It is doable that you just may affiliate the identify Josh Ruben with the streaming service Dropout, or with one in all Dropout’s viral movies. For the previous couple of years, Ruben has been one of many extra dependable improv performers on exhibits like Make Some Noise and Sport Changer, with a present for celeb impersonations and arising with unusual characters on the fly.
Dropout is simply his facet hustle, nonetheless. Ruben received began with the Dropout group again in its CollegeHumor days, as a author/director for a number of dozen of its quick movies, like “Feminine Armor Sucks.” After CollegeHumor’s near-closure in 2020, Ruben branched out into directing horror films, the best-known of which might be 2025’s Valentine-themed slasher Coronary heart Eyes. Ruben is already engaged on its sequel, due out in 2028.
That places Ruben in attention-grabbing firm, as a part of the latest comedy-to-horror crossover wave that additionally contains Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger, and David Gordon Inexperienced (who went from directing Pineapple Categorical and Our Model is Disaster to the 2018 Halloween reboot and The Exorcist: Believer). In Ruben’s case, he comes off like he received desperately misplaced on the best way to the Hallmark studios. A Josh Ruben horror film is a romantic comedy with a physique depend.
2021’s Werewolves Inside is technically an adaptation of a 2016 social deduction VR sport of the identical identify, however the two works have little in frequent. The sport is ready in medieval Europe, whereas the movie takes place in trendy Vermont. You possibly can watch the film with no information of the sport, particularly for the reason that film is at present streaming at no cost on a number of platforms, reminiscent of Tubi. For those who’re inquisitive about Ruben’s horror work or should you merely need a lycanthropic comedy/homicide thriller to your Halloween watchlist, try Werewolves Inside.
The hairy-handed wonk who ran amok in Vermont
Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson, Veep) is a U.S. Forest Service ranger who’s taken a switch to the little city of Beaverton, Vermont. The evening he arrives, an avalanche blocks the principle highway out of city, which coincides with a suspicious energy outage.
When Finn goes out to analyze within the morning, he finds that each generator on the town seems prefer it’s been clawed open. Worse, Finn finds the corpse of the co-owner of the native motel. He seems like he was killed by wolves, however wolves wouldn’t have hidden the physique underneath the motel’s porch.
The Beaverton locals have been already at each other’s throats over a latest proposal to run a gasoline pipeline via the city. Now, they’re caught indoors with a assassin on the free, and that assassin may not even be human. Because the state of affairs descends into violence, Finn tries desperately to maintain everybody from killing one another earlier than one thing a lot worse can get them.
It is value noting that Werewolves Inside is a horror-comedy, and the “comedy” a part of that style tag is the extra necessary of the 2. Each scene is out to get fun first and be scary later, if in any respect. It is profitable in that, however manages to undercut some doubtlessly real scares within the course of.
Beaverton is populated by a number of eccentrics, together with a few retired tech millionaires (Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén), husband-and-wife conspiracy theorists (Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus), and a visiting zoologist with a knack for abruptly showing from simply out of body (Rebecca Henderson). The standout is Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), the native mail service, who instantly steals each scene she’s in.
The criticism you often hear about these types of horror films is {that a} huge a part of their casts are sometimes barely characters in any respect, as a result of they’re particularly there to get murdered in droves all through the second and third acts. If a horror film has an ensemble solid, there is not a lot level in fleshing out a lot of the roles as a result of they will catch an axe to the face in some unspecified time in the future within the subsequent quarter-hour.
Werewolves Inside goes the opposite approach, which is becoming for a film based mostly on a social deduction sport. Everybody in Beaverton is auditioning to be the protagonist and has a few motives for homicide. There is not any technique to inform who may be the killer, or the werewolf, or if there even is a werewolf, till our bodies begin to stack up.
The largest downside Werewolves Inside may need, the truth is, is that it is typically too humorous for its personal good. All of the elements for a tense comedy-thriller are right here, however everybody’s too rattling quirky to observe their ideas to an comprehensible conclusion. Even Finn will get into the act a few occasions, by telling a joke proper at a giant suspenseful second, which undercuts the film’s temper and its stakes. (Coronary heart Eyes arguably has the identical downside, however is better-balanced.) It is a profitable comedy, however one which often will get the giggle on the expense of what may’ve additionally been a thriller.
That insistence on laughs makes Werewolves Inside really feel like a high-budget, R-rated episode of Scooby-Doo. So long as you go into it anticipating that, you’ll be able to count on to have time with Werewolves Inside.
Werewolves Inside is out there to stream at no cost on Tubi, Sling TV, Philo, and PLEX.