Out Come the Wolves

Directed by Adam MacDonald, Out Come the Wolves follows three friends (Missy Peregrym’s Sophie, Joris Jarsky’s Kyle, and Damon Runyan’s Nolan) as they’re forced to fend for their lives during a wilderness weekend. Filmmaker MacDonald, armed with a script by Enuka Okuma and Tyler Russell, delivers a progressively underwhelming endeavor that fares best within its quiet, low-key opening stretch, as the intriguing dynamic between the three protagonists, coupled with the actors’ uniformly strong work, proves effective at initially capturing the viewer’s interest and attention – with the delayed reveal of the true relationship between Sophie and Kyle only heightening the promising atmosphere. It’s clear, then, that Out Come the Wolves‘ steep descent into irrelevance is triggered by the characters’ inevitable (and violent) encounters with the titular creatures, as MacDonald has infused such moments with a jittery, incoherent feel that’s compounded by the heroes’ often astonishingly dumb behavior – with this particularly true of a first attack that just doesn’t make any sense (ie a certain figure’s transformation from grizzled tough guy to panicky coward is baffling, to say the least). By the time the absolutely endless climactic stretch rolls around, Out Come the Wolves has undoubtedly cemented its place as a hopelessly inept thriller that seems unlikely to have worked even as a 15 minute short.

* out of ****