Charley Barrett is a wolf man on a mission. What that mission entails — and how he came to be cursed with lycanthropy in the first place — is a bit murky at the start of Larry Fessenden’s Blackout, but all eventually becomes clear. Emphasis on eventually.
The latest feature from the indie auteur behind Glass Eye Pix — which previously gave us the 2014 werewolf-in-a-retirement-community film Late Phases — Blackout finds Fessenden exploring territory he previously covered in his 1995 film Habit, in which he played an alcoholic on the rebound who falls into a destructive relationship with a vampire. As this films opens, alcoholic artist Charley (Alex Hurt, son of William) has severed ties with his wife and virtually everyone else in this life following a werewolf attack that Fessenden refrains from depicting in any detail until the very end. After laying low at the Talbot Falls Motel (yes, he went there) for a whole month — during which he has been obsessively filling canvas after canvas with self-portraits and images of his unfortunate victims — Charley packs up his belongings, hops in his car, and hopes to take care of some unfinished business before he reaches the end of the road, at which is a friend who has made some silver bullets for him.
That’s the plan, at least, but those have a tendency to go sideways in horror films and this one is no exception. Between telling off his father-in-law Hammond (Marshall Bell), a developer whose Hilltop Resorts has been divisive in the community, dropping off some of his late father’s papers with lawyer friend Kate (Barbara Crampton), and having an awkward reunion/farewell with his estranged wife Sharon (Addison Timlin), Charley is behind schedule enough to still be behind the wheel when night falls. As a result, he transforms while driving, a rookie mistake I haven’t seen since 1995’s Werewolf (as featured on MST3K). When he goes off the road, flipping his car in the process, a couple of passing motorists (one of whom is played by Steve Buscemi’s brother Michael) stop to see if they can help, prompting Charley to help himself to them. And then there’s the other motorist who arrives on the scene in time to be added to Charley’s roll-call of victims.
Waking up in the woods the next morning, Charley is understandably disappointed in himself, but this does give him an extra day to tie up loose ends, including picking the brain of the one man who’s seen him in his feral state and lived. “Be honest with me, man. What did you see that night?” he asks Miguel (Rigo Garay), a Mexican laborer whose succinct reply is “Hombre lobo.” Charley also accepts a ride from local pastor Francis (John Speredakos), who like everyone else sees he’s worse for wear than when he left town one month earlier, but is unable to get out of him what’s troubling him. That’s saved for his friend Earl (Motell Gyn Foster), who was expecting him the night before and is still ready to carry out his last wish. “You’re really a fucking werewolf?” Earl says. “I gotta see this shit.” Alas, their plan of Earl tying Charley to a chair, filming his transformation, and shooting him also goes awry in spectacular fashion, resulting in more death and dismemberment and a town full of easily stirred-up yahoos.
Also in the cast are such indie stalwarts as Kevin Corrigan (as one of the aforementioned yahoos), James Le Gros (as Hammond’s foreman, who’s prepared to take charge of the situation on his behalf), and Joe Swanberg (as Sharon’s new beau, who isn’t destined to stick around long). The characters the most in over their heads, though, are sheriff Luis (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) and his deputy Alice (Ella Rae Peck), whose playful banter and speculation about what they’re up against does little to prepare them for the reality when they actually confront it. “Sad to say, if you combine a wolf with a person, you’d probably get the worst of both,” Luis says. “You’d just have a vindictive asshole with big teeth and claws.” Big teeth and claws Charley definitely has, but it must be said the werewolf that bit him (not glimpsed until the flashback that closes the film) has the better overall look.
