I love a good werewolf movie because they explore one of my favorite themes: transformations. They can serve as metaphors for society’s effect on the individual, as cautionary tales, as explorations of how society treats those who are different, etc. WER explores new territory in the werewolf genre and does a really good job. |

The filming style is part recorded video (a la found footage, but this footage is home movie and news reel) and part regular cinematography. The only problem I had was there were too many scenes where it was shot with a handheld camera style in scenes where it WASN’T found footage and this confuses the narrative needlessly. Handheld gives a sense of documentary shooting that was out of place here and often quite distracting. Just the wrong choice by the director.
But having said that, I really enjoyed this film. I was surprised to learn that it was only released theatrically in Japan and went straight to VOD in the states. It is creative and moody and the characters are interesting and there’s a new take on what werewolves actually are that was both plausible and interesting. So in effect, the transformation of the man is echoed by the transformation of the myth. Well done. This movie is totally Grendel meets society!