Werewolves are such compelling monsters that their stories can be told in any number of ways. They can be funny or terrifying, but they can also be tragic figures. Werewolves can also, as Lindsay Lohan’s newest movie shows, be the stars of low-budget political thrillers about private detectives who may or may not turn into hairy beasts during a full moon.
Among The Shadows only released (on VOD) today, but a number of clips already in circulation make it look, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, like a real doozy. The trailer is the best starting place. In it, we get our first glimpse at an unconventional take on werewolf costuming (regular guys, snarling in hoodies and leather jackets with post-processed glowing eyes) and an outline of a plot that mixes government intrigue, extremely convincing kickboxing fights, and lots of D-list actors mugging in front of green screens.
Screen Anarchy has a short clip of how this looks in action. Your blood will run cold as the scene follows a bright-eyed werewolf torturing another man (“You like that? You like that?” he sighs after hitting the floor next to his target with a wrench) before another woman runs in to help. The whole thing wraps up with an old man arriving just in time to beat up the werewolf as the camera zooms all over the goddamned place and a steel drum melody plays beneath sound effects seemingly recorded by a broken flip phone.
Of course, viewers aren’t coming to Among The Shadows just for riveting action; they want to see Lindsay “Lycanthropy” Lohan. Fortunately, Vulture has another clip that not only graces us with her commanding screen presence, but also shows off some of the movie’s tension-soaked dialogue.
If you can make out the characters’ voices over the scenes’ ominous backing track, there are all sorts of important plot points to pick up. Middle-aged men in ill-fitting suits stare meaningfully at each other, hands tented as they croak out jabberwocky about political deals in a black-light soaked limo. Lohan’s character speaks a sentence at a time, quick cuts jabbing between her and the dudes who want her husband to drop out of some election because, as they say, she doesn’t “want European fossil fuels as an enemy.”
While this section is woefully werewolf-free, it does get the mind racing with possibilities for how the monsters might be incorporated into this plot. Will the movie suggest that our governments are run by secret werewolves and secret werewolf lobbies? Was the man being tortured in the first clip getting too close to their hidden, werewolf plans? How does the ass-kicking old man factor into all of this?
You could (but, honestly, probably shouldn’t) find out for yourself by watching Among The Shadows, which is available on demand now.
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