There have been plenty of video-game movies, the majority of them bad, but few have ever adapted a party game–turned–video game. Yet Ubisoft has done exactly that with Werewolves Within, a whodunit mystery film based on the VR title inspired by Werewolf/Mafia that leans more into the absurdism of a supernatural killer stalking hapless humans. By film standards, this is certainly one of the better game adaptations: it’s got a simple premise, straightforward execution, and a commitment to the game’s central gimmick. Yet Werewolves Within still struggles with a number of clichés and generic archetypes that prevent it from obtaining that Clue–level charm when it comes to quirky murder-mystery shenanigans.

In place of a Middle Ages setting, our villagers have been modernized into the occupants of rural Beaverfield, all oblivious to the woodland terror stalking them. That changes when they get a new resident in Finn Wheeler (Veep’s Sam Richardson), a Forest Service ranger who’s been transferred following an embarrassing work incident. After visiting the town inn, he gets a crash course in Beaverfield’s population by postwoman Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), who seems to know everyone’s attitudes inside and out: flamboyant yoga couple Devin and Joaquin (Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén); foul-mouthed mechanic Gwen and her man Markus (Sarah Burns and George Basil); and “Queen Bee” Trish (Michaela Watkins), who runs the local maple farm with her similarly vain husband, Pete (Michael Chernus).

All of them have a stake in an ongoing gas pipeline deal being negotiated by industry man Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall), much to the chagrin of his neighbor at the inn, Dr. Ellis (Rebecca Henderson), who decries what it will do to nature. Despite everybody greeting one other with semi-affection, there are notable signs of contempt and greed clawing to the surface even before the wolf’s presence becomes known.

Then individuals start dying gruesomely. First, it’s Trish’s dog, and later the corpse of the inn owner’s husband, who was presumed to have ran off, is found completely mauled. On his body Dr. Ellis uncovers a disturbing revelation: bite marks with canine features, the kind of marks Finn recently discovered on the town’s now-busted power supply boxes. With a bad snowstorm underway, Finn, Cecily, and the neighbors are forced to board themselves up for the night in the inn. There, the possibility of a lycanthrope is finally proposed. The semi-good news: everyone is seriously armed. The bad news: everyone is distrustful, over-the-top, and callous.

Like its source material, Werewolves Within refrains from showing too much werewolf serial killing in favor of escalating mass paranoia. The bulk of its isolated-cabin second act involves the townsfolk freaking out, pointing fingers/guns, and going mad, with Finn serving as both peacekeeper and fish out of water trying to temper down their crazy. Unfortunately, the supporting characters aren’t that compelling. They exist mostly as stereotypes of small-town communities, hipsters, and “Karen” reactionaries mixed with surface-level liberal vs. conservative talking points about pipeline disputes. At one point, Trish and Pete blame graffiti on their house on antifa and that’s the extent of the joke. When push comes to shove, these people seem perfectly fine picking self-preservation and self-interest over thy neighbor.

By comparison, Finn is a decent, if not that complex, protagonist. Richardson’s chemistry and banter with Vayntrub is fun, with the duo serving as semi-meta commentators on how the others are not only weird but incapable of making good decisions (at one point, things get so bizarrely violent that Cecily admits “this town’s batshit” after a lengthy stunned silence). This makes him a good moral balancing act: just sensible enough to prevent Werewolves Within’s antics from going too far off the rails. Yet for better or for worse, all the chaos surrounding Finn’s predicament can feel like it’s overshadowing the threat of the werewolf.

Werewolves Within never takes itself too seriously and certainly knows its limits as a narrative and video-game movie. However, while director Josh Ruben’s storytelling and Matthew Wise’s camerawork move the plot to where it needs to go, I would have preferred more instances of tension sprinkled in between the laughs for a true Shaun of the Dead–meets–The Twilight Zone experience. At just over an hour and a half, it’s an easy flick to watch with family, friends, and neighbors alike. But when a horror film opens with ominous music over a quote from Mister Rogers, you kind of wish it would live up to that hype of destroying one’s innocence.

Werewolves With is streaming via Tribeca at Home until June 23. It will be released in theaters July 25 and available on demand July 2.