Former NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson is brought back to the force and assigned to solve a bizarre string of violent murders after high-profile magnate Christopher Van der Veer, his wife, and his bodyguard are slain in Battery Park.

Executive Security, the private firm employed by Van der Veer, blames the murders on a group of left-wing anarchists, but knowing that the victim's bodyguard was a 300-pound Haitian with voodoo ties leads Wilson to doubt this theory because the bodyguard was torn apart with ruthless efficiency (the anarchists are mostly activist bomb makers, not violent assassins).

With pressure to solve the case coming from both the Police Commissioner and the Mayor, Wilson is partnered with criminal psychologist Rebecca Neff.

Elsewhere, in the South Bronx, a homeless man explores an abandoned church that is scheduled to be demolished by Van der Veer's development company.

Inspired, Wilson finds Eddie Holt, a militant Native activist he arrested some years previously, working in construction.

The following morning, a man in a jogging suit rides Ferguson's motorcycle past Wilson as he leaves Neff's apartment.

The leader of the group, the Old Indian, informs Wilson that the Wolfen kill to protect their hunting ground and target "the elderly, the sick--those who will not be missed".

Wilson and Neff are shortly thereafter cornered in Van der Veer's penthouse by the pack, led by its white alpha male.

Wilson smashes the model of the construction project that threatened their hunting ground, trying to communicate that the threat no longer exists and that he and Neff are not enemies.

The setting for the transient home of the wolves was shot in the South Bronx (intersection of Louis Niñé Boulevard and Boston Road).

The consensus reads: “Police procedural meets werewolf flick in Wolfen, a creepy creature feature with a surprisingly profound side.”[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews".

[10] Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of a possible four stars, calling it, "an uncommonly intelligent treatment of a theme that is usually just exploited.

Time Out called it a "werewolf movie,"[11] but Roger Ebert asserted Wolfen "is not about werewolves but is about the possibility that Indians and wolves can exchange souls.