Movie Review: 'Werewolves Within' Brings the Fun of Social Deduction Games to the Big Screen

Werewolves Within is a wildly clever comedy based on a social deduction game, one in which one character is a hidden werewolf and the rest of the players have to use questions and clues to determine who the werewolf is. The game was made for the Playstation console several years ago and an adaptation of the game had been in the works for some time when director Josh Ruben and writer Mishna Wolff won the chance to make the movie. And they made quite a good movie.

Werewolves Within stars Sam Richardson (Promising Young Woman) as Finn, the newly appointed Sheriff of Beaverfield, Vermont. Finn is coming off a recent professional setback and is on the move without his beloved girlfriend who appears to be ghosting him as he is in the midst of moving to the small town. Finn arrives in Beaverfield where he will be staying at the only Inn in town and is quickly introduced to a quirky cast of characters.

In a pre-credits sequence we see a man stalked by some sort of beast. He’s clearly terrified and he is soon dead. Later we will find out that this man is the husband of the Innkeeper, Jeanine (Catherine Curtin) and the first of the victims of what many fear is a werewolf. Before Finn can find out that this man is missing however, he gets his first assignment, looking into an allegation of harassment against a local mountain man, Emerson Flint (Glenn Fleshler).

Joining Finn for his walk to Flint’s less than welcoming mountainside cabin is the new mail carrier in Beaverton, Cecily (Milana Vayntrub). Strangely enough, the last postal worker left town rather quickly and Cecily showed up at the inn a remarkable amount of time to be the replacement. Cecily is also kind of the perfect woman, she’s flirty, sporty and really friendly. Even as Finn is still getting over his girlfriend, he can sense an attraction to Cecily right away.

Their flirtation is interrupted by further introductions to the townsfolk. This includes a gay couple, Devon and Joaquin Wolfson, played by Cheyenne Jackson and Harry Guillen, and a pair of religious busybodies, Trisha and Pete Anderton, played by Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus. There is also a redneck couple, a scientist and an evil billionaire who has been slowly buying up the town for the purpose of siphoning off the gas mine nearby.

The town is mostly a tourist trap and with this being the off-season, it’s mostly empty, thus why there are so few people in town and how all of them can squeeze into the Inn when the town generator is destroyed and the only road out of town is cut off by a landslide. In classic social deduction game fashion, each character is equally well positioned as a potential werewolf. Even Finn, our ostensible hero and lead character, has a past that includes several accidental dead bodies and missing memories.

The first rate cast of comedy supporting players make for the absolute best group of people to play a social deduction game with. I would say that Michael Chernus is my favorite of the scene-stealers but this is a cast of first rate scene stealers so it’s hard to choose a favorite. The casting of Werewolves Within is incredibly smart with terrifically broad actors and improv specialists who really dig into their outsized comic roles while never forgetting the central mystery at play.

Director Josh Ruben and writer Mishna Wolff also have a trick up their sleeve, one I will not reveal here. Let’s just say that you are able to deduce who the werewolf is, you won’t know their motive until the very end and that reveal is really clever and timely. I loved the final moments of Werewolves Within as the villain reveals themselves and lays out how our protagonists were so badly fooled in the funniest and cringiest way possible.

Werewolves Within will receive a limited theatrical release and wide On-Demand Rental release on June 25th.