So I have been clearing out my DVR of late, and yesterday I finally watched Syfy's Red: Werewolf Hunter again. Well, that's not entirely true. I watched parts of it (mostly the parts with Kavan Smith and the fight scenes) while fast forwarding through the boring or overly dedicated to kind of crappy CGI werewolf transformation parts. Um, suffice to say, this thing did not hold up well to a second viewing, you guys. It still had a kind of fun feel, but I no longer want to add it to my permanent collection.
I'll admit, when it first aired, I was so super jazzed about a movie including Kavan Smith, Felicia Day, and werewolves, that I probably gave it a much wider benefit of the doubt than I normally would have. I mean, I thought the ending was terrible on the first watch through, and that didn't change the second time around. I still don't know what the hell the grandmother was thinking. I understand that the writers needed the wolfy Nathan to get free in order to further the plot, but they didn't even try to have the events leading up to the escape make sense. The grandmother's actions felt completely out of character for her. They tried to give some half-assed explanation about her husband having gone through a similar situation that ended badly, but it still didn't ring true. I could totally buy her deciding to kill Nathan in order to spare Virginia the pain she went through, but the way she went about it was just incredibly lame, and didn't at all live up to my expectations of her as a former badass werewolf hunter and the revered and respected head of this family of hunters. I was literally screaming, "Oh come on!" at the screen when she was trying to shoot him with a silver-loaded shotgun from three feet away and kept missing, repeatedly. While he was in a cage. What the heck is up with that? Again, this is a woman who spent her entire life hunting these things down and from everything that has been said up to this point, she was pretty damn good at it. Does not compute.
And the movie was completely full of these kind of weird little out of character moments and actions that were the writers simply trying to further the plot. The other one that kind of irked me the first time around and really got to me the second was that everyone was throwing a fit about Virginia deciding to get married, because other people don't understand their way and they must remain apart. Um, how the heck has your family line survived for all of these generations to fight the werewolves if they haven't been bringing in new blood so they could procreate? I mean, Virginia is the last female in a line of what is vaguely shown to be a strongly matriarchal family. It makes total sense that she would want to go find someone to help her make babies so that her legacy can continue. It also seems to make sense that she would choose someone she cares about and can put up with so that he can be staying home taking care of the kids while she's out hunting. But whatever.
I frequently DVR the cheesy Syfy original movies. If they've got a Stargate actor, dragons, or something archaeological going on, I'm probably gonna give it a try. At least half the time, I"ll watch the first 30 minutes and then just delete the whole thing and move on with my life. I can't say any of the ones I watch in full are ever good, but they are at least entertaining enough for me to watch through once. I don't think there's ever been a Syfy original movie that I've purposely set out to watch twice until now.
But here's the funny thing: I end up watching a lot of Lifetime movies because they often feature Stargate actors as well (there are a lot of cheesy movies being made in the Vancouver area, folks, what can I say). But time after time, I always end up engaged enough in the stupid Lifetime movies to watch all of the way through, and there are a few now that I have purposely watched more than once. Case in point, in addition to having Red: Werewolf Hunter hanging out in my DVR, I also had The Room at the End of the Hall (alternately called The Nightmare at the End of the Hall) in my DVR as well, awaiting a second watch (yes, this one also featured Kavan Smith. There was an abundance of cheesy cable movies featuring Kavan Smith in October, it seems. I am not ocmplaining). I watched that Sunday evening fully intending to put it on in the background while I was reading a book, and to just pay attention to the bits featuring Kavan Smith. Except I totally got sucked into the story, even though I had already seen this movie before.
It really disturbs me that I tend to enjoy the cheesy Lifetime movies so much more than the cheesy Syfy movies. I don't know what that says about my psyche, at all. I think part of it is that my expectations for the Lifetime movies are pretty low, whereas I always (okay, usually) have high hopes for the Syfy films. But I also think it is because at this point, whoever makes these movies that Syfy snaps up for their Saturday night time slots has realized that the movies are gonna get bought and aired at least once, so they are just churning them out. Okay, yes, I am sure Lifetime is just churning them out as well, but theirs are so often "based on a true story" or adaptations of Danielle Steele novels that this seems to require them to go for a slightly higher quality of production than the Syfy flicks.
So, there you have it, one of my dirty little secrets. So help me God, I actually enjoy cheesy Lifetime movies (so long as they feature one or more of my preferred Stargate alumni, at least), and while I try, I just can't get behind the cheesy Syfy films. Go figure.
Also, upon further reflection, the werewolves in that movie just totally sucked, you guys.
That is all.
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