Werewolves prowl the North Bay courtesy of actor/director/screenwriter Daedalus Howell and his low-budget horror comedy Werewolf Serenade.

Howell plays Professor Peter MacTire of Northern California’s Freestone School of the Arts (est. 1986) where he teaches really niche film genre night school classes to a handful of students. One evening, his class is interrupted by fellow professor/head of the most reputable parapsychology department in the nation (the only one), Stuart Solomon (Matt Standley). Stuart begs Peter to destroy all the material for a research project that Stuart’s working on should anything “happen” to him.

Sure enough, Stuart ends up dead and College Dean Maddy Asher (Alia Beeton) asks Peter to take over the project. Peter is desperate for money as his wife Julia (Emily M. Keyishian), a cellist (?!) who’s suffered a mental health crisis, has checked herself into a very expensive facility. Peter reluctantly agrees to take on the project.

That means he’ll have to meet with Mr. Konrad Beissen (Mark P. Robinson), the mysterious individual funding the research. At a dinner party held at Herr Beissen’s castle (?), it’s revealed that the research project is Beissen’s attempt to resurrect a Nazi plan to create a race of werewolf supermen, and Peter has mistakenly become a subject of that very experiment. In no time, Peter is running amok in downtown Petaluma (though no one seem to notice.)

Add an annoying student (Natalie Crafts), an evil doctor (Mike Schaeffer), and a Frau Blücher-like sister (Michelle Maxson) to the mix, and finish with a chase scene (that goes on a bit too long and is tonally inconsistent with the rest of the film) and you got yourself a respectable 80-minute time killer.

The film’s low budget belies itself with a hotel rooms filling in for hospital wards/rooms, a dentist’s office for an emergency room, and a really bad policeman’s costume. The film’s short running time is a bit padded with repeated drone shots of the area (Yay Petaluma!) Some of the budget was well invested in contact lenses, but not so well invested in plastic teeth.

Howell’s script has some interesting ideas, such as lycanthropy existing on a spectrum. Apparently one doesn’t always turn completely into a werewolf. Sometimes it just shows in the eyes. This also conveniently eliminates the need for expensive full body makeup (and hair, of course.)

The film’s funniest moments take place in the classroom. Howell mines humor from the frustration felt by many individuals working in the education field. The scrambling for education dollars is also a target nicely hit, with Beeton giving the best performance in the film as the always-funding-minded School Dean.

As the lead, Howell does just fine, though working with a more experienced director might have eliminated some of the film’s blemishes, both in performance and directorial flourishes. The fight scenes could have used a little more work, too.

Keyishian plays it more or less straight, and Robinson keeps his evilness just this side of over-the-top villainy.

There’s a plethora of local actors filling smaller roles. In addition to those already credited, Rose Roberts, Laura Jorgensen, and David Templeton make appearances. Local locations are also fun to spot for those in the know, especially for those who would challenge the physics of jumping out of a window at the back of the Petaluma Police Station and landing in a downtown alley.

The soundtrack includes work by Rebecca Roudman of local faves Dirty Cello and the Renegade Orchestra. Was the character of Julia made a cellist because of Roudman or was Roudman sought out because of the character? Only Howell knows for sure.

Werewolf Serenade fulfills it modest ambitions. It’s an amusingly engaging take on horror comedy that doesn’t tax its audience too much with grandiose mythology (and the big-budget special effects that would require.) It’s the kind of movie where the participants names appear a half-dozen times or more in the credits. The film’s quaintness is part of its charm.

While Howell doesn’t reach the artistic heights of low-budget auter Edgar G. Ulmer, he doesn’t plumb the artistic depths of the enjoyingly incompetent Edward D. Wood, Jr. either.

‘Werewolf Serenade’ is available for streaming on Fawesome, Tubi, YouTube, and Amazon Prime.

Photos by Kary Hess

Full Disclosure – Mr. Howell is the editor of several Weeklys publications to which I contribute reviews of local stage productions. Continuing to publish my reviews was not a condition of this review. At least not that I know of. I’ll keep you posted.