Wolf Pack Teaser Trailer: Werewolves And Wildfires And Sarah Michelle Gellar, Oh My

Well, hot damn, y'all: Sarah Michelle Gellar is returning to the horror genre on TV, and now there's a trailer here to prove it. You may have heard about "Wolf Pack," the upcoming spin-off of "Teen Wolf" (not the 1985 Michael J. Fox film, but the 2011 MTV series based on it). However, with all the news coming out of San Diego Comic-Con this summer, it would be easy for a tidbit like Gellar's involvement in "Wolf Pack" to slip through the cracks. Fortunately, there's another convention happening this week, New York Comic Con, which has brought the first teaser trailer for "Wolf Pack."

"Wolf Pack" is based on the YA book series of the same name by Edo van Belkom, which began in 2004. Other books in the series include "Lone Wolf," "Cry Wolf," and "Wolf Man." The show, which is coming to Paramount+ in early 2023, stars Armani Jackson and Bella Shepard as Everett and Blake, two teens who witness the awakening of a werewolf during a wildfire and get bitten along with a couple of their friends, turning them all into young werewolves who are ready for primetime. They may also be swearwolves, since this is streaming, not network TV.

Gellar knows her way around lycanthropes, of course, since Scooby Gang member Oz (Seth Green) became one in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." In "Wolf Pack," Gellar's character is said to be an arson investigator out to catch the no-good punk who started the wildfire. The series also stars Chloe Rose Robertson, Tyler Lawrence Gray, and Rodrigo Santoro, the latter of whom played Xerxes in "300," the ill-fated Paulo on "Lost," and the host Hector on "Westworld."

Check out the teaser for "Wolf Pack" below.

"Wolf Pack" looks promising, and I say that as someone with absolutely no investment in the "Teen Wolf" franchise or similar YA genre fare beyond the first season of "Riverdale." The wildfire makes for striking imagery, and the music and mood of the thing, coupled with reveals of bloody bites and shots from the werewolf's POV, are appropriately portentous. I especially like the last line, which teases a two-headed werewolf.

/Film's Vanessa Armstrong was on hand last month at a Television Critics Association presentation for "Wolf Pack," where Paramount+ showed off two other clips from the show, which further establish that it is going for dark horror tone. For Gellar, who has also starred in films like "The Grudge" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer," part of the appeal of "Wolf Pack," in addition to its water cooler potential, was how it uses "monsters as a metaphor for the horror of high school," the way "Buffy" did.

According to Variety, "Wolf Pack" will hit Paramount+ the same day as the new "Teen Wolf: The Movie," which comes from the same writer and executive producer, Jeff Davis, who developed the "Teen Wolf" series. The series premieres on Paramount+ on Thursday, January 26, 2023.