CORPORATE LINE: In the new thriller Cry_Wolf, eight unsuspecting high school seniors playing a game of lies come face-to-face with terror and learn that nobody believes a liar…even when they’re telling the truth.
After one too many incidents of bad behavior at his last school, Owen Matthews (Julian Morris) arrives at Westlake Prep – where a young woman has recently been found murdered in the dark woods near the boarding school’s campus. Owen quickly falls in with the school’s unofficial “liar’s club,” including the beautiful and savvy Dodger (Lindy Booth of Dawn of the Dead and Wrong Turn) and quick-talking, short-tempered Tom (Jared Padalecki of the new television series Supernatural). At Owen’s suggestion, his new friends decide to expand their game’s reach beyond campus, by spreading an online rumor that a serial killer called “The Wolf” committed the recent murder and is planning to strike again.
The mischievous group’s descriptions of “The Wolf’s” intended victims are based on the people they know best – each other. Only when the school’s journalism teacher, Rich Walker (Jon Bon Jovi), warns the group about the kinds of predators that lurk on the internet does Owen begin to regret sending their falsified story into cyberspace. When the described “victims” suddenly start to disappear, Owen, Dodger, and Tom are no longer able to determine where the lies end and the truth begins. As someone – or something – starts hunting the players themselves, the game turns terrifyingly real.
THE MOVIE: Cry_Wolf is extremely good working in clichés. First are the rich white kids, the troubled new kid, and the usual twist. On top of these clichés we are supposed to believe that people believe an email? Isn’t email the most unreliable for of communication? Obviously the film makers want us to suspend belief and forget that we get a spammed about a thousand times a week.
FRANKLY: The dialogue lacks any bite. Cry_Wolf is a reminder of the sad state the horror picture is in.
+ Charlie Craine
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