Wolfhound (2002 Video) User Reviews

A refugee from 1972 drive-in cinema

[MBunge · 3/10 · 20 May 2011]

In 1972, Wolfhound might have made a decent "bad" drive-in movie for teenage boys. They could ogle the hot naked chicks when they were on screen, then hoot and holler at how awful everything else was. In 2002, there were too few drive-in movies and too much readily available porn for Wolfhound to serve any purpose whatsoever. It has a plot that would bore the pants off an 8 year old. You've heard of dialog that sounds better on the page? This dialog would sound better as sign language. The acting here more closely resembles the amateur ventriloquism of a sociopath.

Colum Kennedy (Allen Scotti and yes, the character's name is Colum, not Colin) is an American writer who returns to his boyhood home in Ireland to write a book about his family history. He's dragged his much less attractive wife Stella (Jennifer Courtney) and his two kids along with him. It's a little hard to describe the rest of the story because quite a lot of the story is only alluded to and never definitively told. Characters are frequently making references to things that never happen in the film nor are even explained. Basically, it's a journey of self-discovery where Colum has sex with a Irish Wolfhound that morphs into a hot naked chick (Julie Cialini) in order to discover the Irish Wolfhound in himself. That sounds like the greatest Guinness commercial ever but trust me, it makes for an awful motion picture.

Julie Cialini is very pretty and has a great head of hair. She can't act, not even enough to fake a terrible Irish accent, but she looks great with no clothes on. It's difficult to evaluate the rest of the cast because they give such emotionally discordant performances. The feelings they project don't match up with the words they say or the situations they're in.

The most notably ridiculous thing about this movie is the lengths gone to in order to make the Irish Wolfhound look like a menacing animal. I'm not sure if it's the nature of the breed or the dogs in this film were all drugged, but these are the least threatening animals you've ever seen. The meerkats from Meerkat Manor on Animal Plant have a more vicious appearance. A few times when they try to show a dog baring his teeth, it sure seems like they just shoot a close-up of the end of his snout while someone's hands off screen pull on the dog's upper lip to make it look like he's snarling.

Wolfhound is badly written, badly directed and apparently badly acted. There are plenty of moments with Cialini in her birthday suit, including one where she's joined by an even more attractive and bustier woman. Every known copy of this movie should be transferred onto film and shipped through the Time Tunnel back to 1972 where it could do some good for packs of dateless teenage smartasses on Saturday nights. There's no need for it to exist in our time.

Wolfhound

[Scarecrow-88 · 3/10 · 21 December 2008]

A successful author, Colum(Allen Scotti) returns to his ancestral home in an Irish village with wife, son and daughter in tow hoping to rekindle possible memories of slain parents he never knew. What he does discover is that inside him lying dormant is an animal desiring to get out. Threatening his well being is an imposing, gruff villager, Macroth(Brian Monahan)who may very well have been behind the death of his parents. Colum's wife, Stella(Jennifer Courtney), wishes to go home, quite a city gal longing for her hot coffee from Starbucks, having a great deal of trouble adjusting to her new environs. What's worse is that she feels a rift coming between her and Colum whose behavior is questionable. Colum realizes that an Irish wolfhound scouring about his cottage's grounds is in fact the animal form of a beautiful, voluptuous woman, Siobahn(Julie Cialini)who wishes to make passionate sexual contact with him. After succumbing to Siobahn's seductive allure, Colum finds the beast within starting to emerge, while Stella yearns to leave without him if necessary. Meanwhile Macroth eyes Stella causing quite a bit of friction between all involved. What Colum and Stella soon find is that the village folk are not all they appear to be.

Ambitious but lackluster fantasy regarding a village of people who can actually transform into animals. Like Macroth who changes into a wolfhound like Siobahn. Another changes into a crow. The plot resembles the story of Cat People ever so slightly, but I had a problem with how the fantasy element of transformation is handled..it deserves more exposition as does how Colum's parents died. I think a great deal of the film is little more than getting Julie Cialini as naked as possible. Certainly her delicious naked flesh doesn't hurt, as long as she kept her mouth shut, but I didn't think she had that many sparks with Allen Scotti, for whom is her sexual partner during a few scenes. I never thought their love-making provided the right amount of erotic heat which is surprising since chains get thrown into the mix and blue light(..often quite an effective tool for erotica)within night scenes never quite elicits fireworks. The fight scenes between Macroth and Colum never catch fire either and have clumsily inserted dogs growling in the attempts to sell the beasts themselves attacking. The morphing sequences from human to beast leave much to be desired. Special effects in this film just are too cheap to effectively convey what the director so desires and he often has to resort to the use of objects to cloud humans before and during their transformation to, I guess, save on what little budget he obviously had. There's an unnecessary sex scene between Colum and two lesbian women(..Julie K & Regina Russell)that should also be erotic but comes off surprisingly empty because the director fails to establish whether or not they're actually even on top of him! I'd suggest seeing this merely to see Cialini naked, slapping Colum as he's chained to the bed while on top of him having the ride of her life. She also has a rather effective strip scene, removing her gown inviting pleasure. Maybe the problem is the lead actor, Scotti, who fails to generate fire with his new lover or a sense of love with his wife. The character of Stella spends most of the screen time upset with her husband's decision to leave home, feeling distant from Colum, or warding off Macroth's advances.

They could have made a pretty good flick, but missed the boat.

[[e-mail] · 3/10 · 15 February 2006]

Wolfhound is a supernatural thriller type film. There's plenty of nudity, although the violence was a little lacking. It also seems that the film makers didn't follow through with all of their plot ends or ran short on funds or some other such nonsense (I will elaborate below).

Colum is a young writer with a family. He moves his wife and kids back to his home town in rural Ireland so that he can concentrate on writing a book. As the film drags on (I stress that it drags), Colum's wife begins to realize that her husband has been keeping a secret from her all these years. While staying in Ireland, Colum begins hooking up with an Irish Wolfhound that can transform itself into a beautiful woman (you'll just have to take my word on this one). The woman is trying to help him remember that he is also a wolfhound and that his human form is only one side of him. As a matter of fact, the entire populace of the village are actually animals that take human form. Colum has to realize his animal powers in time to save his wife from the local bully.

The real problem that I've got with this thing is that they didn't really explain some things that they should have. I can forgive not knowing what happens to the hero at the end of the movie and the minutia that is only kind of a cute sub plot. However, in this thing they frequently mention that Colum's parents died in their late twenties and they don't say how or why he moved out of the village. We can assume that his parents met an untimely end. However, they stress the death of his parents being such a turning point and it is never really adequately explained. They also never fully explain the gorgeous woman wolfhound's relationship with him. She mentions that she's been waiting for him to return, but why? We don't know why or when he left, so there's nothing really to gauge his past on. I don't mind ambiguity in films, but still. It looks like they tried to make a modern day Hitchcockian film, but royally screwed up.

not a werewolf movie

[ty4000 · 23 February 2004]

'Wolfhound' is not a werewolf movie, per se, but it's not so terribly bad otherwise. It is filmed rather well for it's budget, IMHO. Yes there are transformations, but not into wolves...into dogs, particularly Irish Wolfhounds, thus the title. I actually thought the acting was rather good for such a production, especially the various sorts of 'local' people and most certainly Jennifer Courtney, playing the wife of the man who brings his family to Ireland to where his familial roots are. So, yes there is mystery, but not really any horror, so to label this a horror movie is a just a bit of a stretch. More of a fantasy. And keep in mind that not everyone who is a shapeshifter turns into a dog, some are birds, some foxes, etc. I should note that the animals who are in the film actually are filmed well enough to convey that they ARE acting, which, for animals, can be a bit rare. However, a good portion of the film is spent showing the '95 Playmate Of The Year, Julie Cialini. She is the main shapeshifter who entices our leading man. Yes, her physique is what is obviously on display here. Was this created as a vehicle for her? Hope not. Poor thing, she really can't act. Especially for a character who's supposed to have lived in this Irish village all her life, she sounds like an cheerleader from the U.S., you know, somewhere in the mid-west. Overall, if you are interested in werewolf movies, this is not one. See only if you a) don't mind soft porn b) are interested in fantasy-mysteries involving concepts such as shapeshifting.

Utter Tripe

[limeygoose · 1/10 · 5 February 2006]

I got this movie out of the bargain bin for a laugh, and honestly a laugh is all you can get out of this.

The plot in a nutshell: American family re-locate to Ireland, man gets fusty over a hairy mutt and with the added extra of cheap Sinclair Spectrum style morphing the dog changes into a woman, he gets bedazzled by her baps and ignores his family to go off for a romp with her. All is well (unless by this point the cheesy porn music doesn't make you want to pull your ears off)until this hairy geezer shows up, with may I say equally bad acting, he wants to romp with the American's wife, but she is having none of it, in the end you get to see more Spectrum special effects, a woman changing into a robotic style bird with horrendous flapping wings and more crap music. There are more bad mistakes in this film that makes it more funny than making you want to get anything aroused by the woman's gyrating and boobs fwapping all over the place.

For instance, she is supposed to be Irish and not have any luxuaries, yet when she does take her clothes off and actually speaks you can see she has very distinct tan lines and she has a strong American accent.

All in all this film was fun for a laugh and making this review, I recycled the box for another DVD and the disc itself has ended up a rather artistic drinks coaster.

Total crap!!!!!

[mizziah74 · 1/10 · 13 September 2002]

I try to be positive when watching a movie. I usually don't bring many expectations to the table. Generally, I can find something worthwhile in any movie I watch, even when the movie sucks ass. However, except for the ample cleavage, this movie totally sucks in every department.

The acting is very amateurish all around, the writing is poverty-row (at best), the cinematography is quite poor in a lot of places (lots of out of focus shots), and the "special effects" are laughable. Plus, this movie has a couple of the worst child actors I've ever seen! Damn!!!! I wanted to smack them every time they appeared on screen.

I walked into this with an open mind, but for all my efforts, I just ended up getting robbed of money and 80 minutes of my life that I'll never get back!

Very poor production.

[shanfloyd · 2/10 · 26 March 2003]

Well, this movie, to tell the truth, is a total crap. No story, no acting, no mature screenplay... just sex which covered 50% of the movie. The director made a blunt effort to insert some plot with that morphology-changing ability of the villagers but that turned out to be a sheer flop. The actors, especially the child ones, are not worth to mention. Julie Cialini, the "star" of the film did her part, which consisted of nothing hard, well. The cinematography is horrible and senseless. Some childish special effects are also seen.

Two things are worth for a brief notice about the film. One is shooting location, which is nice; and the other is the background music during sex scenes. But if you're going to waste your bucks just for that, I have nothing more to say.

I should have known better. So should you.

[I_Ailurophile · 2/10 · 2 October 2021]

Oh boy.

From the moment 'Wolfhound' begins it's so inescapably ham-handed that it feels very much like a picture made for TV. The writing and the direction are both just as bluntly, strenuously forced, forthright, and frank. So it is, too, with the music, and the acting; whether this is owing to the cast's capabilities, or a reflection of guidance from the directors, is up for debate.

I appreciate that the movie was filmed on location in Ireland. I think the concept of the narrative, while hardly unfamiliar, holds promise, and the lore that is the basis of the plot is enticing. But value in the screenplay is thwarted by its unseemly bent toward salaciousness and the unmistakably artless directness of the filmmakers. Moreover, the story as it is written is weak and specious, with connections between scenes that are often less than credible. There's almost no consideration at all for continuity; day and night come and go within juxtaposed concurrent scenes.

In fairness, of course - hey, to each their own. 'Wolfhound' makes no apologies for what it is, and adopts no pretense otherwise. This is clearly intended for audiences seeking minor titillation in the suggested eroticism, and that's fine. I should have known what I was getting into when I sat to watch. Yet with that in mind, too, I think even viewers actively seeking out titles like this would be hard-pressed to deny the deficiencies that abound.

Consider: Most shots featuring canines have the appearance of having been filmed on a rudimentary cell phone camera. This especially goes for an early fleeting scene of action, when exceptionally blurry and indistinct camerawork suggests that for lack of trained animals or meaningful ability to capture these instances as desired, actors simply roughhoused with the animals, and this is passed off as a genuine struggle. We also get a single shot of what is absolutely a puppet standing in for a real dog. Meanwhile, nudity and sexuality is so tawdrily direct (there's that word again) as to be bereft of real sensuality. Sex scenes aren't invigorating - they're equally ham-fisted, awkward, and unconvincing.

There are a few good ideas here. I think the transformation effects are marginally better compared to some other films out there. Sparing instances of swell delivery and nuance of expression portend finesse of performance that the cast at best broadly has difficulty achieving.

But plot and earnest entertainment is at most a secondary concern of all involved. What genuine worth this could have had is rendered almost entirely inert by poor, careless execution. I can't really imagine recommending 'Wolfhound' to anyone. I should have known better, and maybe if someone comes across these words before clicking "play," I can at least impart the appropriate forewarning.

Good doggie

[kosmasp · 2/10 · 12 April 2012]

For the money they had, the "special effects" scenes aren't as bad as you'd expect them to be. And the once Penthouse Girl of the Year is not bad either (for the eye that is). And if you are spoiled by Twilight, this definitely is not for teens (in America that is). As it seems I also watched the unrated version (do wonder what they cut though ... can't be violence, so it must be some of the nudity).

The movie does not have a big story, the acting is mediocre at best, the editing tries to be fancy and if you actually think there are not enough supernatural movies out there (check the TV show, although I haven't seen it, I'm sure it more than worth it, plus will give you enough hours to enjoy), then maybe you will find this intriguing. Or you like the really beautiful woman (who's also on the cover) ... Nothing wrong with that. Other than that, stay clear of this

Folklore and Shapeshifting-A Good Review

[BeLyt · 6/10 · 5 February 2007]

I didn't fast forward through this movie like I do with many others. For me there just aren't enough supernatural movies out there, so I didn't find renting this one to be a waste of money or time. Folklore, shape shifting, and yes, sex. It wasn't a smooth movie but it was entertaining and intriguing in its own way. I think some of the actors deserve credit for playing a good part. One of the youngest actresses, who played the young daughter Sally, added depth to the movie with her believability as an open-minded, non-judgmental child. It wasn't a great effects movie like Underworld, but like reading a good Sci-Fi story, it can draw a person into a different world for awhile. I enjoyed the setting as well, rural Ireland, (though I'm not certain if it was shot there). It followed a man's quest to know himself, but the plot lacked a lot of depth in that regard. So for those who like the idea of shape shifting, you might find it a worthwhile movie, but due to the sex scenes I definitely recommend it only for adults.

Release the hounds

[Dr. Gore · 26 March 2005]

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

I bought the unrated DVD. I saw that Julie Smith was credited in the cast as "Fantasy Woman". That sounded about right. She shows up near the end in a fantasy three-way with the main character and Regina Russell. Russell and Smith looked like they flew straight off the set of "Bad Bizness" to help add some life to "Wolfhound". They must have taken the Wolfhound Express. They were both sporting the exact same hairstyles from their previous intimate rendezvous. This sex scene was excellent. Another Julie Smith triumph. It was also the only thing that stopped me from throwing this DVD into the garbage can where it belongs.

Wow. Talk about shamelessly cheap. "Wolfhound" is an out of control rip-off. The filmmakers should kiss the ground Smith walks on for saving their movie from complete destruction. Based on the DVD cover, you would expect "Wolfhound" to be some sort of werewolf flick. The cover has a hot blonde with her head tilted back transforming into a wolf creature. The tagline is, "Beware the Beast within". But alas, the joke is on us. She is actually turning into a wolfhound. A wolfhound is: "Any of various large dogs, such as the Irish wolfhound or the borzoi, trained to hunt wolves or other large game." Yes, you read that right. She turns into a big, scruffy, mangy dog.

So this family moves to Ireland. There are lots of wolfhounds around. The main character keeps seeing one hound and wants her bad. This particular Wolfhound turns into a hot naked supermodel that wants a lot of sex. Isn't that always the way? Soon his hound dog sex will drive a wedge between him and his wife. This all leads to a very unexciting conclusion.

"Wolfhound" stinks. Even with a village full of shape shifting wolfhounds, they still couldn't manage to pull off one exciting death or action scene. Unless you'll watch Julie Smith in anything, let this hound go.

This outright sucked!

[lipvixen · 24 April 2004]

I have never seen a more annoying bunch of actors in one movie.

Lucky guy, talk about license to cheat with hot chick. "just trying to save your life oh wife of mine". Acting was bad and they wasted what could have been a good plot. What was with Miss Julie's accent? Too valley girl American which was a shame because everyone had an authentic accent. The wife was annoying too with her constant chattering and over-acting. The man was trying too hard to be intense he just appeared to be a morose loser.

No eerie effects or mystery just all out soft porn. Sadly, this wasn't even titillating. Got the VCD as a freebie buy 3 get 1 free. Still felt like money burned though! They should have paid me to get this off their hands.

Well shot but confusing as all heck

[jbels · 24 February 2003]

Wolfhound looks great which was a real surprise and treat, but who can tell what's going on? Part Shining and part Wolfen, an Irishman returns to the Old World with his family to write a book and fights his wolfen ancestry. This movie defines the term gratuitous nudity. The final battle is ridiculous and confusing. Jennifer Courtney looks like Jill Clayburgh.