Having spent the majority of its existence batting away accusations that it’s a cursed genre, video game adaptations have finally embarked on a semi-consistent string of critical and commercial success. All five of the highest-rated entries on Rotten Tomatoes have released in the last four years, but Werewolves Within reached the top of the mountain by far without anybody even noticing.
It does admittedly speak volumes about the medium’s longstanding reputation that four of the aforementioned five – which are the cream of the crop based on their Rotten Tomatoes scores – only boast approval ratings between 54 and 69 percent. That being said, director Josh Ruben’s fantastic horror comedy has been Certified Fresh after nearly 150 critics deemed it worthy of an 86 percent berth, making it the single most acclaimed console-to-screen feature there’s ever been, and by some distance.
The downside is that it was released during the height of the pandemic, with the modestly-budgeted $6.5 million film earning less than a million dollars from the box office, and being quietly shuffled onto digital and VOD with barely a marketing campaign to speak of. It deserved much better than it got, but almost two and a half years on from its release, Werewolves Within has used spooky season to its advantage.
Per FlixPatrol, the murder mystery that sees Kevin Richardson attempt to root out the culprit behind a spate of murders in the far-flung frozen wilderness has returned with a score to settle on Max’s worldwide watch-list, and it’s about time considering it is quite literally the best-reviewed entry in the history of an entire genre.
