Who is the Beaverfield werewolf? Is miserable Emerson Flint a misanthrope lycanthrope? What about postperson Cecily, the mythical seventh child? Or Trisha the crazy maple syrup lady (though that would mean she ate her own dog)? Could it actually be ranger Finn, the affable incomer?
Only two people and one dog are actually killed by the werewolf. The rest are killed by other residents, and though the werewolf in its human form encourages their disagreements, most of the horror stems from people.
Check out the order the townspeople checked out, below, which will reveal all (or read my four-star review here).
Dave Sherman
Husband of Jeanine, who owns the Beaverfield Inn. He left her after an affair and then apparently decamped to Belize with his lover. In reality he’s the first victim in Beaverfield, killed in front of the inn at the start of the film, after hearing and seeing something rush incredibly fast around him in the woods. His body is found a month later, during the snowstorm, under the porch of the inn. It’s his specifically canine-looking wounds, and the strange hairs on his injuries which are canine but not a known species, that help convince the residents that it’s a werewolf.
Cha-chi (Trish Anderton’s dog)
After the town’s power goes out, but before the townspeople take refuge in the inn, Trish’s dog, a little bundle of fluff, goes outside via his dog flap, and is never seen again. Trish hears growling outside. Later they find Cha-chi’s collar at Emerson Flint’s house.
For much of the film, apart from Dave, and Trish’s dog, everybody lives. They take refuge in the Beaverfield Inn in the snowstorm after strange claw-like gashes are found on all the town’s generators. They become increasingly argumentative though, and after trying to sleep — and Pete, Trish’s husband, having his hand bitten off in the house in a werewolf attack — they mostly go their separate ways to their homes. Next up:
Dr Ellis
Kills herself with a gun when she realises the creature has both human and canine DNA. She realises what it is and, in Parker’s words, would rather be dead than face it. He comes into her room and finds her with a gun, whereupon she shoots herself — so he says! She’s been protesting his pipeline, after all.
Devon Wolfson
As he and Joaquim make their way tentatively home through the woods, he is accosted by Trish. Trish hates him and Joachim because they refuse to agree to the gas pipeline which would mean a financial windfall for the townspeople.
Pete Anderton
Pete had his hand bitten off in a werewolf attack in the inn during the night. He goes home with Trish after they all argue, and is lying on the sofa, where he presumably dies of shock and blood loss. We don’t actually know when he dies; it could have been before Marcus and Gwen.
Marcus
He leaves the inn with most of the other townspeople, then appears to have some sort of breakdown. Joaquim, Cecily and Finn find him in Trish’s house, wielding a homemade glove with knives attached and declaring himself the werewolf. He goers outside and Gwen reverses over him in her truck.
Gwen the mechanic
Immediately after the killing of Marcus, Trish appears at Gwen’s truck window and shoots her dead, calling her a home wrecker (at the start of the film Cecily tells Finn that Trish’s husband Pete was boning Gwen in the sugar room).
Trish Anderton
After shooting Gwen dead in her truck, Trish is shut out of her own house by Finn, Joaquim and Cecily. She enters round the back, and threatens them with her gun, berating them as incomers for not voting for the gas pipeline. When she realises her husband is dead on the sofa, Joaquim, accusing her of killing his husband Devon, whacks her with a poker and she dies before falling head first into the fire.
Parker
Parker is an incomer, and has been trying to persuade the Beaverfield residents to agree to a new gas pipeline. After Trish dies, Joaquim, Cecily and Finn run outside into the street. Parker arrives with his bow, hunting the werewolf. Joaquim grabs Cicely and aims his gun at her as she’s a seventh child and he thinks she’s the werewolf. Parker fires, his arrows hitting Joaquim, who falls over apparently dead, and Finn. Parker threatens to kill Finn, claiming he is the werewolf; Finn tells him that he, Parker is the real monster, bringing out the worst in Beaverfield’s residents, and that there is no werewolf. Even when Finn explains there may not even be one Parker doesn’t care. They fight, and Joaquim raises himself up and shoots Parker’s gas pipe demonstration / display behind Parker. It explodes and Parker is killed.
Joaquim
He dies of his wounds.
Cecily
The power comes back on. Finn thinks he’s dying. Cecily tells him she likes him. They make their way into the inn so Cecily can treat Finn’s injury. She goes off to get a first aid kit. Finn hears wolf whistles and starts exploring, finding indications that Cecily is the werewolf. He then finds Cecily, and when he challenges her she confesses.
She explains it wasn’t difficult to turn the townspeople against each other. She is planning on eating all the now-dead residents of Beaverfield, saying it’s “dinner on ice til spring”. She transforms but is then whacked on the head from behind with a spade by Emerson Flint, who explains to Finn that he liked what the ranger had said about community and decided to get involved. Cecily then wakes up and attacks Flint, leaving him for dead. Finn throws axes at her (a skill she taught him) but eventually she gets him on the floor. He grabs a pair of old-fashioned snow shoes off the wall (there has been a running joke about Finn’s belief in their brilliance) and shoves the handle through her neck.
He gets up off the floor. Emerson is unharmed, just dazed, and is talking to Finn about getting Jeanine to make them a sandwich when Cecily-Werewolf gets up and goes for them again. Jeanine appears in the doorway, shoots Cecily dead and invites the two men for a sandwich.
The final boys and girl!
Ranger Finn Wheeler, Emerson Flint and Jeanine Sherman
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