Lycanthrope (1999) User Reviews

"This guy was ugly before he became a Werewolf." Cheap horror film.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 11 August 2006]

Lycanthrope starts in a top secret Government laboratory somewhere underground in the middle of the Amazon, a lab where a team of scientists were conducting experiments into the depletion of the o-zone layer & the effects that the suns ultra violet rays have on animal & plant life. Unfortunately something has gone very wrong so the top brass in the American Government send in special forces man Bill Parker (producer Robert Carradine) & his sidekick Lee Davis (Michael Winslow) to escort Dr. Ivan Stein (Jeffery Alann Chase) & his wife Sheila (Rebecca Holden) to the lab, assess the situation & 'clean up' any mess there might be, have you lost the will to live yet? I had by this point. Some army bird named Rosary (Dalia Garcia) & military dude Cody (Bruce Gregory) also go along. Once there they discover the various mutilated corpses of the scientific team & some fat black guy wearing an American football shirt who thinks he's a Werewolf because he's been exposed to the suns ultra violet rays...

Written & directed by Bob Cook who also has a small role in the film as a dead body Lycanthrope is a pretty bad film all round. First it's very clichéd & predictable, for instance the scientists in the team want to study the Werewolf guy while the army dudes just want to kill it. At least a couple of the character's are there merely to pad the film out & become victims, I would also imagine that the pseudo psycho analytic explanation for the Werewolf seemed like a good idea at the time but unfortunately it doesn't translate very well to the screen & it just comes off as completely ridiculous. I suppose the filmmakers wanted to mix the Eco-disaster film with plenty of preaching together with low budget horror, as far as I'm concerned it doesn't work. Having said that the films stuffed with loads of unintentionally hilarious & stupid dialogue, it moves along at a reasonable pace, it's fairly short & it's good for a few laughs.

Director Cook was obviously working on a really low budget, the special effects are rubbish including a simple shot of the sun in the sky! Apparently set in the Amazon it is painfully obvious that it was shot in some local woods, every time the Amazon was mentioned I laughed! There isn't really a traditional Werewolf in Lycanthrope, only a fat guy who thinks he's one so forget about seeing one. There isn't much gore, only a few after-the-fact dead bodies & a severed hand.

Technically Lycanthrope is rough & that's being kind, it's poorly made with very low production values. Now on to the single most interesting aspect of Lycanthrope, have you ever wondered what happened to various stars from the 80's & 90's? You know who I mean, people like Bill Murray, Steve Guttenberg & Rick Moranis. Well have you ever wondered what happened to the black guy from the Police Academy films who used to make all the funny noises? Wonder no more as I can reveal he is starring in crap like this! Yes, in case you want to know he does make lots of funny noises in this as well, talk about type casting! Unfortunately the budget was so low on Lycanthrope that they couldn't afford him the entire shoot so he was killed off with the first 40 odd minutes. Yep, Lycanthrope really is that low budget! I bet he & Steve Guttenberg could share some great 'crap films I've been in' stories during the Police Academy cast union party!

Lycanthrope is a pretty crap film, it's badly made, it's stupid & there aren't any proper Werewolves in it. It's good for a few unintentional laughs & 'that guy from Police Academy' but otherwise there is very little here to recommend.

So-bad-it's-bad werewolf movie

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 24 February 2017]

Another reviewer described LYCANTHROPE as "interesting" but I'd have to disagree. This film is largely a waste of time and the only interesting thing about it is trying to work out how they spent three quarters of a million dollars on it because there's no discernible sign of any money having been spent anywhere on screen.

The most laughable thing about this production is that it's set in the Amazon but was filmed out in a Californian wood somewhere. I'm sorry, but asking the viewer to pretend that a wood looks the same as a jungle is completely ridiculous. As for the back story, that a hole in the ozone layer is responsible for making a werewolf, that's ridiculous too. And you don't actually get to see any kind of monster, which is the biggest cheat of all, just some guy with cruddy make up on his face at one point.

The only thing going for LYCANTHROPE is a handful of familiar cast members, who must have known that this was going to turn out to be junk. Robert Carradine is the lead and quite dreadful with it. Christopher Mitchum shows up too but wisely stays at the back of the shots wherever possible and generally stays inconspicuous. Best of all is Michael Winslow, the human sound effect machine from the POLICE ACADEMY series, bringing some of his trademark humour and charm to the production. Elsewhere you get a little cheesy gore, Carradine saying "If it bleeds we can kill it", a general copy of THE THING and PREDATOR atmosphere, and a random opening shower scene with lots of close ups of breasts. It's that kind of film.

Utter nonsense

[bladesew · 1/10 · 10 January 2007]

I can't believe that this film currently has a 4+ rating as it is one of the worst films I've ever seen - and I've seen loads of low-budget genre films.

As has been pointed out by another reviewer this film has no budget, doesn't even pretend to be set where it says it is, has a very half-assed cop-out explanation for not featuring any of the titular creatures and features some astonishingly bad acting. Worst of all, it's cosmically boring, with endless shots of either the sun or moon, people wandering through "the amazon" or sitting around in rooms spouting terrible dialogue.

Everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed of this complete waste of time.

Complete waste of time

[qmarlow · 2/10 · 4 February 2022]

Just to let everyone know, this film was actually made in Nashville TN. Most of the inside scenes were actually filmed in the basement of Watkins Film School. I know this because I was a student there at the time of filming. Even on of my editing teachers was involved with this project. They used the Cumberland river as the Amazon and most of the so called jungle scenes was filmed at Percy Warner Park. All the students were hoping for a screening of this movie when it was done at the college but apparently it was so bad that they refused to show it. I looked for years for a copy of this and then finally found it on the Roku. The film is incoherent and half of the filmed scenes are out of focus. I'm assuming that Robert Carradine and Michael Winslow did this movie for the free Nashville hot chicken because it looks like nothing else was available.

Nope

[foxfirehounds · 2/10 · 13 February 2024]

C'mon, seriously? What exactly does it take to make a movie? Having names like Carradine and Mitchum attached helps, I suppose but this half witted effort really pushes the limit. It is truly hard to find the words to describe this disaster. Initially thinking it might be a comedy, I thought that it might just work. The attractive actresses would've helped. But nope, they were playing it for real. The intrepid cast of "scientists" and "government agents " set off on a beautiful spring day (the trees are just leafing out) into the lovely open woodlands of Ohio? WVA?, TN?, er, THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST... Seriously. The producers couldn't even manage to at least make it to FL or Louisiana to find some half way believable jungle!

It gets worse from here.

Wow this was bad.

[bobbywell · 1/10 · 12 May 2019]

This films started with this quote: "lest we never forget our teachers". But apparently they forgot basic grammar.

From there it went down hill.

Interesting "Low-Budget" werewolf movie.

[bcent · 7/10 · 7 October 1998]

LYCANTHROPE takes our fear of the Ozone destruction one step further. A medical term LYCANTHROPY means a man that thinks he's a wolf. The ozone has caused a member of a scientific team to think he's a werewolf.

Robert Carradine (Revenge of the Nerds) stars as a government agent investigating the events in the Amazon. His partner (and relief humor) is played by Michael Winslow (Police Academy). The film drags at first but picks up momentum as the Lycanthrope begins to kill the scientific team one by one.

Strong cast with an outstanding performance by newcomer Dalia Garcia as Rosary (the Amazon guide) and Carradine.

"I Can't Believe You'd Make A Scientist Out O' Someone That Big!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 15 May 2021]

LYCANTHROPE opens with a howl, a recitation of the poem from the original THE WOLF MAN, and a lesson about the depletion of the ozone layer. This is followed by a lovely woman enjoying a relaxing sponge bath.

Senseless slaughter ensues.

Enter Special Agent Bill Parker (Robert Carradine), and his impossibly annoying cohort, Lee Davis (Michael "the human sound effect" Winslow), who have arrived in the Amazonian rain forest (aka: a wooded lot, somewhere) to investigate the situation. Joined by some scientists and a soldier (aka: a male model with a gun), they trek through the jungle to the remote lab / outpost (aka: some vacant warehouse). This takes about a century.

Upon arrival, the smell of death is in the air (aka: someone left the script laying around). A male corpse is discovered with Silly Putty on his face, and strawberry jam has been smeared in various places. Simultaneously, Davis grows more irritating by the second.

When a female extra wanders off by herself, she's stalked by a lurking horror (aka: the camera set on "monster vision", and emphysema breathing). This can mean only one thing: It's time for Davis to be even more of a pest, complete with his "astounding" sound effects!

It turns out that the titular terror is actually some lost, goggle-eyed linebacker -in his team jersey- running around. "Twists" are added to explain why we've spent all this time watching this hogwash, while Carradine recounts the sins that have led to this point in his career.

A dreadful, brain-flattening experience...