Lycan (2017): A Review of One Dog of a Movie

I take no joy in savaging a film because I love movies. I also dislike releasing a review with spoilers, but director Bev Land just stole an hour and a half of my life and I'm not feeling in a generous mood. So, just in case there is somebody reading this who actually wants to watch this travesty, here's my warning:

SPOILERS AHEAD

Here's the plot in a nutshell: Six college students given the assignment to write a paper on revisionist history decide to tackle the hundred year old urban legend of Emily Burt, the "Talbot County Werewolf." So on the weekend before finals when every other college student is living on coffee and Poptarts, our intrepid college students take a horseback ride into the Georgia countryside looking for Burt's grave and end up getting killed by what could probably be a werewolf.

First, let me say what I liked about the film:

• The cinematography is actually quite good, good enough that some scenes could have been used for the Georgia State Board of Tourism.
• Actors Dania Ramirez and Craig Tate do an excellent job with the script they are given.

For the rest of this review, you might want to get a drink and some popcorn. This is going to be a long one.

After the title board tells us it's the year 1986, the movie begins with a sex scene. That in itself is a clear sign that the movie can't deliver as a horror film because it has to throw in titillating filler. The amorous couple are interrupted by something attacking their chickens and dog so they go outside to investigate and are attacked by something unknown and the screen goes black. Did they survive? Will we learn anything more about the couple?

Nope. The couple are never referred to again. It was just pointless opening filler.

Cut to a young Hispanic woman (Dania Ramirez) riding a bike. She stops to write some graffiti on a brick tower and then pedals on.

Cut to a college class with all the students clearly a decade older than they should be and you discover the next week is Finals Week, but instead of an exam, the teacher divides them into groups and gives each group the weekend to write a 20-page paper on revisionist history that will make up 50% of their grade.

And this has to be the cruelest teacher in existence. Evidently, the students have no other finals to study for or they are going to be in one painful time crunch.

So the group gets together in a traditional blend of horror movie college students including Isabella, the aforementioned Hispanic. The makeup of the group is so stereotypical, I was waiting for a Great Dane with a speech impediment to appear. The group decides to investigate an old urban legend of Emily Burt, the "Talbot County Werewolf" and I'm thinking, how are they going to get 20 pages out of that? And since its the weekend before finals, instead of researching old newspaper reports and interviewing local historians, they all decide to ride horses into the countryside in an effort to find Burt's grave. Really. On the weekend before finals.

But before they leave, we see Isabella working on a horse farm somewhere and she clearly has a large tramp stamp tattooed on the small of her back. Remember the year? It's 1986. The practice of women tattooing elaborate arabesques on their backs was not in existence in 1986, but nobody making this film cares. And why does the character of Isabella even have a tattoo? She's as introverted as they come and the idea of her sitting in a tattoo parlor just doesn't mesh with the character's personality.

So they all go off into the woods on horseback and almost all of them get killed in gory ways.

In the film, the chain holding the dog is not visible.

I could rant on and on about the stupidity of the story. How logical inconsistencies fill the plot and how certain events and locales make no sense at all, but here's my biggest problem.

From what I could discover, the original title of the movie was Talbot County. If they had kept that title, I wouldn't be writing this review, because I would not have purchased it. Instead, they renamed it Lycan and since I'm the president of the South-Central Pennsylvania Canid Research Group, I have a passing interest in werewolves and dogmen.

I bought the film thinking I was going to see a Grade B film about a werewolf.

Nope, it's just a Grade Z slasher flick. 

So, the biggest crime here is false advertising. If I buy a movie that implies a werewolf in the title, I want my werewolf, not two crazy women who pretend!

And in a second viewing, knowing who the killers are and why they are killing people, the inconsistencies scream at you. You would find yourself thinking, Wait up. That can't happen, or Why are the killers talking or acting like they really don't know what's going on?

Here's a link to the trailer. WARNING: TRAILER CONTAINS SCENES OF GORE AND BLOOD.