History Film / Wolves

* BadassBaritone: Cayden and Connor both have deep voices.

* FugitiveArc: After thinking killed his parents in Wolf form, Cayden goes on the run. After some time as a fugitive, he encounters Wild Joe, who steers him towards Lupine Ridge.
* GainingTheWillToKill: The first time Cayden fights Connor and his pack he's actively trying not to kill, with the result that he gets his ass handed to him and nearly dies. The second time, he's learned, and employs a healthy does of [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatism]]. His opening move is to kill the sentries by sneaking up and slashing their throats.

** Connor's desire to kill Cayden doesn't change when he finds out he's his son. Denial may be involved, however, if he and Lucinda really were in love.

L

* FamilialFoe: A (possibly) single generation version with bad people on both sides appears. Connor is on bad terms with the three Wills brothers: he harasses, kills, and cannibalizes Carter Wills with little provocation and ran Wild Joe out of town years ago after blinding him him in one eye. [[spoiler:Joe (who was run off for being EvilerThanThou to Connor) holds a grudge, and engineers a LongGame to kill Connor in revenge.]] The third brother, Larson, is too cowardly to fight Connor no matter how awful his actions are, but still dislikes him.

* SmokingIsCool: Both Connor and John smoke pipes.

* ExactWords: When Connor asks Cayden why John hired a total stranger to work on his farm, John intervenes, claiming that Cayden's his nephew. When Connor asks why, in that case, didn't John greet him straight away at the bar: who treats a visiting nephew like that? John replies that it's been so long since they saw each other that he didn't recognize Cayden at first. Cayden wonders why John is lying for him, but as it turns out, ''everything John says is true.''

* SequelHook: As Cayden and Angel prepare to leave, John hands them a scroll detailing the genealogy of the "old lines", saying it will help them in their travels.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wolves_1.jpg]]

** It's fairly blink-and_you'll-miss-it, but Lisa ''does'' get bitten by Cayden: when they're kissing, she yells "OW!" and touches her lip. Was this enough to turn her?

* ManOfSteelWomanOfKleenex: Cayden first turns when in a delicate situation with his high school girlfriend. She gets hurt (though thankfully not bitten), runs away screaming that he's a monster and calls the cops. That's why he rejects a random girl who makes a move when he's a fugitive as well as the VillageBicycle who approaches him in Lupine Ridge, and why he's hesitant over Angel's advance. At least until she points out - and then demonstrates - that when the girl is a werewolf too, this trope ''really isn't a problem.''

* AssholeVictim: The thugs Cayden ends up killing while on the run. They were beating up a girl he spoke to earlier. He tells them to leave her alone. They tell him to get lost. He's not remotely in control of his [[SuperpoweredEvilSide wolf]] yet, so they die violently.

* CurseCutShort: When Cayden lights the fuse on the final fertiliser bomb, Wild Joe has just enough time to realise what's about to happen and yell "Oh fu-" before he blows up.

* ExactWords: When Connor asks Cayden why John hired a total stranger to work on his farm, John intervenes, claiming that Cayden's his nephew. When Connor asks why, in that case, didn't John greet him straight away at the bar: who treats a visiting nephew like that? John replies that it's been so long since they saw each other that he didn't recognise Cayden at first. Cayden wonders why John is lying for him, but as it turns out, ''everything John says is true.''

** When Cayden meets Wild Joe and realises he's a werewolf too, he asks him how to control it. Joe laughingly tells him the wolf isn't ''meant'' to be controlled, implying that it should be allowed to kill at will. When others talk as if learning to control the wolf is perfectly doable, if difficult, it implies that Wild Joe is a less than stand up guy.

** When discussing horrible things people have done as wolves, Angel talks about her and Gail's father, who was a drunk as well as a werewolf and killed their mother when in wolf form, then himself when he realised what he'd done. Looking back, Angel thinks he "always had it in him," but doesn't think she sees it in Cayden even though she knows by then that he killed his parents. He didn't. Wild Joe framed him.
* FugitiveArc: After killing his parents while in Wolf form, Cayden goes on the run. After some time as a fugitive, he encounters Wild Joe, who steers him towards Lupine Ridge.

* GainingTheWillToKill: The first time Cayden fights Connor and his pack he's actively trying not to kill, with the result that he gets his ass handed to him and nearly dies. The second time, he's learned, and employs a healthy does of [[CombatPragmatist Combat Pragmatism]]. His opening move is to kill the sentries by sneaking up and slashing their throats.

* ImAHumanitarian: Connor Slaughter and his pack like to hunt down and eat people who've displeased them.

* OhCrap: Wild Joe, when he realises he's standing on a bomb. And Cayden just lit the fuse.

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Features both rare pure-bred werewolves and the kind who became werewolves from being bitten. Although they do change, they're "mutts" and not as powerful as the born kind. Either way, their transformations are either voluntary or caused by strong emotion, especially anger. The full moon doesn't ''make'' them change, but does affect their emotions so it's more likely. They all, however, look suspiciously like people in furry masks.

* SelfMadeOrphan: Early on, Cayden slaughters his parents while in wolf form. Although he believes he really did it for most of the movie, it was Wild Joe.

* VomitDiscretionShot: Cayden, after realising [[ImAHumanitarian what Connor and his pack were eating]].

* BerserkButton: After the CatapultNightmare, Cayden's first major symptom of lycanthropy happens when he's fouled at a football game. Lying in the grass with a bloody nose, he looks up and sees his attacker showboating and ''loses his shit''. he leaps about twelve feet through the air and beats the tar out of the guy, actually leaving fist-shaped dents in his helmet. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse It's not clear if the guy is okay later]], and the incident probably doesn't help when Cayden is accused of murder.

* DrivenToSuicide: Lucinda Wills, Cayden's mother. Raped and impregnated by Connor Slaughter, she was thrown out by her parents, spent her pregnancy hiding at her great uncle John's house, gave up her baby for adoption and then killed herself. Or, in Connor's version, it was being separated from the man she loved and having to give up their baby that did it. It's not clear which is correct.

* AlwaysAChildToParent: In the beginning, Cayden's parents respond to his CatapultNightmare as if he's much younger than his late teens, both running into his bedroom to hug and reassure him. This is possibly the reason they [[ObliviousAdoption haven't told him he's adopted]].

* TheQuarterback: Cayden, before the werewolf stuff happens. It's not clear if he's a JerkJock (he seems this way, but that could be the aforementioned werewolf stuff).

* BerserkButton: After the CatapultNightmare, Cayden's first major symptom of lycanthropy happens when he's fouled at a football game. Lying in the grass with a bloody nose, he looks up and sees his attacker showboating and ''loses his shit''. he leaps about twelve feet through the air and beats the tar out of the guy, actually leaving fist-shaped dents in his helmet. It's not clear if the guy is okay later, and the incident probably doesn't help when Cayden is accused of murder.

A 2014 homage to old-fashioned monster movies, written and directed by David Hayter.

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Aside from rare pure-bred werewolves, there's the kind who became werewolves from being bitten. Although they do change, they're not as powerful as the former kind. They all, however, look suspiciously like people in furry masks.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Through a combination of fighting and KillItWithFire, Cayden and John end up killing off Connor's feral pack, Connor himself, and Wild Joe.

** During the FugitiveArc, Cayden attacks two thugs who were beating up a girl and ends up killing them. However, ''he doesn't hurt the girl'', even though she's right in the line of fire. So Cayden's wolf is able to distinguish between threats and bystanders, an early hint that he didn't kill his parents after all.