Blood and Chocolate posits that werewolves are alive and well in Bucharest, Romania, and, no, they are not the solitary cursed souls of former Hollywood traditions. In keeping with the view of modern monsters shaped by Ann Rice, the Underworld movies, and Evanescence videos–among other unfortunate contemporary developments–Blood and Chocolate’s lupine lowlifes are a proud and ancient tribe which only hunts humans ritualistically and as a pack, affording them plenty of time to shop at stores with "urban" in the title (these ones really seem to favour those fake millionaire shirts in particular), frost their highlights, and cull C-list modeling agencies for potential members.

Well, at least that would be a viable explanation for this particularly pathetic assemblage of Goth-romance pouters, most of whom are bearable only because their spoken lines are limited.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of our star, an especially bland piece of white bread called Agnes Bruckner, flaccidly demonstrating her skill at rote memorization and recitation of dialog apparently plucked from the pages of a super-market masterpiece.

As Vivian, she is our heroine–the wolf-babe who sacrifices her place at the dinner table for the love of a human, Aiden (Hugh Dancy). And who can blame her? When someone as lifeless and dull as you are comes along, one must obviously seize the day.

And so it goes... will Aiden and Vivian’s relationship survive the strains of inter-special romance. If so, how–to borrow a phrase from Los Lobos–will the wolf(s) survive?

Will you care? No. Will you be shocked and angered by another evening lost forever to another half-assed, badly-acted, laughably written, cheesily shot film? Probably not.

It seems as though escapist entertainment has become so routinely piss-poor, it’s a surprise when something even piques a modicum of interest, doesn’t it?

That’s the only horror inherent in modern creature features friends, You may be numb by now, but somewhere, deep down inside, that primordial couch potato at your core yearns to bark at the moon.

Too bad for you. And me. And our shitty, lowest-common denominator culture.

Ready to howl yet?