The film stars Julian Morris, Jon Bon Jovi, Lindy Booth, Jared Padalecki and Gary Cole.

This leads to the discovery of a young woman's body on campus, putting the lives of those who played the game in legitimate danger.

A group of prep school students consisting of Graham, Mercedes, Lewis, Randall, Regina, Tom, Dodger and Owen play a game called Cry Wolf, where someone is marked as a "wolf" and the group tries to figure out who it is.

They discuss the police finding a girl's body, Becky, after it was dragged through the woods by a wolf.

The group considers who could have murdered Becky, when Dodger proposes expanding Cry Wolf to the entire school.

They describe the killer as wearing an orange ski mask, a green camouflage jacket, steel toe combat boots, black tactical leather gloves, brandishing a hunting knife or a high-powered handgun.

In his journalism class the next day, when Owen reaches into his bag for supplies, a hunting knife falls out.

Dodger visits Owen, who has been released on bail, and says she would never have played the game if she knew Mr. Walker was cheating on her, revealing she organized everything.

[2] In September 2002, a panel consisting of Doug Liman, Freeman Thomas, and executives from Universal and Rogue Pictures determined then recent USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate Jeff Wadlow winner of the contest on the basis of his submitted short film Tower of Babel which he had created with classmate Beau Bauman and his pitch then titled Living the Lie which was described as a modern day retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Dull and derivative, Cry_Wolf is a subpar slasher that even ardent fans of the genre may find difficult to enjoy.

"[4] The website Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 39 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

[6] Writing for the magazine Variety, John Anderson said that "there are surprises intrinsic to the storyline [...]", but adding that "there’s not enough tension to make the viewer care that much for the various hoaxes and faux-slayings perpetrated by the film’s largely unlikable gang of privileged brats.

[7] Ryan Larson, of the website Bloody Disgusting, praised the performance of Jon Bon Jovi and said that "diving deep into the production of this film is fascinating" and added that "Cry Wolf feels so 2000s in all the best and worst ways", but concluded that "being the mid-2000s, however, the film is also bogged down with homophobia and some outdated terminology that will make you cringe when watching.