31 DAYS OF HORROR 2023 - Day 9: THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF (2010)

 When your sister is a bitch. No, SERIOUSLY...

The Sands brood is the picture of the typical American family unit, albeit slowly recovering from the recent death of the unit's mother. 17-year-old Jordan (Victoria Justice) is an awkward bespectacled nerd who endures the usual rigors of high school girlhood, while her brother Hunter (Chase Ellison), who recently turned fourteen, is absorbed in horror movies and monster lore. While struggling with the loss of his wife, their father (Matt Winston) is also faced with the reality of dwindling finances that will likely see the family lose their home. But just as things look their most dire, the family receives a notice that they have inherited a Romanian castle from the deceased mother's great uncle Dragomir Vukovic, so they head to the Romanian village of Wolfsberg to check it out. Upon arriving, the Sands find the town is in the middle of an annual festival celebrating the Beast of Wolfsberg, a legendary werewolf that appears once per year to howl as a warning to all vampires who might seek to do the village harm. They also find that the castle is inhabited by the eerie Madame Varcolac (Brooke Shields), who has been the housekeeper for her entire life, and she fills the family in on bits and pieces of the lineage's history. The family explores the village, and while dad looks into negotiating the sale of the castle with chirpy Paulina von Eckberg (Brooke D'Orsay), a real estate agent who operates on a nocturnal schedule, Jordan finds herself attracted to local butcher Goran (Steven Grayhm).

Hunter snoops around the castle, finding a secret laboratory hidden within a passage behind a wall, and when Jordan finds him she accidentally breaks a vial label labeled "LV-217," an abbreviation for "lycanthrope blood," and cuts her bare foot on  the glass, thus infecting herself. In no time Jordan begins exhibiting the onset of full-blown werewolfism, such as developing a lust for meat where she had previously been a vegetarian, inhumanly swift reflexes, impossible agility, the sprouting of claws and fangs, and spontaneous growth of copious amounts of body hair. (There are allusions to lycanthropy as a puberty allegory, but nothing anywhere near the level of that explored in 2000's classic GINGER SNAPS.) From there events spiral and complicate as the secret of the late mother's family is revealed, geneological  destinies are confronted, and hostile vampires enter the picture.

Horror for a childrens' audience is a tough balance to achieve and it is seldom done well, with 1987's THE MONSTER SQUAD arguably being the exemplar of the genre. That said, THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF — thankfully no relation to the 1973 dud of the same name — is a fun entry into the field for the 2000's. The story and performances are solid, rooted as they are in general werewolf lore (with a few surprises) and also the tropes and feel of the classic films from Universal's golden era of foundational monster shockers, and it's all accented with a very dry and appropriately funny sense of humor. Brooke Shields pretty much steals the film as the ominous Madame Varcolac, the mention of whose name invariably prompts the howl of a wolf in the background, a gag very much referencing the classic Frau Blücher bit from Mel Brooks's YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974).

Brooke Shields, stealing the film as the simultaneously subtle and over-the-top Madame Varcolac. 

The film features family-friendly action that's not overly violent, so there's no gore or bloodshed, so instead the films gets by on a clever and engaging script and werewolf effects that are far better than one would expect from a Nickelodeon children's confection. 

Jordan in the early stages of lycanthropy. I would show you her final look, but I want you to watch the movie and experience it in context.

A truly pleasant surprise, I only first heard of this movie maybe three days ago and was intrigued, so I checked it out. Some love vampires, others gravitate, toward zombies, but I am unabashedly a werewolf guy, so I will always give movies with savage, ravening hairballs a chance. I get burned more often than not, but every now and then I encounter a werewolf film that makes my devotion worth the effort, and THE BOY WHO CRIED WEREWOLF was worth every bit of the time it took to sit through it. A minor hidden gem that is very much recommended as a fun film to share with the family. It's not really scary, which is in no way a strike against it, so even the littlest members of your pack will be likely to enjoy it.

Promotional image from the original cable airing.