"Wolf Lake"
Unaired Pilot (2001)

Director:

Rupert Wainwright

Writers:

James Duff (writer)
John Leekley (writer)

TV Series:

"Wolf Lake" (2001)

Original Air Date:

2001 (Season 1, Episode 0)

Genre:

Horror

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Werewolf

Cast

Lou Diamond Phillips	...	Noah Cassidy
Graham Greene	...	Professor Duke Joseph
Tim Matheson	...	Sheriff Jack Kohanek
Stacy Edwards	...	Alexandra Kelly
Jeff Fahey	...	Russell Kelly
Bruce McGill	...	Dr. Sokolov
Xander Berkeley	...	Carl
Mary Elizabeth Winstead	...	Sophia Kohanek
Paul Wesley	...	Luke Cates (as Paul Wasilewski)
Scott Heindl	...	Harvey Rockwell
Jodelle Ferland	...	Lily Kelly
C. Ernst Harth	...	Ray
Adrienne Carter	...	Davi Sokolov
Suzy Joachim	...	Hannah
Steve Makaj	...	Pool Hall Owner

Country:

Canada | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Trivia:

This was an unaired pilot episode for the TV show "Wolf Lake" (2001). While it has many of the same cast members, there are many important differences:

• Rather than being a detective looking for his lost girlfriend, "Noah Cassidy" (later renamed John Kanin) is posing as a government wildlife management agent but is really investigating the werewolf clans of Wolf Lake.
• "Sheriff Kohanek" (Sheriff Donner) has a wife who is missing rather than dead, and also has a sister-in-law to whom he is close.
• "Dr. Sokolov" (Willard Cates) is not mayor of the town. He does have a son (and a daughter who is killed), but it is not Luke. Luke instead is his dead daughter's boyfriend, who is set to take over the werewolf clan.
• "Professor Duke Joseph" (Sherman Blackstone) reveals that he is on a sacred mission to maintain balance between the clans.
• Both the sheriff and the native American appear to be human.
• There are differences in the way the werewolf pack is portrayed. Here there seem to be several clans, fighting against each other and against the humans. There is mention of "the great war of the clans".

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Wolf Lake" (2001)

Soundtrack:

Change (In the House of Flies)

Very Creepy

The show was spectacular... Every single character had charisma, every episode was worth re-watching, again, and again. I would love to see it out on DVD. My videos of the airings have become sadly fuzzy. On one of my favorite episodes, the sound is going crunchy. Why is this not on DVD yet?! The two things I liked best about the series, were, first- the Actors they choose, and how they interacted with one another, how almost every one of them was lovable in some fashion, even the super villains, and secondly- the way it was shot. They are able to communicate, with visuals, what is happening in/to the mind of the person you are seeing. Usually directors cop-out on this point, and show you what the person they want you to empathize with is looking at. In Wolf lake, they do this a couple of times, but in a number of key scenes, you are looking at a person experiencing something, and you understand what they are feeling, what they are going thru, because of the way the screen displays the inner mind. This is difficult to explain, but I think, is the best reason I loved this show.