Horror Movie Review: Cry Wolf (2005)

Cry Wolf is a slasher film directed by Jeff Wadlow, releasing in 2005. The ensemble cast includes names such as Jared Padalecki and Jon Bon Jovi.

Owen is a British newcomer at an American prep/boarding school. This is after flunking out of a number of previous school and generally being something of a prankster. He quickly makes friends consisting of Graham, Mercedes, Lewis, Randall, Regina, Tom and Dodger. The group have regular, late-night meetups at a campus chapel. They play a game called Cry Wolf, where someone is marked as a “wolf” and the group tries to figure out who it is.

Later on, they discuss the police finding a girl’s body after it was dragged through the woods. The group considers who could have murdered her. Dodger proposes expanding Cry Wolf to the entire school. Owen suggests creating a fake e-mail telling everyone about a serial killer who goes from campus to campus stalking and killing students. They describe the killer as wearing an orange ski mask and brandishing a hunting knife or a high-powered handgun. That night, they send out the e-mail.

Things quickly spiral out of control from there. Owen and his friends fear that the lie that they had told is starting to come true or is it?

Does releasing back in 2005 forgive Cry Wolf for its shortcomings? You can be the judge of that. I’ll just tell you that it has issues, many issues. Firstly, it shows it age in a number of glaring ways. The editing throughout is erratic at the best of times and nauseating at others. You can just tell that this film released post movies like Scream 1, Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend and SAW etc. It feels heavily influenced by them which makes its tropes that much more annoying.

Without a doubt, the most negative aspect of Cry Wolf is its horrible characters. I’ve never seen a more unlikeable bunch. Owen is worst of them all and he’s the main character who we’re supposed to root for. Owen tries to act like he’s somehow better than the other “rich kids” at the school. All the while living off and wasting his father’s money by getting thrown out of school after school. He acts really arrogantly until things turn south. Also, he’s led like a fish to a hook in laughable fashion. The others are just painful stereotypes that I couldn’t have cared less about. A bunch of bored rich kids, really hoping they make it.

I may have disliked them but I credit the actors because the performances are actually pretty good. Even Bon Jovi isn’t too bad but he feels wasted. The gore is extremely minimal and safe. In fact, once the twist is revealed you’ll come to realise just how minimal it truly is. Talking of the eventual twist. Now, I may have seen way too many horror movies but I called this pretty early on. Considering the name of the film and everything, it isn’t rocket science.

Cry Wolf does everything it can to shroud the mystery but it goes too far to the point where it all feels way too farfetched and dependent on an almost impossible serious of events playing out in an exact way. The ending where everything is wrapped up in a neat bow with flashbacks and everything is very reminiscent of Saw. Unlike a movie like Saw where the reveal actually enhances the film, this one just makes it feel completely pointless to ever rewatch. Truly, the biggest tragedy and loss in the entire film was when Owen’s N-Gage gets smashed, RIP N-Gage.

Overall, the predictable tropes in Cry Wolf are as tiresome today as they probably were back in 2005. Its simplistic idea isn’t completely terrible but it’s held back by a lack of gore and characters that you want to see get slaughtered but it fails at even delivering that.