When I first saw the trailer for Cry_Wolf I was somewhat interested as it looked like it added a new wrinkle to the modern day "teen horror" trend but before I was able to check it out at my local theatre, it was gone. Now that I've caught up with it on DVD, I can safely say I'm glad I saved myself a couple of bucks as this is a pretty forgettable time that's much too light on the horror and cops-out in its execution despite having a pretty intriguing premise.

The opening shows promise as the pre-credits sequence has a bit of an "old school" slasher movie feel as a girl is chased through the woods before being offed by a gunshot to the head after the killer calls her cell phone lighting up the display and giving away her hiding place.

But that's about as much slasher goodness as you're going to get for quite a while (despite the movie's posters which show a ski-masked person sporting a hunting knife) as we go straight to the campus of Westlake Prepatory School and we're introduced to Owen (Julian Morris), who's the newest student and at Westlake after being kicked out of numerous other, similarly expensive, private schools. He's quickly befriended by a group of students who introduce him to a lying game called, "Wolf", where a person is chosen (by group leader Lindy Booth as Dodger) to maintain a lie without giving up their identity as the "wolf".

After having played the game for quite some time, the group finds themselves becoming bored by it. But things soon change when Owen comes up with the plan to include the entire school unknowingly in on the game. Taking the death of a local girl (the victim we saw at the beginning of the film), they decide to fabricate a serial killer called "The Wolf" and e-mail around tall tales about how he's been doing it for years and is stalking the campus. It's an elaborate lie and meant to be just for fun, but their seemingly innocent game is about to get serious when it appears their "imaginary" killer has become reality and is starting to hunt down and kill the student body.

Cry_Wolf is the kind of movie that's a total letdown. Director/co-writer Jeff Wadlow and his scripting partner Beau Bauman have come up with a decent premise and just can't manage to go anywhere with it. It's almost like they're afraid to make this into an outright horror flick and instead of taking it in the direction it'd work best in (that being a slasher movie), they instead try to make it into a bearable, if passable, teen "who done it?" thriller.

Now, that's all fine and dandy if you're going to advertise it in such a way, but judging by its trailers, posters, and box art you'd expect something entirely different from what you get. And with Cry_Wolf you don't get too much. There's plenty of so-so attempts at suspense using a series of false scares and background action to little effect, we don't really give much of a care about the characters (who honestly don't act like the high schoolers they're intended to be), and the script relies way too much on coincidence to drive it forward.

While it does pick-up a little bit in the final third and Wadlow does show some decent style (early on giving us quick glimpses of "death scenes" from later in the movie using quick cuts and a washed-out look), there's just nothing here to make it worth your time. It's biggest "name" cast member is Jon Bon Jovi, the ending completely wimps out (think April Fool's Day), and I'm really not sure why the version I watched was called "unrated" as there's no skin and very little blood to speak of. Also I love the fact the movie is pretty much a running ad for AOL's messenger program as it's used multiple times along with it's annoying "you have a message" sound.

Review based on unrated version. (Chris Hartley, 1/8/06)

Directed By: Jeff Wadlow.
Written By: Beau Bauman, Jeff Wadlow.

Starring: Julian Morris, Lindy Booth, Jared Padalecki, Jesse Janzen.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Given that this is a new movie the picture here is pretty clean and clear, however it did seem that the colour is almost a bit too rich at times which could lead to "bleeding" on higher end TV's.

Extras: While a few of the extras here are totally throwaway (I'm talking about you, casting tapes), there's enough here that's fairly interesting to make them worth a look.

We get 4 deleted and extended scenes with optional commentary, an alternate scene with commentary that's just a repeat from the deleted section, casting tapes with commentary, an okay "behind the scenes" featurette, 2 short films by director Wadlow (Tower Of Babble and Manual Labor, the latter of which won him the job making this), and a listenable commentary track with Wadlow, Bauman, and editor/associate producer Seth Gordon.