Cry_Wolf (2005)
Date Watched: 12/02/26
Genre: Thriller
Plotline: Upon the discovery of a murdered girl in the woods, a group of teenagers up the stakes of their game of Wolf by creating a fictionalised string of deaths and alleging the same serial killer is behind the murder. When their lies start to bleed into truth, they slowly realise they might not be the ones pulling the strings.

I went into this with very low expectations, given all the poor reviews. I think that's the best way to approach this movie. So no matter what I say, keep your expectations low. It's definitely not a watch for everyone; I'd put it in the same category as Stay (2005) and Gothika (2003). I just really love shitty 2000s movies. Naturally, I loved this one a whole lot more than I thought I would.

Aesthetically, the movie is extremely charming. It's full of jumpy transitions, darkly lit shots, and great music. Hell, they even made a cool website (that I'm yet to fully explore) and an online game. Sadly, you can't play the game anymore, but you can still view the homepage and read the instructions.

Cry_Wolf offers a bit of mystery, a bit of fear, and a bit of blood. In that sense, it does exactly what you'd expect it to do. But the real gems of this movie are the characters. It's hard to like them, but they're not trying to be likeable. Everyone is blatantly a bad person. Everyone does objectively bad things. I mean, you've got to be some kind of shitty if you're willing to sensationalise a murder for the sake of watching your school squirm.

From their very introduction, we're shown that the main cast is unreliable, aggressive, and untrustworthy. Yet it's shown in a way that doesn't make them seem one-dimensional. It's clear that these characters are that way because they're all vying for something. They are at their very worst when egged on by the bad actions of the people around them. Everyone is constantly adding to the next big wrong.

Essentially, Cry_Wolf is about people taking things too far. It's all in a desperate attempt to keep their pride in an environment where everyone is trying to get the last laugh. But the more they do, the higher the stakes go. By caring so much about who wronged them, they only acknowledge the web of lies behind them, failing to see what is strung ahead. They all think they're the Wolf, but they're the Sheep. And so was I.

Every character had a distinct wrong about them that raised their suspicion to me, because every character was flawed and unable to hide it. Yet, there were glimpses that they could be someone else, only we don't see enough to know whether this is a better, worse, or downright evil version of them. So it seemed predictable enough. There were the obvious red herrings, the formulaic building blocks to uncovering The Wolf's identity... and then there was the ending. I won't spoil it, but I'll just say I was taken by surprise.

Just like the characters, the truth I construed while watching was completely unravelled. I thought it'd be easy, that I knew the full story. But I'd forgotten the objectives of the game. I'd forgotten that there is no such thing as knowing when everything is a misdirect to get a target off your back, whether you are guilty or not. Nobody is reliable, not even the viewer. We all have our biases. We put them forward with pride. We fail to see the bigger picture. At least, I failed to see the bigger picture.

Anyway, I'm making too big of a deal about a movie that most people seem to hate, and that some people can probably predict. But I really did love it. If you want to watch Cry_Wolf, it's on daily motion.