As infantile, ludicrous and utterly lowbrow attempts to gain a cult following go, you’d be hard pressed to find one as obvious as Wolfcop, the 2014 Canadian comedy that took the usual lycanthrope conventions and buried it under a thick cloud of bong smoke and dick jokes in order to deliver a cinematic experience fans of Troma would snort up like a coke fiend in an 80s public bathroom. However, among the glorious old school gore effects and goofy, frat boy comedy, you can tell that director Lowell Dean was positively itching to make a sequel as he pretty much fucking announced it during the closing credits. Well, apparently dreams really do come true because a few years later we managed to get another Wolfcop movie, titled appropriately enough – Another Wolfcop. But had all the jokes about werewolf sex, alcoholism and casual spurts of extreme gore grown stale and become (sorry) yet another shaggy dog story?
Well, there’s only one way to find out – so pick your poison and join me as Wolfcop embarks on yet another case – of beers.
A couple of months after the events of the first Wolfcop, we find boozy cop Lou Garou still living a double life as he sneaks out at night to tear criminals limb from bloody limb in order to uphold the law in the small town of Woodhaven. However, this presents a few problems for Garou’s former partner, Tina, as since getting promoted to chief, she’s not only been trying to keep Garou’s hairy alter ego a secret, but she was also hoping to keep the severe mutilations of criminals down to a bare minimum too.
However, they soon realise that their old enemies, the chameleonic reptilian creatures known as the Shifters, may be making a return in the form of wealthy businessman Sydney Sawllows who claims to want to bring prosperity back to Woodhaven by reopening the old brewery to brew “Chicken Milk” flavoured beer. However, his deals with the corrupt Mayor means that he has a typically nefarious plan to boost the flagging numbers of his species by infecting his eccentric booze with a concoction that will cause new Shifters to be born from the guts of anyone who downs this grotesque brew.
Wolfcop manages to get an inside track on the plot when he discovers that his old friend, Willie Higgins is actually still alive after being abducted by the Shifters ages ago and is being stored in a crate filled with green goo, but after telling stories of being violently probed, we find that he’s carrying a prototype Shifter embryo in his belly which frequently pops out for a chat.
Add to this a killer Cyborg named Frank tearing up a strip club and the fact that Willie’s sister Kat may have a similar, fuzzy secret to Lou, things will finally kick off at a hockey game in Woodhaven’s brand new arena. Will Swallows manage to rebirth the Shifters back into existence or will Wolfcop and his buddies hound him into defeat.
I’m assuming that it’s all Troma’s fault, but there’s something about low grade trash that’s fully aware that it’s trash that’s still made with love that I just can’t resist. I loved it back in the Troma glory days of The Toxic Avenger and Class Of Nuke ‘Em High and I love it now with such flicks as Father’s Day and Psycho Goreman doing the rounds and while Wolfcop didn’t quite hit the heights of some of those other flicks I mentioned, there’s enough dumb shit and unnecessary nudity to ensure that it stand stand proudly alongside its equally childish peers.
But hey, don’t just take my word for it – there’s a bunch of telling cameos abound that pretty much means that Another Wolfcop gets the trash seal of approval. For a start, none other than Kevin fucking Smith shows up as the booze sucking, bribe-taking Mayor of Woodhaven, who meets a vile end farting and puking himself to death while a google-eyed hand puppet (eg. a Shifter newborn) erupts from his belly like The Mighty Boosh crew was remaking Alien with thrift shop effects. Earlier in the film, Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney and Matthew Kennedy – the main trio behind defunct Canadian filmmaking team, Astron-6 – show up as criminals who all get ripped to sheds by our titular hero in the opening action sequence and I have to say, if any of the past two sentences made any sense to you whatsoever, it’s a good indication of how much you’re going to embrace another go round of fanged madness.
Thanks to all the origin stuff already being explained away in the first movie, Lowell Dean obviously now thinks that any and all responsibility to have this thing make a lick of sense in now off his shoulders and instead he forges ahead with string together as many outrageous scenes as his budget will possibly allow. Yes, we get unnecessary shots of an astoundingly long werewolf dick, yes the gore is cartoonish as silly and yes, we get another bout of highly aggressive werewolf sex, but it’s done with such a sense of cavalier fun, it’s tough not to get drawn into the 80s references (the quad poster inspired by Stallone’s Cobra may actually be the best joke the movie has – and it’s not even in the movie) and defiant jabs of the middle finger at good taste.
The plot is anemic to the point that you want to take it to the local doctors to measure it’s iron intake, but such things as tone and pace are fairly irrelevant when you have a scene where Leo Fafard lead (in human form) has an extensive sex session with a female werewolf that has six breasts (naturally) and is highly reminiscent of both 9 1/2 weeks and Team America. Further more, not only to we get a triumphant return of Jonathan Cherry’s Willie (so to speak), but he also comes complete with a little worm-like intestinal parasite version of himself that unavoidably looks like dick and hurls insults from its little mustached face.
There’s a school of thought that suggests that such absurdist crap would probably be better off not existing at all, but I have to say that even if garbage like Another Wolfcop falls somewhat short of achieving that breathy awe that people use to describe something as “cinema”, I truly believe that the world is a better place thanks to shite like this and if you just don’t get it, then you’re probably not blazed enough to be in on the joke.
It all kind of falls apart at the end as a bloody brawl on the ice of a hokey rink kind of just runs out of steam rather than build to a climax and it’s set up to another instalment just feels more confusing than exciting, but for a movie that’s obviously in love with the trashier parts of the 80s, it has that endearing quality that some movies fifty times its size struggles to achieve.
Is it art? Fuck no, but that hasn’t stopped me from being somewhat disgruntled that a third instalment hasn’t surfaced yet and if a Wolfcop trilogy does finally happen (Wolfcop With A Vengence anyone?), you can bet I’ll be watching it.
It’s as dumb as they come, but when the chips are down, you can count on Wolfcop to get a collar – a dog collar. Y’know… because he’s a wolf and stuff…
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