Artificial Intelligence Kills the Camp

Read Time:8 Minute, 25 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Models vs. Werewolves
–

Genre: Horror, Comedy, AI.
Year: 2026
Runtime: 1h 14m
Director: Danny Draven
Writers: J.P. Talbot, Hugo Velazco
Cast: Sarah Moliski, Rebecca Stoughton, Hannah Hueston, Alexa Reddy, Sophie Swiszcz, Bella Mraz, Dee Wallace
Where to Watch: available now; order your copy here: www.fullmoonhorror.com, www.mvdshop.com, or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: Full Moon Features was never supposed to look like top-tier studio horror films. That was part of the attraction to the handmade chaos. Charles Band and the filmmakers under his banner built decades of entertainment around figuring out what they could accomplish with little to no money, some cheap rubber monster costumes, buckets of fake blood, miniature sets, puppets, questionable CGI, and enough imagination to cover whatever the budget couldn't.

MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES feels like such a departure from that philosophy. Director Danny Draven gives us a title that feels almost impossible for Full Moon to screw up, pairing a group of models with blood-hungry werewolves for 74 minutes of blood, camp, and absurdity. Instead, heavy use of AI-generated imagery drains the personality and soul from a movie that should have constant handmade insanity.

I don't give out many half-star ratings. A bad movie can still be intriguing, funny for the wrong reasons, ambitious beyond its own means, or memorable because somebody took a huge swing and completely missed. Low-budget horror gets even more forgiveness because limitations have always been part of the genre, and sometimes watching filmmakers invent their way around those limitations is half the fun. Anyone who reads my reviews knows I love a good no-budget horror.

That's why this one bugs me more than some anonymous piece of disposable, straight-to-streaming trash doing the same thing. Full Moon was one of my favorite labels because being cheap never meant surrendering creativity. These movies could be ridiculous, rushed, badly acted, or held together with tape and a dream, but they usually showed evidence that human beings had actually put something into them.

A cheap monster suit has personality. A puppet has texture. A ridiculous splash of bright red, watery fake blood tells you somebody had to figure out where to hide the tube and when to hit the pump. Even bad CGI can reveal something about the choices, resources, and abilities of the artists trying to make it work.

AI imagery doesn't give MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES that charm. The images have that vibe where they're detailed to a fault and strangely empty, producing creatures and environments that can appear more elaborate than the budget allows until you actually look at them. Then everything starts to feel wrong.

That breaks my heart, especially because it's a werewolf movie. Werewolves are physical. Some of the most iconic versions in cinema history have the fur, teeth, torn flesh, distorted bodies, and transformations that make you imagine bones shifting underneath skin. Horror history is filled with filmmakers turning limited resources into wonderfully disgusting monsters precisely because the physical transformation is where so much of the fun is.

MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES should have gone in that direction. Give me cheesy wolf masks. Give me some visible zippers. Give me a performer sweating inside a suit that looks ridiculous under bright light. Hide the creature in shadows when the costume can't withstand scrutiny, throw some red syrup everywhere when it attacks, and trust the audience to participate in the illusion.

Instead, the movie repeatedly reaches for generated imagery that looks like too much to have Full Moon's charm and too artificial to feel real. The result is a miserable space between cheap and expensive where nothing feels tangible enough to matter. That's frustrating because a movie I wanted to like is buried underneath it. A group of self-centered influencers leaving the city for a rural getaway only to stumble into the world of werewolves is exactly the sort of setup Full Moon can turn into nonsense. You don't need prestige when your movie is literally called MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES.

The story even has a lot of good ideas scattered throughout. Using influencer culture as the punchline gives Draven plenty of easy targets, and putting image-conscious characters against creatures that reduce everything to basic survival could have produced some amusing contrasts. The premise understands what kind of movie it wants to be even when the execution repeatedly works against it.

The cast at least approaches the movie like they're actually making a Full Moon production. Sarah Moliski, Rebecca Stoughton, Hannah Hueston, Alexa Reddy, Sophie Swiszcz, and Bella Mraz are asked to sell generic character stereotypes, ridiculous circumstances, and escalating carnage without pretending any of it belongs in a serious drama. Their commitment occasionally provides the human energy the generated visuals lack.

Dee Wallace appearing here should also be a perfect piece of casting. Having someone so closely associated with THE HOWLING show up in another knowingly silly werewolf movie connects MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES to the exact history it claims to celebrate. Unfortunately, reminding viewers of practical creature filmmaking only makes the visual choices surrounding the new movie feel worse.

The strangest contradiction comes from how much MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES wants to resemble an old creature feature while relying on technology that removes the qualities that made those movies memorable. You can't sell nostalgia for scrappy horror filmmaking while stripping away the scrappiness. Even the imperfections would've been welcome. I would rather watch an ambitious transformation effect fail spectacularly than stare at another generated creature that might have more detail but was made with considerably less effort. Failure can be creative. Failure can teach filmmakers something, become an accidental laugh, or eventually turn into the thing fans remember most.

Independent horror has always benefited from necessity. Filmmakers without money couldn't purchase whatever image they imagined, so somebody had to solve the problem. Maybe the answer was showing less. Maybe it was cutting around the monster, building only half of it, covering something in slime, using stop motion, or convincing a friend to spend twelve hours inside a costume. Those limitations helped shape Full Moon's identity. PUPPET MASTER didn't become a cult classic because everything looked perfect. The company survived because it understood that weird concepts, recognizable creatures, and personality could make up for the money it didn't have.

For me, there's a larger ethical problem that can't simply be separated from whether an individual shot looks good. I don't see generative AI as a replacement for artists, and I'm deeply uncomfortable with systems built by stealing existing art and then used to avoid hiring people to create new art. Calling that innovation doesn't make the result feel any less hollow.

Full Moon has spent decades experimenting with new tools, and Charles Band wasn't afraid of digital effects when plenty of low-budget filmmakers still relied exclusively on older methods. CGI is a tool artists use. Practical effects are tools artists use. Neither guarantees quality, but both leave room for creative decisions and craft development. This all leaves me in the unusual position of wishing this movie looked worse. I wanted bargain-bin werewolves, obvious prosthetics, fake intestines, fog machines, terrible compositing, rubber claws, and gallons of blood. I wanted Full Moon to give me the cheap nonsense that made Full Moon worth loving.

Fragments of an enjoyable creature feature appear here, and that's almost worse than having nothing at all. The premise works, the performers are committed, and the movie understands the campy tone it wants. Every time that personality starts breaking through, another lifeless visual reminds me of the movie we could have gotten if somebody had simply embraced the limitations.

The Asylum making something like this wouldn't surprise me nearly as much. Full Moon doing it does. This is a company whose limitations became part of its identity, led by a producer who spent decades proving that not having enough money doesn't have to mean not having enough imagination.

MODELS VS. WEREWOLVES shows what happens when technology offers an easier answer to a problem creativity once had to solve. It may be faster, cheaper, and capable of putting more on screen than this budget normally could, but none of that matters when the result has less personality than a rubber mask someone bought at a Halloween store.

Give me the mask. Give me the puppeteer, makeup artist, visual-effects technician, miniature builder, or exhausted crew member figuring out how to make the impossible work for another $50. Give me something imperfect that somebody actually created. Full Moon used to understand why that mattered.

Bonus Materials:
DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY
ORIGINAL TRAILER
BEHIND THE SCENES
CHARLES BAND CAST SCREENING INTRO

Please visit https://linktr.ee/overlyhonestr for more reviews.

You can follow me on Letterboxd, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also find my social media accounts on most platforms by searching for 'Overly Honest Reviews'.

I’m always happy to hear from my readers; please don't hesitate to say hello or send me any questions about movies.

[photo courtesy of FULL MOON FEATURES, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

DISCLAIMER:
At Overly Honest Movie Reviews, we value honesty and transparency. Occasionally, we receive complimentary items for review, including DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl Records, Books, and more. We assure you these arrangements do not influence our reviews, as we are committed to unbiased, sincere evaluations. We aim to help you make informed entertainment choices regardless of our relationship with distributors or producers.

Amazon Affiliate Links:
This site also contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may receive a commission. This affiliate arrangement does not affect our commitment to honest reviews and helps support our site. We appreciate your trust and support as you navigate these links.