In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a take off on the old werewolf theme except I guess the bite of one doesn't turn the bitee. Plus they can be killed by regular bullets not needing silver ones. Everything is pretty lame, the acting is borderline, the plot actually is not bad just poorly executed. There are two gangs, one white and one Mexican, that are fighting for dominance. One hyena bitch is unknowingly saved by the good guy's when the pack tries to kill her. Gannon is man who lost his wife and one year old to the hyenas and now hunts them along with Meschach Taylor. Taylor has hunted the packs for years. The two gang leaders meet inside a mine to settle their differences once and for all. The pack also shows up for the show down between the two bitches who fight for the clan lead. Gee guess what? so do the good guys. Going deep in to the mine and followed by the pack Gannon sets off a huge amount of dynamite. Killing the pack and himself. Taylor survives and the two gang leaders plus a girlfriend join him after seeing the entire thing. Not that bad but could have been a lot better.

Now I am all for a B movie, C and D as well. I think they help us appreciate the greats. The title and plot pulled me in but this went real wrong, real fast. First real problem was the way they killed Gannon's guy. So, what you DO is investigate and report uncommon phenomena, yet you don't find the actions of this suicide girl, in a dead town and a quiet garage the least bit rousing or suspicious? The best part of that scene though, is the door he 'tried' opening, w/the lock on HIS side of the door.... classic. Second issue I had was the fact that every car in it was either a classic or a beater. I get the budgetary issues, but damn. I guess the final straw as I watch the rest is the fact that I had to watch dude from 'Designing Women' as my last line of defense against Supernatural Apex predators. I guess that means we're all going to die.... Seriously?

It looks good on paper. Eric Weston directed it, well, in 1981 he made the cult flick and video nasty "Evilspeak" so I thought, this is going to be good. Sadly, only one minute into the movie and I knew it, this is going to be bad. But I gave it a chance. Costas Mandylor from the Saw franchise was in it but just face it, from a blockbuster to a no-buster. The idea was okay, changing the theme from werewolves into hyenas. But a lot of things broke this flick down. The killings are all of screen. I admit, you do see some victims but it's never that frightening or gory. Secondly, they used CGI for the hyenas, no prob wasn't it for the fact that it was badly used. And the gang of hyenas were based on Lost Boys. Even the acting for almost everybody was wooden. It's sad, I really am sure that it could be done much better. Of course a horror wouldn't be anything without nudity (?)so they gave us Christa fully naked but if you take a close you can see that she hasn't got any nipples. I have said it before, if you agree to do nudity than show it and don't hide your breasts after CGI. Really, what I thought would be a well done came out as a dreg. Now I understand the laughing of the hyenas...

Hyenas starts as a woman is forced off the road with a punctured tyre while driving along an isolated backwoods road, while trying to repair the puncture a car pulls up & two people get out who then transform into flesh eating Hyenas & slaughter the women & her young baby. The woman's husband Gannon (Costas Mandylor) is informed & is devastated by the news, a guy named Crazy Briggs (Meshach Taylor) contacts Gannon & claims to know who killed his wife & baby. After some convincing Gannon finally believes Briggs & sets out to kill as many Hyena creatures as possible along with Bruggs who is himself a seasoned Hyena hunter, meanwhile in the Hyena clan itself a power struggle has broken out between two Alpha females who want to take complete control of the clan. Both Briggs & Gannon become involved as the circle of lies & betrayal leads to shocking revelations...Edited, written & directed by Eric Weston this has quite a nice video cover as seen on the IMDb but is a lousy film, basically a Werewolf film but with Hyenas instead of Wolves this is pretty bad. At 90 odd minutes Hyenas is too long, there simply isn't enough meaningful story here to pad this thing out for an hour & a half. The script is pretty flimsy, the existence of the Hyena creatures is never gone into besides some nonsense about the slave trade or something, we never find out why Briggs became a Hyena hunter or even what the advantages of turning into a Hyena actually is. I mean Hyenas can't really do anything other than run & bite, being a human has far more positive aspects, right? Hyenas is pretty dull with minimal story, minimal character development & a twist that feels like an afterthought it has such little impact. Wholly predictable & throughly bland throughout there really is nothing about Hyenas I could recommend to anyone, there are quite simply so many better films out there that you shouldn't even be considering watching this forgettable 'Creature Feature'.Shot mainly in some wood somewhere & a mine at the end Hyenas is visually bland with nothing going for it, some of the special make-up & CGI computer effects are very bad. There are a couple of dead mutilated bodies & a bit of blood splatter but nothing much in the way of gore & all the attacks occur off screen, the opening attack for instance happens off screen while we see a shot of a car door. Less than inspiring. There's a little nudity but not much. The high pitched sounds the Hyenas make sound more like Chimps than anything else & it goes into the realms of unintentionally funny when humans with glowing red eyes are making these high pitched monkey type sounds to each other.Probably shot on a really low budget the opening sequence set at night was obviously filmed during the day & the image darkened along with terrible looking CGI headlights added to the cars. The acting isn't great although the threadbare script doesn't give anyone anything to work with, does it?Hyenas has been doing the round on British cable television for a while & while there doesn't seem to be any DVD out yet I can understand why as it's pretty bad all round. Watcha decent Werewolf film instead.