It's possible that you might associate the name Josh Ruben with the streaming service Dropout, or with one of Dropout's viral videos. For the last few years, Ruben has been one of the more reliable improv performers on shows like Make Some Noise and Game Changer, with a gift for celebrity impersonations and coming up with strange characters on the fly. Dropout is just his side hustle, however.
Ruben got started with the Dropout team back in its CollegeHumor days, as a writer/director for a few dozen of its short videos, like “Female Armor Sucks.” After CollegeHumor's near-closure in 2020, Ruben branched out into directing horror movies, the best-known of which is probably 2025's Valentine-themed slasher Heart Eyes. Ruben is already working on its sequel, due out in 2028. That puts Ruben in interesting company, as part of the recent comedy-to-horror crossover wave that also includes Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger, and David Gordon Green (who went from directing Pineapple Express and Our Brand is Crisis to the 2018 Halloween reboot and The Exorcist: Believer).
In Ruben's case, he comes off like he got desperately lost on the way to the Hallmark studios. A Josh Ruben horror movie is a romantic comedy with a body count. 2021's Werewolves Within is technically an adaptation of a 2016 social deduction VR game of the same name, but the two works have little in common. The game is set in medieval Europe, while the film takes place in modern Vermont.
You can watch the movie with no knowledge of the game, especially since the movie is currently streaming for free on several platforms, such as Tubi. If you're curious about Ruben's horror work or if you simply want a lycanthropic comedy/murder mystery for your Halloween watchlist, check out Werewolves Within. Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson, Veep) is a U.S.
Forest Service ranger who's taken a transfer to the little town of Beaverton, Vermont. The night he arrives, an avalanche blocks the main road out of town, which coincides with a suspicious power outage. When Finn goes out to investigate in the morning, he finds that every generator in town looks like it's been clawed open.
Worse, Finn finds the corpse of the co-owner of the local motel. He looks like he was killed by wolves, but wolves wouldn’t have hidden the body under the motel’s porch. The Beaverton locals were already at one another's throats over a recent proposal to run a gas pipeline through the town.
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