Colum Kennedy (Allen Scotti) brings his wife, Stella (Jennifer Courtney), and children to the rural Irish village where he was born in order to write a book. He quickly discovers that the town is filled with shape shifters who mainly take the form of Irish wolfhounds. A beautiful blonde (Julie Cialini), who watches Colum in the shape of a white dog, seduces him, showing him his heritage.
A weredog film is a questionable idea to begin with, but it completely collapses under the weight of its own silliness when the dogs in question are Irish wolfhounds. Sure, they’re big enough, but they don’t have that sinister feeling. I didn’t want to run from them; I wanted to brush them.
Financed with the help of the Irish government (I’d love to have been in on those meetings), the setting is pleasant, if unspectacular. I kept waiting for a scene that would make full use of the landscape, but as neither director nor cinematographer demonstrated any proficiency with a camera, I should have expected less.
I wonder what the original plan was. My guess is they approached the Irish with the idea for a folktale-based thriller, but once they started shooting, found they lacked the writing, acting, and filming talent to make that work. So, they added a few sex scenes, courtesy of Playboy Playmate Cialini. But it is far too little to convert Wolfhound into an erotic thriller or softcore. Most of the film’s running time is spent with Colum staring off as if he’s lost his place in the script, and with Stella yapping.
Cialini sounds as Irish as I do (and I live in Georgia) and couldn’t star in a grammar school production, but then she wasn’t hired for her acting. Her breasts are her ticket. So what excuse was there for casting Allen Scotti and Jennifer Courtney? They are little better than Cialini while being twice as annoying.
With the exception of a few of the supporting female players, Wolfhound is an amateur production from beginning to end. If you are looking for horror or fantasy, suspense, or eroticism, look somewhere else.