Eleventh Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #11 Late Phases

 You guys.  I did it.  I found another werewolf movie with practical effects!  As mentioned ad nauseam, I loooooove werewolf movies with practical effects - Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps, American Werewolf in London - but good ones are hard to find (Wolf Cop, for example, is NOT a good one).  I wouldn't say that Late Phases a/k/a Night of the Wolf (2014) is a good one but it gets major props for the original-looking/slightly goofy, non-CGI wolf effects.

I'm going to give you a little plot summary, again straight from the Netflix DVD sleeve:

Newly arrived at a remote retirement community, blind war vet Ambrose McKinley learns that it's being plagued by a slew of animal attacks.  When his service dog and his neighbor are savagely killed, Ambrose realizes something sinister is afoot.

First of all, bonus points for using "slew" and "afoot."  Second, while I'm never too keen on dogs getting killed in movies, I am always down for animal attacks.  And Late Phases doesn't make you wait, getting right down to the giant werewolf busting through walls and gutting little old ladies who try to defend themselves with their walkers.  After that, however, there's a whole lot of nothing going on: riding in shuttle buses, Ambrose's training/grave-digging montage, blah blah blah.  I found it to be a long 96 minutes although the last twenty or so do turn up the wolf volume again.  Anyway, this little flick feels like it wants to be much more serious cinema than the B-movie schlock it really is.

Cast members of note: Ethan Embry, as Ambrose's long-suffering son; Tom Noonan (who I guess I recognized from X-Files and/or Hell on Wheels) as the local Catholic priest; and Tina Louise (!).  I didn't recognize Nick Damici who plays Ambrose but I guess I saw him back in 2012 when I watched Stake Land.