"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" remains one of Aesop's most lasting fables. The simple tale of a shepherd with a lying streak teaches us the dangers of carrying a lie too far. Over the past two millennia, the story had been told and retold in various forms and mediums. The latest version, Cry_Wolf, combines an intriguing mystery and popular Instant Messenger technology to bring the fable into the modern era.
Cry_Wolf, originally titled Living the Lie, is the final product in a journey that began in 2002 with the first annual Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival. Charlottesville native and director Jeff Wadlow beat hundreds of other directors and four other finalists to secure a $1 million budget to make the film. Now, after two years in production, the film has finally made it into theaters.
Cry_Wolf tells the tale of Owen Matthews (Julian Morris), a somewhat troubled kid (perhaps due to his strained relationship with his all-important father), and a transfer student to the elite Westlake Prep. The first person he meets is Dodger Allen (Lindy Booth), and Owen finds himself being integrated into Dodger's group of friends, who meet every so often to play a game very similar to Mafia. A wolf is selected, and he or she must avoid suspicion from the rest of the crowd, the sheep.
Owen decides to take things one step farther. He proposes they dream up an identity for the murderer of a local townie. They call him "The Wolf" and dream up grisly murders he had supposedly committed at other schools.
It's a brilliant prank, except everything falls apart. Owen receives suspicious IMs, one of his friends disappears and he catches Dodger (whom he has a crush on) making out with his journalism teacher (Jon Bon Jovi). When his friends pull a prank involving the Wolf, Owen becomes convinced the killer is real. Nobody believes him, however, and nobody is to be trusted. Can Owen survive this web of lies and deceit?
The film itself is somewhat of a surprise. Despite the fact that the trailer makes it seem like a typical teen-slasher horror flick, it manages to stray away from all of the associated clichés. In fact, during the Q&A session following Cry_Wolf's premiere at Newcomb Theater last Friday, Wadlow said he was trying to invoke the lost genre of film noir, and he did so quite successfully.
Wadlow's direction made good use of light and shadow to generate mood, as well as the saturation of color, a technique past film noir directors never employed. The excellent soundtrack also helped to generate a satisfying feeling of tension that never scares you out of your wits. And the entire sequence with Owen and Dodger coming up with the Wolf is brilliant.
But that's not to say Cry_Wolf is flawless. The film is fine stylistically, but it has a few kinks in the story. For one, though the romance between Owen and Dodger is integral to the story, it seemed to collide with the mystery side of the movie, and the relationship between Owen and his father could have been expanded. There is indeed a twist in the movie, and though it was relatively unpredictable, I cannot say that it's extremely surprising.
One of the elements that made Cry_Wolf unique was its style of advertising. While most films have a site with some mediocre Flash games, Cry_Wolf features a truly addicting multiplayer experience. The game is similar to the one played by Dodger and company. Users select one of 15 avatars based on the movie (I <3 the Good Girl) and then are partitioned off into sheep and wolves. The sheep try to vote the wolves off, but they kill them all, but the wolves can camouflage themselves as sheep. This game can potentially suck away hours -- it's that fun.
Cry_Wolf is far from being the best film of the year, but it was not meant to be a groundbreaking motion picture event. Instead, it was made to entertain audiences and will hopefully be a launching pad that could turn an accomplished short-film maker into a successful feature film director. Plus, it can reinforce the importance of honor in a community. After all, lying is the first of three charges in an honor offense.
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