Director Adrián García Bogliano (HERE COMES THE DEVIL) and writer Eric Stolze (no...not the actor) craft a tale of a curmudgeonly, blind army vet, Ambrose, who is being conveniently tucked away in a generic retirement community by his son and daughter in law. His first night in his new place, the neighbor is murdered and he is attacked. His faithful dog Shadow is killed as the canine fights off the unseen assailant.
The cagey Ambrose starts putting the events together in his mind, and erring on the side of caution, is soon commissioning a grip of silver bullets from the local gunsmith. As he battles depression, he is befriended by the local priest, and begins to get to know the locals, a hodge-podge of boring suburbanites and ailing senior citizens. Not incredibly well liked, Ambrose keeps to himself, and bides his time until the next full moon, his suspicion growing to certainty as he prepares for what he knows will most likely be his final battle.
LATE PHASES is a noble attempt at bringing a new spin to the sub-genre of Lycanthropy flicks, but is undermined by a whiz bang beginning, that is then followed by a semi-plodding seventy minutes of character development and endless exposition. The upside to that is the cast is damned solid, namely lead Nick Damici (STAKE LAND, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE) and Tom Noonan (MANHUNTER, THE MONSTER SQUAD), with welcome guest turns from character actor stalwart Rutanya Alda (THE DEER HUNTER, AMITYVILLE 2: THE POSSESSION) and ex-sexpot Tina Louise (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND). That said, we now come to the werewolves themselves. Looking more like something from a Sid and Marty Krofft show, the creature suits are not far above a decent quality Halloween shop costume, and are perpetually frozen in a mono-expression. When the antagonist infects some of the seniors from the community so he has help in attacking our hero, it looks like each face was cast from the same mold. You can damned near see the zippers running up the back of the hairy outfits, and the performers within come off as stiff and just plain old goofy.
That said, again, I'll point to the solid performances, which are absolutely the saving grace of LATE PHASES. But in the end, this is a watch-and-discard flick that won't be joining it's brethren of THE HOWLING, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, or even guilty pleasure BAD MOON up on the video shelf. I'm sure this played well on the festival circuit, where many of my friends saw and loved it, but without the excitement of seeing this with a theater full of horror loving friends, this SILVER-haired BULLET is merely tolerable fun, but not much else, when brought home.
Rating: 3 out of 5
~Boris Lugosi
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