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Frenzy Moon Review
Image Credit: Nancy J. Parisi
Loading...Frenzy Moon Review
Alyssa Grace Adams– Jennifer
Aaron Krygier– Gavin
Kayla Malika– Makayla
Gabrielle Nunzio– Sheila
Harold Jacob– Dante
Steven Maiseke– Clinton
Jacob Applegate– Marc
KateLynn E. Newberry– Jean
Chad Ridgely– Roy
(check out the rest of the cast here)
Directed by Gregory Lamberson
Screenplay by Gregory Lamberson
Produced by Digital Guerilla Cinema
Runtime– 81 minutes
Frenzy Moon, written and directed by Gregory Lamberson and which recently had its world premiere at the 2025 edition of Amazing Fantasy Fest, is a solid and scary werewolf horror flick featuring a bevy of practical werewolf special effects including plenty of gory “man-in-suit” werewolf carnage. Made for an obviously modest budget, Frenzy Moon also features a top notch ensemble cast, a terrific score, and a werewolf hunter that audiences will remember.
Frenzy Moon stars Alyssa Grace Adams as Jennifer, a grad student who, along with fellow grad students Dante (Harold Jacob), Makayla (Kayla Malika), Clinton (Steven Maiseke), Sheila (Gabrielle Nunzio), and Marc (Jacob Applegate), head up to Sheila’s cabin in the woods for a weekend of relaxing and fun and whatever else people do in cabins in the woods. The cabin is in a remote area of the woods, up on a mountain, and when they arrive the place is covered in dense fog. The group of grad students doesn’t arrive all at once. Makayla and Clinton (they’re a couple. Jennifer and Dante are a couple, too, and Sheila and Marc are together as well), get lost while driving to the cabin and then hit something they initially think is a deer. When they get out to check on what it is they actually hit, they find an unconscious man in a ghillie suit. They also find an assault rifle nearby. Seriously upset about what just happened, they decide to put the unconscious man in their car and take him to the cabin.
Bringing the unconscious man in the ghillie suit into the cabin is not the most popular decision, as the group argues over whether or not it was wise and what sort of liability they may be exposing themselves to. Once they finish arguing, the group decides to let the man in the ghillie suit sleep on the couch while they eat dinner. It’s too dangerous to attempt to drive out of the woods at night (the road to the cabin was rough driving in the daylight, it would likely be impossible to drive at night), and they figure hunkering down for the night is their best and safest option.
So then some stuff happens, there’s an argument over who gets to use the cabin’s one indoor bathroom and when, and Jennifer ends up going outside to use the outhouse (yes, the cabin has an outhouse). Using the outhouse is a generally creepy experience on its own, but it becomes an even creepier experience for Jennifer when something tries to open the door to the outhouse. Is someone from the group playing a prank on her? No, it isn’t a prank. Something animalistic is outside and it knocks over the outhouse.
An absolutely terrified Jennifer is eventually rescued and ushered back inside the cabin. No one understands what the heck happened, no one really believes Jennifer’s “animal attack” story, and Jennifer says that she wants to leave and leave right now (it doesn’t matter how dark it is outside or how bad the road to the cabin is). Another group argument ensues (Makayla and Sheila have a real rivalry that seems to manifest itself every single time they talk to one another). It’s at this point that the man in the ghillie suit wakes up. The man, Gavin (Aaron Krygier), scares the crap out of everyone by being awake and alert. Gavin wants his rifle (he also wants his handgun, which no one knows anything about). Sheila is immediately suspicious of Gavin. Why the heck is this guy out in the woods with a rifle when it isn’t hunting season?
So then some more stuff happens, another group argument ensues, and they all decide to stay put in the cabin until morning and try to get some sleep. The group’s attempt at sleeping doesn’t last long, as they hear loud howling outside at midnight. What the heck was that? A coyote?
No, it wasn’t a coyote. It was a werewolf. Gavin actually tells the group that it was a werewolf. A werewolf? How the hell could it be a werewolf? When did werewolves become real? Another argument ensues over whether or not it really was a werewolf they all heard howling, and then the power goes out. And it’s at this point that the group decides it’s time to leave. It no longer matters that it’s dark out and the road is terrible. It is time to get the hell out of the woods.
So then everyone packs up their stuff and makes a break for their cars. The group doesn’t get very far. There are werewolves outside, and the werewolves are very, very hungry.
I don’t want to say any more about what specifically happens, as the movie does contain a few surprises. I will say that, after the attack, the group (well, what’s left of the group) goes back into the cabin. Paranoia, suspense, and relentless terror ensue. There are werewolves outside, and there’s a strange guy with a gun claiming that he hunts werewolves inside (who the hell does that?). Just how bad and nasty are things going to get for those that are left? And who will survive? Will anyone survive?
Frenzy Moon moves briskly but uses its time wisely. Director Lamberson gives the audience enough time to get to know the main group of characters and what they’re all about before the werewolf violence begins in earnest against them. And before all of that happens, there are two sequences where we see the werewolves in action (you could almost call these sequences “cold openings,” which is perfect for the one sequence that actually takes place in the snow). And we need to see the werewolves in action before the main story begins so we know what the heck the main characters will find themselves up against. Knowing the werewolves are real and incredibly dangerous helps amp up the suspense. When are the werewolves going to come for the movie’s main characters?
The werewolf violence can best be described as exquisitely nasty. Body parts are torn off and devoured, faces are ripped off, and the blood flows freely. Could there have been more blood and guts? Sure. There can always be more in a werewolf horror flick regardless of how much you actually get. But the stuff that we do get to see in Frenzy Moon is pretty great and will no doubt disgust those with weak stomachs. The decapitated heads are phenomenally gross.
The werewolves that we see in the movie all look different, which is terrifying because you never know how many of them there actually are. Is it just one that sort of constantly changes shape as it moves around the woods looking for its next victim? Is it an actual pack of werewolves? The characters don’t know how to take the very first werewolf because they’re not sure what sort of creature it is. Is that a bear? Do bears look like that? What the hell is it? Your fear, just like the characters, rises exponentially when that werewolf-they-thought-was-a-bear springs into action and starts killing. You can’t take these creatures lightly. They are incredibly dangerous and they will obliterate you if you’re unprepared to fight back. The hands and claws on these things are immense.
The movie’s score, by frequent Lamberson collaborator Armand John Petri, is nothing short of fantastic. Feeling and sounding very much like something from an early John Carpenter movie, the score for Frenzy Moon is ominous right from the get go and never lets up. And the “Carpenter sound” connection is perfect as sequences in Frenzy Moon are clear homages to Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) as well as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). There’s also a clear and catchy theme in Frenzy Moon, something that you don’t see enough in modern low-budget genre cinema. Awesome stuff.
The cast of Frenzy Moon is sensational. Alyssa Grace Adams does a great job as Jennifer. Jennifer seems very uneasy about being at the cabin in the first place, especially when she sees the outhouse (I mean, it’s an outhouse in the 21st century. I’d imagine it would induce anxiety in most anyone), and her unease keeps growing and growing as the story progresses. When she ends up getting attacked while using that outhouse, her unease explodes into full on, justified panic. She wants to get out of the woods and off the mountain now. Jennifer eventually calms down (sort of), but that calm disappears very quickly and Jennifer exists in a state of escalating terror for the rest of the movie (and just like her earlier panic, Jennifer’s terror is completely justified). I’m curious to find out how people react to Jennifer’s veganism and how that plays subtextually throughout the movie. Are people going to laugh or are they going to be offended? And check out the scene where Jennifer wields a knife. In one sense, she looks ridiculous holding a knife (and it has nothing to do with the size of the knife). But when you realize why she’s holding that knife, she doesn’t look ridiculous anymore. Jennifer is fighting for her life.
Kayla Malika is phenomenal as the tough but sensitive Makayla. Right from the get go, Makayla has zero interest in doing this whole “cabin weekend” thing. She has school work to complete, and she’d much rather be doing that than hanging out in the goddamn woods with people she mostly doesn’t know. And when she ends up having to help her boyfriend Clinton move Gavin into their car after Clinton runs into him, you start to feel for her big time (you wish she had listened to her intuition and not come because you know it’s only going to get worse for her and everyone else). Makayla does try to “get along” with everyone, even Sheila, who she has an obvious issue with (some people just don’t get along no matter what), but that accommodation only lasts so long. Makayla feels better when she’s in full defiance mode, and the audience will no doubt like her in that mode, too (she delivers one of the most epic middle finger/“Go fuck yourself” moments in recent memory, and I suspect audiences will cheer enthusiastically when they see it). I also want to commend Kayla Malika for delivering one of the best movie punches to the face I’ve ever seen (the only way the punch to the face she delivers would have been better is if she had said “fucking bitch!” right after). I think everyone will be a big fan of Makayla.
Gabrielle Nunzio is fantastic as Sheila, the cabin owner (well, her family owns the cabin). Sheila clearly loves being in the woods and being in nature, as she is the only one who isn’t intimidated by the howling sounds and the other “nature” stuff the group encounters. The way she explains why there’s a bear skin on the wall of the cabin tells you everything that you need to know about her. Sheila is also the only one in the group that seems to know that they’re meant to have fun while at the cabin (she’s also the only one that seems to relish the idea of not having full cell phone service all of the time while at the cabin). Sheila’s spontaneous “sexy dance” sequence is a great example of how Sheila just wants to have fun. And the way Makayla joins in during this “sexy dance” sequence is an example of how the movie might have turned out if the werewolves didn’t attack the cabin. It wouldn’t exactly have been a weekend of full on debauchery, but there certainly would have been way more dancing and goofing off. Great stuff.
Harold Jacob is hilarious as Dante, Jennifer’s boyfriend. Dante tries to be the tough guy in the group, engaging in what you could call soft misogyny, but no one really takes him seriously, especially Jennifer (I mean, yeah, she loves him and all, but she doesn’t go for the “I’m a male hunter” bullshit because it’s just nonsense coming from him). And when the going gets tough, Dante is just like everyone else, in over his head. Dante attempts to bond with Gavin and manifest some sort of leadership role within the group, but, again, no one really believes it. It’s absurd. And while Dante’s attempt at being “a real man” is distasteful to some degree, you can’t hate him. He’s just being Dante (you get the sense that this whole attitude is likely why Jennifer liked him in the first place. It’s all so stupid and dumb but also somehow oddly charming).
Steven Maiseke does a fine job as Clinton, the guy that just wants to have a nice weekend with his girlfriend Makayla and his friends, but ends up slamming his car into a weird guy in a ghillie suit. Clinton is distressed as soon as we first see him (he really doesn’t know where he’s going, there’s fog everywhere, he can’t see a goddamn thing, and then he hits someone with his car. What the hell did Clinton do to the universe to deserve all of this bullshit?). And it never gets any better for Clinton. Clinton is resourceful, though, so he does have that going for him (he’s a nursing student, he recognizes the drug that Gavin takes for his PTSD, and Clinton also knows how to use an assault rifle). Maiseke has to do some of the hardest acting in the movie, and he pulls it off masterfully (you’ll see what I mean when you see the movie).
Jacob Applegate does a superb job as Marc, Sheila’s boyfriend. He’s clearly into Sheila and is happy to be spending the weekend with her, but he isn’t completely sold on the whole “cabin-in-the-woods” thing. Marc comes around to the idea, though, after briefly discussing the weekend in his car with Sheila (Marc doesn’t like the idea of not having cell phone service and can’t figure out how everyone is supposed to sleep in the cabin when the cabin only has one bed. Sheila fills him in on what will be happening, and he “figures it out.” As Sheila says, why can’t some of the fun happen outdoors? Ha). You’re really going to feel for poor Marc when he tries to get his car started and the damn thing won’t go.
And then there’s Aaron Krygier as Gavin the werewolf hunter. At first, he seems like some crazy guy with a gun in the woods wearing a ghillie suit and covered in wolf urine (everyone can smell it on him but they have no idea what, exactly, that smell is). And why the hell does he have an assault rifle? When Gavin wakes up and explains to the group what’s really going on, you wonder why no one in the group believes him. I mean, yeah, his story is ludicrous sounding, but Gavin tells it with such authority and gravitas that you want to scream to the group “The weird guy is telling the truth!” Gavin has clearly been through a lot that we haven’t seen, and we can tell by the way Gavin speaks, the way he always seems to plant himself physically in the moment so you know that he isn’t messing around (again, you understand why everyone thinks his story is ludicrous because it sounds ludicrous. Werewolves can’t possibly be real. And yet everything that he says is happening checks out). And when Gavin is upright he just exudes danger and violence. He doesn’t need to point an assault rifle at you for you to know that you shouldn’t mess with him. Just an amazing performance. My only complaint with Gavin, and this is probably just me, but I wish that he had a big caliber revolver instead of a Glock as part of his werewolf hunting gear. Gavin carrying a Glock makes sense when you consider the werewolf killing rules that the movie uses, but it would have been cooler (again, this is probably just me) if he had a .357 magnum or a .44 magnum or a .454 magnum for major werewolf stopping power if he needed it (why not a .50 caliber?). Carrying a big caliber handgun would likely be impractical in real life, but in a movie where a hunter is fighting monsters? It just makes sense cinematically to me. Do I think about this stuff too much?
I also want to mention the great KateLynn E. Newberry and the immortal Chad Ridgely for their work in the movie’s opening sequence, which serves as a perfect intro to the story (it sets up how dangerous the werewolf threat is). Newberry and Ridgely play Jean and Roy, a couple which hopes to take photos of nature (bears and whatnot) and ends up running into a goddamn werewolf. It’s sad how things go south for them so damn quickly. And Daniel Baker and Paul McGinnis need to be mentioned for their sequence as Koy and Casey, two dudes that just want to go hunting in the woods and it all goes badly. It’s a sad and oddly funny sequence, at least until one of them gets his face ripped off. And kudos to everyone that put on the werewolf suit and engaged in bloody werewolf action. Horror movie nerdom salutes you.
Now, there are some sequences where the editing is a bit too clunky and could stand to be smoothed out (we’re talking half seconds here and there). There’s also a sequence that transitions from sunlight to dusk/dark back to sunlight within seconds that you will notice (it isn’t a big deal, it doesn’t ruin the movie, but it is something that happens). There’s also a sequence involving a brutal headshot that would have been enhanced if the movie had used the green laser sight on Gavin’s assault rifle instead of not using it. All the sequence needs is a brief shot of the green dot placed dead center on the target’s head, and we’d have an exceptional bullet-to-the-head scene instead of the mere great one that exists now.
Frenzy Moon is a solid werewolf horror flick that borders on being exceptional. Even with its occasional rough edge, the movie was made with an obvious love and affection for cinematic monster mayhem, and director Lamberson pulls out all of the stops to make Frenzy Moon terrifying, unsettling, and thoroughly disgusting (in a good way). The assembled cast is also phenomenal, and I’m sure that horror movie nerds will be talking about what director Lamberson and crew managed to pull off into the future with great affection. Frenzy Moon delivers. Be sure to check out Frenzy Moon when it is eventually unleashed upon the world (and definitely make an effort to see it if it pops up at a film festival near you). Frenzy Moon is very much worth your time.
Heads roll, the blood flows, and the werewolves howl at the goddamn moon! See Frenzy Moon! See it, see it, see it!
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Almost 20.
Explosions: None.
Nudity?: None.
Doobage: Fog everywhere. People in the woods. A hunting rifle. Attempted nature photography. Panic. Bear trap hooey. A very bloody leg. Bloody finger removal. Finger eating. Neck ripping. Face clawing. Off screen face smashing. Snow. Attempted bear hunting. Tracking. Talk of a “skinwalker.” A big surprise. Off screen face removal. Bloody hand removal. Bear skin on the wall of a cabin. A story about the Iroquois. Accidental vehicular assault. Wine drinking. Talk about veganism. Off screen dinner eating. Mild hilarious misogyny. A brief argument over who gets to use the indoor bathroom. A sexy dance interlude. Outhouse hooey. Loud urination. Outhouse attack. Women arguing. A missing handgun. Impromptu medicine cabinet inspection. Attempted sleeping. Howling. A story about werewolves. A sudden loss of power. Knives. Attempted escape. Leg biting. Serious neck biting. A transformation. Assault rifle attack. Bullet to the head with a wicked nasty head wound. Dead body dumping. A “color” test. Deliberate hand cutting. Multiple hand wounds. Group paranoia. Wine bottle to the head. Serious face punching. Chair bondage. Human heads thrown through a window. Serious face eating. Attempted roof invasion. Multiple head shots. Serious face slashing. More neck biting. Tag team stabbing. Pepper spray attack. Serious wrist biting. Reverse Judo choke. Mega gut stabbing. A massive fire. More howling.
Kim Richards? None.
Gratuitous: A “John Carpenter” esque opening theme. Katelynn E. Newberry and Chad Ridgley as a couple in the woods. An abandoned car in the woods covered in leaves. Chad Ridgley eating beef jerky in the woods. KateLynn E. Newberry eating trail mix in the woods. A mysterious scratch mark on a tree. Werewolf vision. Chad Ridgley trying to fight off a werewolf with a tree branch. A “Use Your Blinker” bumper sticker. Paul McGinnis going hunting with an assault rifle. Guy in a ghillie suit. “Bartenders don’t give lap dances.” A cabin in the woods. “We have to consider liability.” An outhouse. Tampon hooey. A Dracula reference. Knives. Cell phone lights. A car that will not start. Assault rifle with a green laser sight. Canadian currency. A John Carpenter’s The Thing homage. A Slime City reference. A John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 homage. A nice jump scare.
Best lines: “We really should wait for tomorrow for this.” “Beef jerky? Trail mix. Oh, blessed are the vegetarians.” “Run! Run!” “You hunting with that?” “Something wrong? Look at the tracks. Our bear is walking on two legs now. Well, maybe it’s a Bigfoot. Oh, a sasquatch head would look amazing on my wall!” “You’re not from around here. You have all of your teeth.” “De-escalate! De-escalate!” “Where did all of this fog come from?” “Please tell me that isn’t the bathroom.” “I hope that was a deer.” “Great. A gun nut. Who knows what else he is.” “Something’s wrong!” “This is going to be some weekend.” “This may take a while. That dinner was terrible.” “I thought you loved animals? Not when they’re trying to eat me!” “Look, if we have to make a schedule for the damn bathroom, we will!” “No man made the sounds I heard!” “It isn’t hunting season.” “Did you find the soap?” “Wake me if your creature returns. Happy to shoot it for you.” “It’s just a coyote.” “Ah, children of the night! What beautiful music they make. Unless they’re gnawing on your legs.” “How did I not recognize the smell of wolf piss?” “Old ladies don’t rip deer apart with their teeth, kid.” “You’ll see. These creatures are hungry. And now they know where to get six… Happy Meals.” “Don’t call me sweetheart. Whatever you say, honey.” “What about Marc? Too late for him.” “What are you, jacking us now?” “If I’m gonna spend the night with you people, I need to make sure that you are people.” “Hold still or you’re going to need a closed casket, understand?” “Kill this bitch now!” “It’s frenzy time!” “Three of them, four of us. We’re seriously outnumbered.” “You do that again, and I’ll put you down. I’ll eat you raw.” “Bring it, bitch!” “Thank God you’re vegan.”
