A haughty and unpleasant stock trader taking an Uber to a late-night business meeting stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad. Monstrously bad. A werewolf intrudes into the exchange, killing three people and biting the trader on the shoulder. Stumbling into the nearby woods disoriented and with a pocketful of cocaine, his desire to relieve the pain from his shoulder as well as to escape the nightmare of being lost and confused in the woods lies within the white as snow narcotic housed on his person, but every time he takes a nasal hit, his addiction curses him into becoming like the wolf that attacked him. Happening across a film crew shooting a microbudget horror film and having no clue what’s happening to him, he partakes with the director’s cocaine habit that fuels his inner beast to come out and hunt them down one-by-one to rip them to shreds high on nose candy.
Much the same way the farcical “Sharknado” gave birth to a few analogous action-horror spoofs with similar ridiculously punned titles, such as “Clownado” or “Lavantula,” that combines a vilified thing with one of the many wraths of mother nature, 2023’s “Cocaine Bear” too began the same conceptual nonsense that spewed out “Attack of the Meth Gator,” “Cocaine Shark,” and now, we’re treated to the next level of hopped-up creatures with “Cocaine Werewolf.” Helmed by longtime microbudget horror filmmaker Mark Polonia, under the Polonia Bros. Production banner, and penned by first time screenwriter Tyger Torrez, the 2024 horror-comedy cuts the werewolf’s bane with powdery coke, spiraling the legendary lycanthrope into a stimulated frenzy of blow. “Camp Blood’s” David S. Sterling of Sterling Entertainment funds the in-and-around Wellsboro, Pennsylvania-shot project with fellow producers Ford Austin (“Dahmer vs. Gacy) and Cleopatra Entertainment’s Tim Yasuni and Brian Perera (“Frost,” “The Black Mass”) serving as producer and executive producer.
Returning to the schlocky world of penny-made horror is Brice Kennedy who has reconnected with Mark Polonia since “Razorteeth” and “Splatter Beach” from 2007. Shortly after Mark’s brother, John Polonia, unexpectantly died in 2008, Kennedy returns to the in front of the camera scene in 2024 after a lengthy hiatus of 17 years. Kenney takes the lead role of the cocaine addicted stock trader bitten to become a rampaging werewolf with a proclivity for nose blow. The West Virginia native never lost a step in those 24 years of off camera with a smooth slip into an obnoxiously crass stock trader jostled to wander the woods and to be anxious to get to the next snort of his pocket narcotic. Kenney plays on a fraction of the rubber masked werewolf, with Mark Polonia and others donning the snarling molded and faux hair stitched latex, but we don’t know or can’t tell which portion of the man-wolf Kenney portrays. Brice carries much of the story until he meets the film crew halfway, through the muck of drug deals gone sour between actors James Carolus and Titus Himmelberger of “Sharkula,” a pair of unlucky drivers behind the wheel of their cars in Michael Korotitsch (“Motorboat”) and Marie DeLorenzo (“Sister Krampus”), and two hunters, from James Kelly (“Sharkula”) and Jeff Kirkendall (“Motorboat”) suspicious of the recent mauling deaths of their neighbors and find themselves way over their head with the animal that’s causing all the carnage. Principal position shifts from being solo to a shared introduction of the film crew, exploring satire of making a low-budget, independent horror movie about a hackneyed clown slasher (Noyes J. Lawton, “Virus Shark”) chasing two girls through the forest. Those two females leads, Jamie Morgan (“Motorboat”) and Greta Volkova (“The Last Frankenstein”), get put through the trope wringer with lesbianism tendencies and gratuitous shower nudity, not to also neglect mentioning being damsels in distress from a killer clown, and become centrically the focus toward heroine, aka the final girl, as the cocaine werewolf infiltrates their small band of filmmakers. Hot on the savage beast’s trail is Ken Van Sant (“Virus Shark”) as the local sheriff baffled by what’s tearing people apart. If you couldn’t tell already, the cast is comprised of Mark Polonia regulars, those who have worked together on numerous projects, and have a kind of inner circle rapport with each other from the various Mark Polonia Bros. productions and this also includes Cody Losinger, Tim Hatch, Yolie Canales, and Alyssa Paige that rounds out “Cocaine Werewolf.”
I had promised myself after reviewing “Motorboat” dismally, I would stay away from another Mark Polonia production but because of my personal philosophy and prejudge avoidance policy of not researching and previewing films before watching them for critical analysis, I burned myself into Mark Polonia’s world once again. I was duped in part of Cleopatra Entertainment being partnering producers and the distributing label as they’re becoming well known for release moderately subpar horror product and have their own entourage line of actors, actresses, and filmmakers, such as Devanny Pinn and Brandon Slagle, with notable B-movie guest stars like William Shatner (“Star Trek”), Vernon Wells (“Commando”), and Udo Kier (“Blood for Dracula”) in some of their releases. Additionally, I absolutely enjoyed “Gun Woman’s” Kurando Mitsutake from print-to-film manga adapted “Lion Girl” that recently saw the physical media light. Unfortunately, I did not get the same pleasure out of “Cocaine Werewolf” under Polonia’s formulaic filmmaking and while Polonia does apply some effects techniques, mostly off-kilter visual f/x such as the added cold breath, the blood spurts, or the swirling faces that indicate human-to-wolf transition, but there isn’t a consistency to them and doesn’t blend into “Cocaine Werewolf’s” whole tone in what is more of a convenience choice rather than a unifying or connective element. “Dead Ant” and “Psycho Goreman’s” Josh Wasylink’s werewolf mask design would be any kid’s Halloween wet dream in what has pretty remarkable detail contrasted against the microbudget. Granted, there are not pneumatic or hydraulic components to the constant mask but a little blood here, a little blood there, and some glowing red eyes and you got yourself a damn good-looking, classic-feeling werewolf.
From Cleopatra Entertainment, the film division of music label Cleopatra Records, comes “Cocaine Werewolf” onto an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 Blu-ray. Frequently lacquered in a CIG haze, the ungraded image manages to retain a solid definition of sharp detail presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect rato. This can be good and bad for the image quality that while really creates delineation around textural clothing and the ample foliage it can also really expose to a fault and emphasize the rubbery inanimate mask along with the large cut out eyes, blackened with dark makeup to try and make the mask and the actor seamless. Depth is fine and medlied across multiple locations and the color range has natural, varied pop, diffused into the smokey trope atmospherics and angled up and key lit cinematography by Paul Alan Steele. Blacks are slight washed but not crushed or with significant banding. Like most Cleopatra Entertainment releases, the soundtrack overwhelms enough of the other audio layers in this English language LCPM Stereo 2.0 that it slightly takes of the edge of the impact, but the lossless quality awakens the snarling, growling werewolf noises and the dialogue is amply consistent throughout that even the Gothic rockabilly score from The 69 Cats doesn’t fully immerse viewers solely in the band’s dark melodiousness. Bonus content includes a Mark Polonia commentary, which the director is usually pretty good about supplying and supporting for most of his work, an image slideshow, and the trailer plus trailers for other Cleopatra Entertainment releases. Physical attributes of the conventional encased Blu-ray include an uncredited but insane Red Riding Hood inspired illustration on the front cover. There is no reverse side of the cover nor are there any inserts included in his release and the disc is pressed with the same front cover image. The unrated Blu-ray comes region free and has a runtime of 80 minutes.
Last Rites: “Cocaine Werewolf” is better than most of the contemporary Mark Polonia body of work, but the heart-pounded effects of his laced comedy-horror is not addictive enough to produce the euphoria to warrant another line hit, leaving this derived werewolf indie in withdrawals.
Seeking to reconnect with her estranged father, Grant, after five years, pregnant Abby drives up the mountainous rural cabin. Though not the warmest welcome she was expecting with the sudden pregnancy announcement dropped into her father’s lap, the two manage to find common ground and connect again while reliving memories of Abby’s mother. Their threadbare bond sparks an impromptu finishing trip to the local creek and as the begin to open up a little more with each other, their car accidently runs off the road and declines down a gradual mountain decline before becoming wedged in a thicket of tree branches. Abby, stuck in the passenger seat facing a steep cliffside dropoff, is trapped and injured. As Grant goes for help up the mountain, a severe storm rolls in bringing harsh weather and freezing temperatures down upon Abby who desperately tries to keep warm and prays to not go into early labor before emergency rescue can come to her aid.
Snowy winter thrillers can be harrowingly exciting as much of the plot is fused with the icy and treacherous environment that make lives at stake higher. The snow and the ice become threatening characters and when combined with, at times, a more conventional and concentrated story antagonists, foreseeing path for survival can often feel frigidly impossible. There’s little room for error, there’s little room for warmth, but there’s always an unpredictable heap of bone-chilling snow as far as the eye can see and the elements are only but nature’s natural attributes man has yet to confidently conquer. “Frost” plays into mother nature’s strength when squalling down below freezing wind and snow upon a woman trapped in her own car. The 2022 released, Brandon Slagle (“Attack of the Unknown”) directed “Frost” goes for the jugular in a woman versus nature survival suspenser penned by frequent Slagle aide-de-camp Robert Thompson. The “Aftermath” and “Crossbreed” screenwriter adapts “Frost” from a story by “From Jennifer” writer-director James Cullen Bressack. Shot during the winter in the San Bernardino mountains, “Frost” is produced by the film’s star Devanny Pinn and Cleopatra Music’s Vice President Tim Tasui under the bankroll and production support of Bressack’s JCB Pictures, Inc., Snow Leopard Entertainment, Sandaled Kid Productions, Multiverse Cinema, and Cleopatra Entertainment founders Brian and Yvonne Perera along with Pinn’s co-star Vernon Wells and The Asylum’s Jarrett Furst serving as associate producers.
“Frost” fits into the solo survivalist subgenre category and only characterizes with three actors and a trained wolf. At the tip of the cast spear is independent film producer and broad-brush horror actress and filmmaker Devanny Pinn (“Nude Nuns with Big Guns,” “The Dawn”) in the principal role of Abby, a woman seeking to rekindle her relationship with her reclusive father living in the mountains because of her pregnancy. Genre legend actor Vernon Wells (“Innerspace, “Commando”) opposites Pinn as Abby’s estranged father who’s happy to see his daughter but feels initially threatened by the pregnancy announcement. Understanding the dynamic between Abby and her father was easy as we’ve seen this type of teetering relationship before from a slightly rebellious, new age child returning home to find familiarity with a widowed and waning parent. Pinn and Wells pull off the several stages of reconnecting from the heated exchanges to the sappy moments of loss to the unexpected joy the two characters can bring out of each other, but what’s more difficult to comprehend is the source material. What causes the father and daughter to divide in the first place and how does that division’s role play out in the perilous predicament of an isolating car crash during a severe winter storm? For the sake of critique, one could say that their dissolving disputable divisiveness ends in irony as if the cosmos ultimately pulls them a part in a fitful storm of rage. Wells does what he can to make the initial crash scene comforting while exuding a positive outcome, but the veteran actor appears blank to severity, especially as a woodsman father soon to be a grandfather. Much of “Frost’s” edge of your seat trepidation is shouldered upon Devanny Pinn to take reins of providing the emotional embattlement against the unforgiving weather elements and animal food chain. Armed with nothing more than the dwindling car’s battery to provide heat and a charged lighter as well as whatever lures and first aid accompaniments in her father’s tacklebox, a rather lightly dressed, nearly to term pregnant Abby is pinned to her seat, backed to the edge of a cliff, and must face the cold and wolves until her father retrieves a rescue party. Pinn does what she can to fill in a quivering battle between life and death with a story that’s heavily reliant on a cigarette outlet to ward off a snarling wolf and can burn through seat belts in a single charge. That’s independent move magic for you, folks!
Any kind of solo act surrounding a single location, remote at that, with no other actor or other mobile organic object to feed off and bounce off its energy is a difficult task to undertake, especially on a hyper cost-efficient production. Slagle’s “Frost” is certainly not immune to the difficulties and the filmmakers, and his crew and cast are well aware of the challenges to make the survival thriller engaging despite fluffing and padding the story with filler clichés and needless setup. The production and location value are comparatively impressive against the limitations of the budget with a practical and computer-generated encroaching tundra of snow, ice, and wind that can insidiously invade a cold snap into the viewers bones, creating that intended atmospheric of a hell freezing over complete with the teeth of a hungry wolf, a biting rime, and deadly falling icicles. More obvious than what perhaps Slagle and creative team realize is that “Frost” relies terribly on the shocking climatic scene, a scene so unimaginable and so appalling that it hits all the right gut-checking spots, but the setup to the scene and all the trials and trepidation Abby has to endure doesn’t quite mesh with a well-rounded plight that usually cradles an emotional pull string for the viewer to continuously root for and support those in the thick of the predicament. Honestly, that heaviness for empathy never provides the emotional weight toward the character and never sparks that flame of hope to keep us warm and fuzzy on the inside to then quickly be extinguished by merciless mother nature. There’s also the plausibility of survival and the way that survival instinct is applied that makes “Frost” too far-fetched to be a strong contender in the subgenre. At near subzero temps, Hypothermia can set in in under an hour. In “Frost,” three days of severe snowstorm pummeling has past, segued by scene time stamps, before Abby becomes a popsicle and is delusional. I’m pretty sure with almost nothing to eat and very little warmth, Abby would have expired in under 48 hours. Yet, the 72-hour mark becomes the most chilling, literally and figuratively, in “Frost’s” invigorating third act snack that’s more abominable than it is nutritional!
Cleopatra Entertainment, the cinematic subsidiary of Cleopatra Records delivers a 2-disc Blu-ray set for Brandon Slagle’s icy thriller “Frost.” Presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the 91-minute film has a crisp, lively picture compressed without much to complain about. Banding issues are held to barely any and the details don’t whiteout during the wintery whiteout, leaving key delineations to be present in bold contrasts, especially during the severe snowstorm scenes. Foliage looks thick and green before for the storm with a lot of good textural details on the impaling branches that perforate the car and Abby. The English language 5.1 surround mix conveys the problematic sound design issues that have been consistently found in many of Cleopatra’s releases. Mostly in regard to the dialogue tracks, the dialogue tracks pick up static and other minute ambient noise during microtonal intervals, creating an unwelcoming and stark contrast with a dialogue mix that cuts obviously cuts in and out between character speak and isn’t simultaneous with the score. However, much like with other Cleopatra releases, the score is production and distributor company’s best trademark with a full album including music from various artists, such as L. Shankar, Big Electric Cat, Terry Reid, Rick Wakeman, and amongst others. The 2nd disc, an audio CD, contains the 15-song soundtrack. Other physical noteworthy aspects of the release include the double-sided cover art – one filmic and the other CD listing with both include different variations of the front cover as well as a translucent Blu-ray snapper cast that adds to the snowy theme. Software bonus features include only the theatrical trailer and a still gallery slideshow. Exposure to “Frost” is deep freezing frills for most of the picture but if able to withstand the coldshoulder of cliches, the mare peaks with a blood-filled and tasty horrific morsel that makes the frippery first half worth the wait.
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