Review: ‘Wolf Garden’ is a psychological fairy tale

Writer/director Wayne David evokes the delicious darkness of fairy tales with Wolf Garden. It’s a high-on-style setpiece with plenty of ghoulishness to give you nightmares, casting you into a catatonic state. You could say it’s almost like a long-forgotten Grimm fairy tale; it’s haunted, dreamy set-up feels as fable-like as any from that cursed repertoire. Yet an over reliance on dream sequences and erratic flashes of nonsensical images make it far more about provocation than an actual overarching storyline or theme.

David plays William, a man seeking a getaway from the rat race with his girlfriend Chantelle (Sian Altman). The film opens with a feverish dream-within-a-dream, prepping the audience for his deteriorating emotional headspace. He awakes with a start, displaying shock and horror at what he’s seen. Distorted and blood-soaked images still ring hot in his head. The secluded cottage is nestled in the countryside, expanses of woods decorating the property’s edges. It’s beautiful yet sinister, as though something is lurking beyond the sun’s fingertips. As William continues having what appear to be prophetic dreams, any sense of a reality wanes, even for the viewer. You begin to wonder exactly what is happening or if you can trust any of it.

“Does this feel real to you?” he asks Chantelle one evening over dinner. She is taken aback at such a ludicrous question and merely shrugs off the notion. Eerily, she’d suggested the same thing a few days prior: “I feel like I know what’s coming.” The film oftentimes feels like it’s playing on loop, with similar pictures being reused and reapplied. In several instances, for example, William can be seen chopping up raw meat and taking a wooden bowl out behind the main house to a shed, where snarls and smacking jaws can be heard through the darkness.

Wolf Garden unfortunately treads water for much of its runtime and makes for a sluggish watch. It clearly takes cues from such films as American Werewolf in London, among others, but doesn’t do much with the werewolf lore that’s even remotely interesting. The most interesting aspects lie with the cinematography and the sense of foreboding created in color palettes and camera angles; it all feels damn near claustrophobic.

William wanders through a frail existence. It’s alluded that he is escaping some sort of violent event in which he got himself ensnared. Bit by bit, his past is incrementally exposed and gives further insight into his shaky psychology. Once the big revelation hits, which is presented as shocking, it sort of lies there, limp and uninspired. What lacks in story with bite, David makes up for in his performance. He turns the screws with powerful emotional beats that truly captivate and feel earned. Without his commanding presence, there wouldn’t be a single thing in which to sink your teeth. As such, the film reads as a study in human nature more than anything else.

Wolf Garden might not work as a complete feature, but there are spots of brilliance poking through the noise. As William struggles to make sense of the past and the present, he soon realizes why his reality is so shifty. He’s an unreliable narrator, one could argue, but the wrinkles in his story soon work themselves out. The film, most of all, is a fascinating glimpse into one man’s trauma-addled brain.

Wolf Garden is out now on VOD.

Follow B-Sides & Badlands on our socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram