror, these slip ups aren’t fatal, but they do imbue the film with a sheen of cheepnis that’s out of step with the professionalism of the rest of the production.
The first weird thing that happens in the story occurs when Ren suddenly promises to kill the wolf for Alma, despite his obvious reluctance and his warning that they’re a protected species and it’s a “class C felony” to kill one. Then comes his first encounter with the wolf, followed by recurring hallucinations where he glimpses the lupine taunting him. As the movie continues, the weird stuff intensifies, from the relatively subtle (whispering voices) to the elaborate (a well-staged pagan dream sequence in the woods with Alma and the talking wolf at a pagan bonfire flanked by a pair of goat-people). By the time we reach the one hour mark, confusion reigns, as the narrative seems to be spinning out of control, and occasionally contradicting itself.
Alma & the Wolf‘s twist ending turned off a lot of people. That’s understandable for viewers who didn’t go in bargaining for a weird movie: the final act makes some of the events of the rest of Alma feel arbitrary and irrelevant, and if you get invested in certain red herrings, you could feel cheated. But although the movie doesn’t quite stick its landing—it’s not tightly scripted enough, and it could have used more foreshadowing—it’s far from as abysmal as its 4.6 IMDb rating would suggest. I admire the ambition and certain aspects of the execution—specifically the performances—and although I wouldn’t give it a general recommendation, I wouldn’t advise you to steer away, either. If you’re in the mood for a well-acted, modestly-budgeted, artistically ambitious psychological thriller, you could do worse than hunting down Alma & the Wolf.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
