In France, the Porter family is slaughtered while camping in the woods and only Claire Porter survives seriously wounded. She reports that her husband Henry and her son Peter have been eaten alive by a strong man. The eremite Talan Gwynek that lives in the woods with his mother is arrested by the police accused of being the killer. The defense attorney Kate Moore is assigned to defend Talan and she comes to the police station with her investigator Eric Sarin and the animal expert Gavin Flemyng to interview Talan. The unwilling police inspector Klaus Pistor is sure that Talan is the murderer but has to let Kate and her team work. There is turmoil in the precinct and Gavin is scratched by Talan. Then they visit Talan's mother Mrs. Gwynek and they learn that Talan has a rare disease. Further, the government wants her lands to dispose nuclear waste and her husband has recently died in car accident. Soon Eric discloses that the death of Mr. Gwynek was suspicious and Pistor was in charge of the investigation. When Kate succeeds in sending Talan to a hospital for examination, she discovers the effects of Talan's disease and is the responsible for the next events. A defense attorney begins to suspect that there might be more to her client, who is charged with the murders of a vacationing family, than meets the eye. The movie is not something that has many surprising twists. It is nicely made though, the effects are good. The triangle relationship is nice, but also kind of overused. The actors still are sort of able to convincingly sell it to the viewer. Maybe you think it is overplayed though, especially because it might be distracting from the main story.<br/><br/>Whatever the case, there could have been more social commentary, at least it looked like it would go that way, but it only stays on that in early stages. Maybe they planned more, I couldn't tell. After a slow start though, we do get a lot of action towards the end, which is either a relief or comes too late to save it for you "Wer" in an intriguing little horror film. When the movie starts, a young married couple and their four-year old son are camping in the French woods when they are savagely attacked by an animal. The husband and son are mutilated and killed, and the wife is badly hurt but survives. Based on her description that the animal "stood on two legs" the police abandon the initial theory of an animal attack and arrest a large, hairy man for the killing.<br/><br/>AJ Cook plays Kate Moore, an American lawyer living in France working with a "Project Innocence" style group. She is convinced that it had to be an animal attack, and that the accused – a gentle giant of a man who appears to be suffering from a debilitating disease – was indeed physically incapable of committing the crime. Along with her partner and an old friend expert on animal attacks she calls in to help, she investigates and, indeed, finds out that the local police have some secrets and there could be a reason why they might want to railroad her client. But as time goes on, she uncovers some even more horrifying secrets about everyone involved…<br/><br/>I'm going to avoid any spoilers about what these secrets are even though almost every other review will spill them, because things don't proceed the way you'd expect – the film definitely "zigs" when you think it will "zag" – and that's one of its strengths. The acting is universally good (especially AJ Cook – AJ makes us root *for* the heroine; this woman DEFINITELY needs to work more) and there are some excellent gore effects. The movie also takes its subject seriously and tries to deal with the situation realistically, including trying to explain and dealing with the aftermath of the events.<br/><br/>It's not all good, though – the decision to locate the film is France is really confusing. It results in long stretches where people simply speak English when it makes no sense. For example, Kate obviously speaks fluent French but when she talks to her client, they speak in English. There are scenes when people speak English even though every single person talking is either French or fluent in French, and they are, of course, in France. And there are news reports on television in English. It just seemed very discombobulating and didn't add anything to the story.<br/><br/>Also, it sort of goes off the rails at the end – after all the good build-up the "big climax" will induce eye-rolls. But overall, this is a good, well-made horror flick that treats it subject seriously and is worth checking out.
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