Or the "Weerwolf" of Washington, since that's how it's said most of the time here. Even though Werewolf of Washington predates An American Werewolf in London by almost 10 years, it goes for the same horror/comedy vibe. I'm not sure why werewolf + place = horror/comedy, but whatever. Werewolf of Washington is only vaguely funny and is not scary at all - it's just a little too goofy for it's own good. It's a little interesting in the respect that it got made at all (I have *no* idea who exactly the audience is supposed to be for this thing), but it's too ambling and unfocused to win you over.
It's about a DC journalist named Jack Whittier (Dean Stockwell!) who is in a relationship with the President's daughter. He wants out of the relationship with as little drama as possible, so he does the natural thing and asks for a transfer to Bulgaria. While he's there, the President decides he *must* have Jack on his team working with his press secretary. It's too good of an opportunity for Jack to pass up, so he plans to go back to DC. Unfortunately, on his way to the airport in Bulgaria, he runs across a group of nomads who make him crash his car - and one of them is a werewolf. He manages to fight and kill the manimal - apparently, it's a weak strain of lycanthropy. I like Dean Stockwell as an actor - I don't like him in a fight against a werewolf. But Jack is bitten during the scuffle, so is now cursed and turns into a killing machine every full moon.
Too bad it's a full moon like every night in DC. Jack tries to get into the swing of things with his new gig, but it's becoming difficult when (1) there's a rash of vicious murders that the President must address, and (2) Jack suspects that he himself is the killer! He's a good guy, so obviously his feelings of guilt are immense. The problem is no one will listen to him - they think the stress of the new job is just driving him over the edge. The body count grows higher and hijinks ensue.
Werewolf of Washington is just a little too aimless to be successful on any front. It's certainly not scary/tense enough to be engaging as a horror film, and it's a little too stupid to enjoy as a comedy. Honestly, the vibe of this thing almost seems like a children's film, which is a problem for a werewolf movie. And they try and put a political edge onto things (topics discussed include the Black Panthers, the South East Asian Conflict, and Watergate), but just mentioning political topics doesn't mean they have anything interesting to say about them.
I do have to give credit to the makeup/effects department - the transformation from man to werewolf is fun in a nostalgic way. It's a dissolve transformation (adding layers of makeup one shot at a time) over about a dozen shots, close up on his face. It's well done and a good way to show off their work, as the full body shots of the werewolf are often difficult to see. There isn't much to offer by way of gore or violence - you get some intimidating growling but very little of the actual attack. And it's edited in such a way that I would question whether they *thought* it would be an R-rated film when they shot it, then edited it get a PG when it was apparent how corny it was going to be. The action scenes are just really choppy.
It didn't seem like a lot of effort went into the shooting of it either. Some of the shots are poorly blocked or barely lit. It looked like there are some night shots lit by a spotlight that just follows the action around. And the awful transfer on the 50 Tales of Terror budget set didn't help matters - it's dark and murky and the audio sucks. I would have stuck it out, but I was watching this one with my wife, and she has less tolerance for crappy movies (and transfers) than I do. We ended up shelling out $1.99 to stream a significantly better transfer from Amazon, which still wasn't "good" by any objective measure.
Dean Stockwell is probably the most entertaining thing about the film. Dramatically speaking, it's not a heavy role, but I'm going to guess getting into the werewolf makeup was pretty annoying. He does both the physical and the awkward "in over his head" type comedy well - the few times I enjoyed myself were a direct result of his performance.
Overall, I can't find much of anything good to say about Werewolf of Washington. It seems like it's trying to be scary, funny, and politically timely, and it fails at all three.
I would not recommend this film.
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