Review: 'Werewolves Within' is a crafty satirical comedy wrapped in a horror movie's skins

The horror comedy “Werewolves Within” is a slow-burn movie whose satirical laughs and gory action both enter the picture slowly but build up toward a wickedly sharp ending.

Finn (Sam Richardson) is the newly arrived lawman in the small town of Beaverfield, Vermont. He’s not your stereotypical tough-guy law enforcer, though. As he’s driving into town, he’s listening to assertiveness-training tapes and leaving clingy voice mail messages to the girlfriend he’s not quite accepted has broken up with him.

Sam’s quirks allow him to fit right into Beaverfield, according to the first person he meets there: Cicely (Milana Vayntrub), the town’s perky letter carrier. Cicely introduces Sam to the odd cast of characters in town — who include Devon (Cheyenne Jackson), a tech millionaire from the city, and his yoga-instructor boyfriend, Joaquim (Harvey Guillén); trash-mouthed mechanic Gwen (Sarah Burns) and her stoner boyfriend, Marcus (George Basil); and craft-obsessed Trisha (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Pete (Michael Chernus), a walking sexual-harassment lawsuit; people-pleasing innkeeper Jeanine (Catherine Curtin); and anti-government mountain man Emerson Flint (Glenn Fleshler).

Finn arrives in the middle of a town dispute, involving the plans of developer Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall) to build a natural-gas pipeline through town. Some townsfolk like the idea, because it means they’ll get some money. Others prefer to listen to Dr. Ellis (Rebecca Henderson), a scientist and environmentalist who’s staying in Jeanine’s inn while she fights Sam’s proposal.

As if tensions aren’t running high already, Finn discovers that someone or something has ripped through metal to tear apart all the generators in town — and has killed and partially eaten Jeanine’s husband, Dave. Meanwhile, a storm has cut power lines and blocked the only road into town, so Finn must deal with a bunch of locals who are scared, suspicious and packing heat.

“Werewolves Within” is loosely based on a 2016 VR video game, where players must figure out which of them is a werewolf in disguise. It’s sort of a mix of the role-playing video game “Among Us” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”

What director Josh Ruben (who also directed last year’s Sundance fright-filled comedy “Scare Me”) and first-time screenwriter Mishna Wolff (who’s known for her 2009 memoir “I’m Down”) bring to the proceedings is a dry sense of humor. It takes a little while to kick in, but there’s some sly commentary threaded through the jokes that touches on small-town paranoia, gun culture, environmental activism, #MeToo sexism and xenophobia — all lightly applied, never feeling preachy.

It helps that the ensemble cast is loaded with people — particularly Richardson (“Veep”), Curtin (“Stranger Things”) and Watkins (“Brittany Runs a Marathon”) — tuned into that satirical wavelength. The MVP is Vayntrub, known to most people as Lily, the AT&T store clerk, who channels that gal-next-door vibe into Cecily’s happily skewed take on Beaverfield’s oddballs. As the movie gets deeper into its who-can-you-trust? creepiness, Vayntrub’s comic skills come out to their fullest.

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‘Werewolves Within’

★★★

Opens Friday, June 25, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some bloody violence, sexual references and language throughout. Running time: 97 minutes.