This week\u2019s minor VOD releases include a rewarding naturalistic drama, along with two uneven single-location thrillers and two movies with nearly identical titles that are each awful in their own unique way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hellhounds<\/em><\/strong> (VOD January 9):<\/strong> \u201cWerewolf biker gang\u201d sounds like a foolproof concept, but writer-director Robert Conway finds a way to botch it, killing off most of the lycanthropic motorcycle crew before the movie begins, leaving behind just one Hellhound. Instead of a battle between the Hellhounds and their rival gang of werewolf-hunting bikers, the Silver Bullets, Conway focuses on a disjointed story about the hunt for an ancient werewolf named Lucella (Eva Hamilton) and her sadistic henchman. It takes a while before the disparate plotlines coalesce into a battle between Lucella and the biker whose alias is, uh, Alias (Nathaniel Burns). When they finally arrive, the werewolf transformations are a mix of terrible CGI and equally terrible practical effects. The characters are uninteresting, the acting is flat, and Conway\u2019s attempt to liven things up with copious gratuitous nudity comes across as desperate. This is a movie so miscalculated that it randomly throws in D.B. Cooper as a supporting character, only to immediately turn him into an anonymous werewolf victim. Grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n First Time Caller<\/em><\/strong> (VOD January 12):<\/strong> It\u2019s no surprise that directors J.D. Brynn and Abe Goldfarb adapted their film from a podcast, since almost nothing would be lost if all of its visuals were removed. Goldfarb is the only actor onscreen, playing online shock jock Brent Ziff, who receives a disturbing call from a man (Brian Silliman) claiming that he can predict the imminent apocalypse. Brent is deliberately obnoxious, but writer Mac Rogers also avoids giving him any discernible political viewpoint, and he remains obnoxious even as the caller\u2019s warnings start to come true. Brynn and Goldfarb add occasional onscreen flourishes via soundwaves of Brent\u2019s broadcast and impressionistic flashes of the outside world, but they mostly rely on Goldfarb to carry both the plot and the emotional journey. Still, it\u2019s hard to care about Brent the misogynist asshole discovering compassion as the world crumbles around him. A podcast can convey the scope of a global catastrophe with just audio, but as a movie, First Time Caller<\/em> mainly showcases its limitations. Grade: C+<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hellhound<\/em><\/strong> (VOD January 12):<\/strong> Veteran assassin Loreno (Louis Mandylor) almost immediately botches his supposed last job before retirement, making his status as a legendary killer questionable from the beginning. It\u2019s hard to tell if director Joshua Dixon and screenwriter Niccol\u00f4 de la F\u00e8re are aiming for a deconstruction of the hitman action movie, or if they\u2019re just unable to properly set up their story. Either way, Hellhound<\/em> is a tedious exercise in grim violence, with lengthy digressions into existential musings about human nature \u2014 which are even more tedious. In Bangkok, Loreno is hired to kill a local crime boss who was responsible for the murder of a wealthy foreigner, but there are no personal stakes to that perfunctory quest for vengeance. Hellhound<\/em> meanders through various detours into hotels and alleyways, punctuated by sporadic mediocre fight scenes, before Loreno finds a more direct purpose for his mission. Mandylor is a B-movie workhorse who often elevates basic material, but he can\u2019t bring life to the rudimentary action or the pretentious philosophizing. Grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n