We’ve seen a lot of movies involving costumed serial killers over the years, but one that’s going to take a real run at the brass ring as far as that standard goes is Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf. The folks out at Anchor Bay sent a copy for me to review, and it’s going to certainly be something. The something in question is

Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf follows a serial killer known as The Wolf due to his propensity to wear a spiked helmet that looks like nothing so much as a wolf’s jaws. His murderous ways caught up with him, though, and The Wolf was sentenced to life in a maximum security asylum in the grandest Arkham tradition. A massive power failure strikes the prison, and unlocks all the cell doors. Now the inmates are running the asylum, out for blood and vengeance on their keepers, while The Wolf once again prowls.

Sound interesting? Sure it does. We’ve read Batman comics that start like this. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that Parker’s Asylum, the place where the movie is set, looks every inch like an Arkham simulacrum, right down to the aging construction, the manor-house resemblance, and the ultra-secure levels containing some really homicidal characters. For crying out loud, one guy looks almost exactly like Bane, only without the Venom implants.

But sadly, it doesn’t exactly live up to its promises, at least not in the early going. See, this movie has a run time of about two hours. And the first hour or so is going to be almost painfully slow. They’re clearly taking their time about things, setting up for a real Sunday punch, or so you hope. And while there is an absolutely terrific moment toward the end of the first hour, the second hour doesn’t quite have the punch you’d expect of a movie that’s supposed to be about a building full of homicidal sociopaths. Sure, there are some interesting segments, like a cannibal lovingly describing her craft to her psychologist, whom she’s holding hostage at knifepoint. But still, this is surprisingly dull stuff for a movie that should be an absolute horror-action frenzy of a film.

It’s hard to completely revile this one, though, because there are all these lovely bits in it, like silver coins strewn across a great sandy beach, that improve the whole nicely. A twist here, a joke there, all the best stuff. But they’re interspersed in a largely talentless and wholly lacking presentation that leaves me a bit cold.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Medium Raw: Night of the Wolf a medium-good six out of ten. The whole is significantly worse than the sum of its parts, and while there are some little bits of good in here, they can’t overwhelm the overall shoddiness of the presentation.