Nerdly » ‘Dragon Fury: Wrath of Fire’ VOD Review

18th Oct2022

‘Dragon Fury: Wrath of Fire’ VOD Review

by Phil Wheat

Stars: Nicola Wright, Richard Kovacs, Harry Moxley, Lila Lasso, Kelly Rain Sanson, Charlie Esquire, Giedre Jacket, Gillaim Broderick, Mike Kelson, Mirella Camillo, Stephen Staley | Written by Craig McLearie | Directed by Adam Cowie

The original Dragon Fury, which we reviewed back in the summer of 2021, was something of a departure for producer Scott Jeffrey. It saw the prolific producer turning his hand to a monster movie rather than an all-out horror film – tapping into that great British tradition of dragons roaming the British Isles. And now a mere 15 months later we’ve got a sequel… Dragon Fury: Wrath of Fire, or Dragon Fury 2: Return to the Mountains as it appears on the screen; picks up after the events of the first film, with that movie’s survivor, Vanessa (Nicola Wright), in hiding after being threatened by the government. However, a group of researchers find her and soon convince her to go back to the mountains, and this time, the dragons are more deadly than ever.

After helming the first movie, Jeffrey this time hands over directorial reins to Adam Cowie, in what – according to IMDb – is the first of three films (all sequels) that Cowie has lensed for Jeffrey’s Jagged Edge Productions. He directs from a script by another newcomer, Craig McLearie, a screenwriter who’s pumped out a number of scripts for the likes of Pterodactyl and Jack Frost, which are both available on Amazon Prime Video alongside this film; as well as the forthcoming The Killing Tree. All of which involve Jeffrey in one way or another…

I say this because it’s clear that, whilst new filmmakers and screenwriters are being given great opportunities to make genre fare, it’s starting to feel like they’re following a strict set of guidelines. In design terms we’d call it a “house style”, making sure that anything new still slots into the overall look and feel. In this case the looks and feel, and budgets, of Jagged Edge Productions. Which means, like Krampus: The Return, Dragon Fury 2 feels a lot more formulaic. In fact as the film opened I had to question whether or not I was rewatching the original by mistake!

What’s different from the original film is how it looks. Whereas I decried the lack of furious dragons in the first Dragon Fury, here we get dragons aplenty – huge, scaly beasts that look fantastic! In fact, Dragon Fury: Wrath of Fire is marked by both great visual effects from Rhys Frake-Waterfield and beautiful, yet foreboding, visuals of the countryside thanks to cinematographer Jack Peter Mundy – both of whom are, by now, stalwarts of Scott Jeffrey productions; the former having worked on the original Dragon Fury amongst others and the latter directing the likes of The Legend of Jack and Jill and Easter Bunny Massacre. Mundy’s experience as a cinematographer on low-budget fare going back to The Leprechaun’s Game really shows here – he makes the most of the location, giving the hilly locale a real unforgiving appearance – almost post-apocalyptic in their grim nature.

What isn’t made the most of are the dragon attacks. Instead, we’re subjected to protracted conversations between the ever-increasing human cast – for every time a dragon torches a human we seem to get three more added to the cast… including the antagonist to Nicola Wright’s Vanessa, Richard Kovacs’ psychotic and vengeful Captain Brookes, who was “betrayed” by Vanessa on a previous mission! Eventually the film gets back on track as Vanessa and Connie (Charlie Esquer; Krampus: The Return, Shockwaves) he’d into the hills to try and escape the titular dragon’s fury and at the same time get their own brand of revenge on the soldiers that ‘care’ for the hillside dwelling beasts.

Unfortunately, everything wraps ups a little too quickly. There’s no time to savour Vanessa’s comeuppance against the government soldiers she holds responsible for the death of her friends in the first film and her current state of exile – the scene in which that happens feels like it should have, in the antithesis to what most would say, been long and drawn out. I for one would have loved to hear Nicola Wright give a huge aggrandising speech before what happens in the film actually happens. Instead we get one final scene, between Connie and one of the dragons that – shock, horror – like the first film sets up another sequel. Which, after this film, I’d actually be down for if I’m honest. Just give us even more dragon action in part three!