In supernatural teen horror series, Wolf Pack, student Everett Lang is on the bus to school with his fellow classmates, when it is forced to stop mid-journey due to a forest fire. The fire is spreading across the horizon, inching ever nearer, and unless Everett and Co. leave the area, their lives are in danger.
As Everett gets off the bus, he sees a collection of animals heading in his direction. The woodland critters are fleeing the blaze, and in their panicked state they trample over anyone that gets in their way.
In all of the confusion, Everett is attacked by what he believes to be a wolf. But Everett isn’t alone – fellow classmate, Blake Navarro has also been bitten by the same animal.
After escaping the fire, Everett heads to the hospital for treatment, while Blake returns home to be with her family as they evacuate the area. However, over the next few hours both Everett and Blake begin to experience strange phenomena.
The pair also notice a few physical changes too. Everett’s physique improves and he becomes much stronger, while Blake’s acne clears up and she can run at incredible speed.
Both teens have had their lives radically altered and neither quite knows why. But as they soon come to discover, they’re not the only ones with supernatural abilities.
Based on the book of the same name by Edo van Belkom, Wolf Pack stars Armani Jackson, Bella Shepard, Chloe Rose Robertson, Tyler Lawrence Gray, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. The show is currently streaming on Paramount+, with eight episodes available to view (so far), and is a series aimed largely at the teen market.
Offering up a new take on werewolf mythology, Wolf Pack plays like a cross between Teen Wolf and Twilight. The series features a collection of beautiful people, caught up in a supernatural situation, with all the usual teen drama thrown into the mix.
There’s an element of mystery surrounding the werewolf storyline, as well as a degree of intrigue regarding the forest fire. These plotlines are then interwoven with the introduction of a collection of new characters, including the core group of teens, as well as an arson investigator played by Gellar.
All of this is then backed up by some mild elements of horror, some moody lighting, and a flawless wardrobe. The characters in this show all look as if they have stepped off a catwalk, with the designer outfits to match, and this certainly meets the requirements of a teen drama.
But is it any good, I hear you cry?! Well, Wolf Pack starts off OK and I imagine there is an audience out there for this show, but the series is nothing spectacular, nor imaginative, and it runs out of steam very quickly.
For me, the highlight of Wolf Pack revolves around brief appearances from Sarah Michelle Gellar, who pops up sporadically in the series. Her involvement is far too limited, especially considering how closely tied into the promotion of Wolf Pack she has become, but a little Gellar is better than no Gellar at all.
As for everything else, it’s by-the-numbers kind of stuff. Some viewers will warm to it, some won’t, but I expect this is mostly due to an age thing.
As someone who watched a fair few teen dramas back in the day (the late ‘90s/early ‘00s), I’ve certainly seen my fair share of this kind of thing, and I’m aware I’ve also passed the point where Wolf Pack is aimed at me. I’ve mostly ‘aged out’ of this type of series, something I’m still peeved about, but I’m taking this into account for the purposes of this review.
I’m also aware the teenage demographic Wolf Pack is aiming for is probably not all that familiar with the countless genre shows that have come before this one. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, the aforementioned Teen Wolf etc, may have zoomed past the current generation, so Wolf Pack could be covering entirely new ground for some people.
For this reason, I can see how Wolf Pack could easily connect with younger viewers. It ticks all the right boxes for an easy-to-watch genre show, it offers a bit of action, and the horror is never scary or gory.
But for anyone over the age of 18, this is pretty dull, repetitive stuff. Wolf Pack lacks any creative flair, the characters are all bland, the acting is worse, and the CGI effects are embarrassingly bad.
How bad? Worse than something that was made 20 years ago.
The first episode (From a Spark to a Flame) gets things off to a reasonable start, with the opening act providing plenty of tension and suspense. The forest fire injects a great deal of energy to kick-start the series, and things look very promising.
Unfortunately, from here on out the show loses momentum and starts to flounder. This first episode is a tad too long, and shows signs which demonstrate it could be downhill from here.
And sadly, it is – the second episode (Two Bitten, Two Born) is fairly sedate, and episode three (Origin Point) is no better. There are occasional flashes of something interesting, but there’s certainly not enough material to cover the 45-50 minute runtime of each episode.
Did I also mention there’s not enough Sarah Michelle Gellar? Oh, I did? Well, forget I said anything then.
OK, so young audiences won’t care all too much about the lack of Gellar, but they do deserve a more dynamic television show. Wolf Pack fails to rise above mediocre, and this simply isn’t good enough.
While young viewers might find something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer a bit too dated by today’s standards (sacrilege, I know), they’d be much better off sitting down and watching that show over Wolf Pack. Buffy knew how to balance teen drama with supernatural stories, and it was far more entertaining.
And this is the biggest issue with Wolf Pack – it struggles to entertain. Even if I can forgive certain aspects of the show, because I’m a bit too old for it, the series still fumbles things in the entertainment department.
Unless you have a huge desire to watch Wolf Pack, this is not something I would recommend you dive into. It gets tedious very fast, and outside of the core demographic (who deserve much better), this show has limited appeal.
That said, I can see it being mildly popular with teenagers, and the good-looking cast and slight flushes of horror won’t hurt. This is not an endorsement by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a suggestion that a few people may find it likeable enough.
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