Silverhide

Director: Keith R. Robinson
Writers: Keith R. Robinson, Keith R. Robinson
Stars: Kelly Wines, Lucy Clarvis, Jordan Murphy

There’s been a bit of a resurgence in British werewolf movies recently. Over the past year or two we’ve had the likes of Howl and Blood Moon, both of which were reasonably effective, and Silverhide, which quite frankly is not. In fact, Silverhide isn’t really a werewolf movie, despite the marketing which suggests that this is the case; the monster, although of a canine appearance, doesn’t transform in any way, instead being a kind of genetically modified critter which has some funky fur that absorbs moonlight – or something of the type – and thereby makes it invisible.

The story follows a trio of annoying idiots who work as investigative journalists for some kind of conspiracy theory blog. Putting aside the fact that none of them could investigate their way out of a toilet, they somehow end up in a tent on a Welsh mountainside monitoring a military base where some kind of hush-hush testing of a top-secret new weapon is due to take place. This weapon is Silverhide, the aforementioned invisible beastie, and needless to say it manages to escape when an unfortunate lightning strike knocks down the fencing of its enclosure. While assorted indistinguishable soldiers wander around shouting at each other the journalists are busy being ripped apart, leaving just Sinead (Kelly Wines) stranded in a hidden bunker with a random photographer (Matt Brewer).

God this is awful. The plot, by director Keith R. Robinson, has absolutely no connection to the real world. Now I don’t ask that everything strives for kitchen-sink realism, but this features characters who don’t speak one word of believable dialogue between them, who have careers that don’t exist apart from in the mind of someone who has never entered the job market and who do things that nobody would come close to doing. It often veers into complete idiocy – Sinead complains about being followed by a mysterious man in a suit, before the big reveal that… it’s her dad! – and just about every narrative twist is signposted multiple times before anything happens. Beyond this, despite lasting under eighty minutes it still manages to be boring, the acting is horrible and the monster looks like a modified toy troll.