Medium Raw and a Wolf's Delight: A Movie Review

Director/writer: Andrew Cymek.

Cast: William B. Davis, John Rhys-Davies, Mercedes McNab, and Brigitte Kingsley.

Medium Raw aka Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf is a Canadian shot horror film. This feature was shown on television in 2010, with Anchor Bay Entertainment set to release this title on DVD August 16th. The film retells the ancient German legend of Little Red Riding Hood with a twist. Horror is always great for twist endings. Actor John Rhys-Davies is under utilized in his role and the updating of this children's tale is enhanced by the costume department. As well, Medium Raw introduces not one villain, but four. This is a slow building horror title, with some interesting action sequences in the final scenes.

This is the second film which has offed actor John Rhys-Davies in the first quarter of the film. The other film was Ferocious Planet (2011) and here Rhys-Davies plays Elliot Carbon. Gone are the days of confident pronouncements in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), as Rhys-Davies seems to be taking only minor roles. These minor roles are often quickly bloodied. However, this actor does more than just attach his name to this film. His goal as Elliot is to track down a child killer. He achieves his goal, but his encounter with a wolf-suited killer leaves him a bested man.

Other characters take over his desire to capture the Wolf, including: Johnny (Andrew Cymek) - a cop with a desire for revenge and Dr. Parker (William B. Davis), a psychologist of a prestigious insane asylum. In this facility, several sociopaths and psychopaths are housed behind thick walls and iron doors. Their prognosis for recovery is doubtful. The Wolf is constantly taunting Johnny with: "are you the woodcutter?" This is more antagonism than anything else. The film is also broken into chapters e.g. "Night of the Wolf" to hopefully build the tension to the climax. But along the way there are several interesting nefarious characters to encounter. The way to  Grandma's house is a guarded one.

There is Mabel the Cannibal (Sandi Ross), the Bull (Andew Martin) Oliver (Shawn Lawrence) and a few others. All of these characters are released at the asylum by a freak power outage. Coincidentally, the Wolf has been captured and located to this psychiatric hospital and now the thrills really begin. Mabel runs her cannibal cooking show on some of the local psychiatric nurses. The Bull runs over most, who antagonize him with red light. Red light is like the matador's cape in this film. Finally, Oliver likes to dissect toes from the living and the dead to support his extreme foot fetishism. All of these characters hamper Johnny's ability to capture the Wolf once again.

The first half of Medium Raw builds slowly, as the characters are introduced with backstories. The second half of the film does not suffer from such pacing difficulties. However, almost all of this film is shot indoors, in one location. So, some of the scenes tend to be a little visually repetitive. The lighting in red and dark tones is suitably horrific. As well, the diverse characters are what creates some of the tension and some of the mystery. Overall, this is an enjoyable watch, but this reviewer would like to see actor Rhys-Davies make it to the end of a film just once!

Lighting/sets/visuals: 8 (the Red One camera seems to saturate the visual sphere, the film looks great).
Writing/plot/story: 7.5 (it is hard to go wrong with a tale that is so widely known).

Overall: 7.75 (slow in the beginning, tense in the end with a strange sequence involving a sinking cage breaking the veil of believability).

*unfortunately, actor Andrew Martin succumbed to injuries related to wrestling shortly after filming this production.

**Rhys-Davies is nearly seventy years old and an easy target for 28DLA reviewers.

A second review of this flick at Film Reel (Will):

Medium Raw Reviewed at Film Reel

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