Rent Silverhide (2015)

Very poor. Avoid - Silverhide review by RP

I was looking for a 'proper' werewolf film to rank alongside 'An American Werewolf In London' or 'Dog Soldiers', or perhaps even 'Ginger Snaps'. Well, this isn't it.

I suppose it has some interesting elements, but unfortunately the script is poor, the acting is poor, and the film is such a low budget effort (no budget?) that the lighting and sound are so poor that you can barely see the awful low budget effects or hear the awful script.

2/5 stars, but only because I have seen even worse. Avoid.

Spoilers follow ... - Silverhide review by NP

At a top secret military base, three young reporters are determined to uncover the nature of various tests being carried out there. Sinead (Kelly Wines) especially has reasons of her own to find out what is going on – her father, she suspects, was killed by officials who thought he ‘knew too much.’ Laura (Lucy Clarvis), who is in financial trouble, and her partner Marty (Jordan Murphy) have also agreed to be part of the investigations. Camped out amidst rolling Welsh countryside where sheep are being viciously killed, it is clear something nasty is out there in the gloom.

And gloomy it is in this low-budget conspiracy horror. Whilst there is a good sense of remote unease and isolation, things are sometimes too murky to make out clearly. This unfortunate side-effect of the film’s low budget is coupled with another blemish representative of such projects – some of the dialogue (especially that of the photographer Sinead meets, played by whispering Matt Brewer) is often impossible to make out.

Against that, Sinead and the photographer, who also has his own reasons for wanting to find out what’s happening, are caught in the impossible and tense situation where, if the ‘Silverhide’ creature doesn’t get them, the military who are determined to preserve the top secret nature of the project, certainly will.

As things roll on, revelations come thick and fast. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with events, but it becomes clear who the real enemies are. There’s more to the creature than ‘just’ a wolf-man type. In fact, it is a shame we don’t see much more than brief glimpses of eyes, snout, talons because the effect of the werewolf (notoriously difficult to realise convincingly) is good. However, due to the spectral talents it possesses, the audience probably sees more of the animal than the soldiers do …

This is a flawed but interesting film with a good twist. It won’t satisfy everyone and the plotting is sometimes hazy. But it emerges as a very interesting and enjoyable project.