Monster Movie of the Week: The Wolf Man (2010)

THE WOLF MAN
Directed by Joe Johnston
Genre: Gothic Horror

THE MOVIE

The Wolf Man doesn't know quite what it wants to be. At it's heart, it longs to be a faithful re-invention of the classic Universal movie starring Lon Cheney,Jr. or possibly an elegant neo-Gothic period film a la Bram Stoker's Dracula, or maybe a Hammer-style horror movie, but in a world of Twilight, Underworld, and meddling studio executives there was probably intense pressure to make it, if not hip, than at least intense and violent enough to be able to appeal to a good chunk of youngsters. It was a troubled production with too many cooks in the kitchen and when the always-reliable Joe Johnston came on to direct, the movie had already picked up its own clunky momentum.

The movie stars Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro as the cursed Lawrence Talbot, in a bit of casting that is interesting but not quite right. In some ways Del Toro has the same kind of world-weary, hang-dog quality that Lon Cheney, Jr brought to the role, but he seems uncomfortable with the language and out-of-place in the Victorian period. Whether this is due to his acting or simply a badly-written script, I'm not sure, but I never quite bought him as the famous Shakespearean actor who returns home from America to his English country manor after his brother is violently killed.

The great Anthony Hopkins plays his father, the lord of the estate, who knows more than he is letting on about the attacks. Talbot has an uneasy relationship with his father, who he remembers standing over the body of his Gypsy mother when he was a boy. In The Wolfman and Thor, it seems Hopkins is making a career out of playing fathers with violent or stormy relationships with their sons.

When Talbot goes to visit the local Gypsies, he is cryptically told that his brother had been possessed by a "great evil." He then witnesses another attack on the camp by a wolf-like creature. Lawrence is bitten in the attack and, as anyone who has ever seen a werewolf movie before knows, he gets the werewolf's curse.

Lawrence eventually ends up in an asylum in London, in a sequence that really showcases the brutality visited upon mental patients during that period. To cure him of his werewolf delusions, he is strapped down during the full moon in full view of a group of doctors and students, where he transforms into a werewolf and escapes to the country for a final confrontation with his father.

The Wolf Man won an Academy Award for its make-up effects by Rick Baker, who is no stranger to werewolf effects, having done the great An American Werewolf in London many years before. Where the movie really shines is its really beautiful cinematography and art direction, which capture a perfect mood of Gothic horror. From the dilapidated country estate house on the foggy moor, to gas-lit nights of Industrial Age London, The Wolf Man is appropriately dark and moody.




THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

While I am not anti-CGI at all, I feel like werewolf movies are less fun in the era of digital effects. With movies like An American Werewolf in London, or The Howling, there was a real sense of ingenuity to the special effects. Effects artist were using all of the tools at their disposal to try and deliver amazing and ground breaking transformation sequences and creatures. Nowadays, effects artists are limited only by their imaginations and budgets and that often makes for uninspired creature designs.

In its werewolf design The Wolf Man seems to be trying to have it both ways. It seems to want to have an old-school Universal Wolf Man but, it also knows we expect a little more from our werewolves than a very hairy guy with fangs. I have a feeling this was one of the difficulties of getting this movie made, trying to create a design that is recognizably Wolf Man but still up to modern standards of design and special effects. The result, for me, is not that satisfying, but then I like my werewolves more wolf than man.



HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available on DVD and Bluray with lots of special features that document the production and the make-up. Baker and the other filmmakers seem to take pleasure in pointing out how happy they were when Del Toro was cast in the role because they were "already half way there," and how it wouldn't take that much make-up to transform him into the Wolf Man. Ouch.



MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The whole sequence in the asylum really stands out as a graphic example of the barbaric treatment of the mentally ill during the time period. Lawrence is subject to electrotherapy and basically being water boarded as part of his "treatment." This might be the only time in the movie that it achieves anything like real horror.


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Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

Director: John Landis

Genre: Werewolf

Country: USA/UK

THE MOVIE

Anyone who follows movies knows that studios periodically jump on certain genres or storylines which often result in two similar but competing projects released around the same time. We had Armageddon and then we had Deep Impact. We had Rob Roy and then we had Braveheart. We had Priscilla Queen of the Desert and then we had To Wong Fu. Well in 1981 we had The Howling and then we had An American Werewolf in London both released within a few weeks of each other. Either one by itself would have been a revolutionary entry into the werewolf movie genre. Both were directed by young and talented horror directors and both employed make-up gurus to handle the effects. Werewolf was worked on by SFX legend Rob Baker,

An American Werewolf in London is also distinguished from its competitor by its droll British infused sense of humor and its Hammer-esque ambiance. It also gives us a unique lupine werewolf as opposed to the simian designs of past movies or even the men-with-wolf-heads as popularized by The Howling. Landis’ movie also features some very disturbing and surreal dream sequences (such as one in which Nazi wolf ghouls attack attack the protagonist’s Jewish suburban family.)

Plotwise, AAWIL is pretty typical werewolf stuff. The film even rather sneakily references the old Wolfman movie with Lon Chaney Jr. A pair of young Americans are backpacking in rural England and make it to a mysterious village on the moors where the people in the local pub (which features a large pentagram on the wall) seem to be hiding something. The boys are attacked by an animal, one is killed (but returns in some black-humored visions later in the movie) and one survives and is taken to London for care where he hits it off with his nurse. As we all know, once you survive a werewolf attack you become one yourself.

THE MONSTER EFFECTS

Like The Howling, this movie aims to push the envelope as far as visual effects in a werewolf movie goes. It also tries to limit the number of cutaways during the transformation sequence and much is done via animatronics and practical make-up to create the films almost tortuous transformation sequence. One has to admire the great artistry and ingenuity that went in to creating a sequence like this when now all we would need to do would be to create it in a computer.

The other notable SFX or design aspect of the movie is in the final representation of the creature itself, of which you get some good looks in the latter part of the movie. AAWIL gives us a werewolf that actually looks something like a wolf (well honestly it’s a little stocky for a wolf. I think it looks more like a wolverine.) This is harkens back to pre –Cinema ideas of what a werewolf should look like. After all, the whole idea of the European werewolf was that a man would turn into an actual wolf, not some creature that looks like a hybrid of the two, as is more common in the movies.

FAVORITE SEQUENCE

The best shot in the movie is actually the very first one in which we see the creature. The werewolf is chasing a man through a subway station in the London Underground and up until this point we have only really seen cheap werewolf POV shots so we might be assuming this is one of those movies that doesn’t give you a real look at the monster. Anyway, this man has been chased through the station and stumbles upon an escalator. He falls dropping all of his things and is being carried up. Once he is at the top we get a near POV shot of his position. It is a long shot from the top of the escalator. It has a very objective feel almost like a security camera. The shot goes for a bit and then the monster simply steps into the frame. It’s fast but a great shot and very creepy.

SEQUELS

And unrelated sequel called An American Werewolf in Paris.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available.

SEE ALSO

The Howling

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Patrick Garone
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Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: The Howling (1981)

THE HOWLING (1981)
Director: Joe Dante
Genre: Werewolf movie

THE MOVIE

Werewolf movies came of age with Joe Dante’s The Howling. Gone were the days when you could glue some hair onto someone’s face and slap some fangs on them and call them a werewolf. This movie along with An American Werewolf In London, (released a few months later) moved werewolves away from the traditional “wolf man” characters and towards a more monstrous and lupine design. Both movies feature elaborate transformation scenes that pushed the limits of pre-CGI special effects and make-up technology. Both movies featured work by legendary special effects artists: The Howling features effects by Rob Bottin who also worked on John Carpenter’s The Thing, and American Werewolf features effects by Rick Baker, who has worked on everything to the first King Kong remake and Star Wars to The Nutty Professor and Tropic Thunder. The Howling, however, opened first and spawned six sequels (most direct to home video).

The Howling is the story of TV anchor Karen White (not to be confused with 70’s horror actress Karen Black) played by Dee Wallace Stone who is being stalked by what she thinks is a run-in-the-mill serial killer (Joe Dante regular, Robert Picardo). With the cooperation of the police, she attempts to set him up by agreeing to meet him in an adult bookstore. The cops arrive just as he is about to show her something horrible. He is shot dead in front of her and she sees something she cannot shake but cannot exactly remember either. After having a breakdown on live TV, Karen and her husband are advised by a friend to visit The Colony, an isolated commune. This commune at first glance appears to be a vaguely Wiccan, Northern California post ‘60’s nature retreat.


Karen White becomes increasingly disturbed by little things around her in The Colony that somehow remind her of her attacker, such as the eerie howling that fills the night and the unexplained animal carcasses that she stumbles across. She begins to suspect that her husband is having an affair with a local nymphomaniac/proto-Angelina Jolie. Meanwhile Karen’s co-worker is researching the mysterious stalker and discovers connections to The Colony, which turns out to be a werewolf community. Curiously, the movie hints at internal political rifts between different factions of the werewolves but this is not explored in much depth. Having escaped the werewolves but having been bitten by one, Karen makes an emergency news broadcast in which she warns the world of the werewolf menace before turning into one on camera.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The real centerpiece of The Howling is the make up and special effects work of Rob Bottin who attempts to get as close as possible to that ultimate holy grail of pre ‘90’s werewolf movies: the cut-away free transformation sequence. We take it for granted now from everything to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to the craptacular Underworld movies. But back in the day, you could not do a transformation like this without cutting away several times. Bottin’s puppets/dummies/make-up manage to do so much in single shots that cutaways are limited. Of course the result is transformation sequences that are amazing and intricate but also long, ostentatious, and painful. I mean, seriously, bring a book. This woman sits there for like ten minutes while Robert Picardo transforms, and it's like, "What the hell are you watching this for? Run!"

The resulting werewolves are actually pretty cool and scary (although vaguely bunny-like). They actually look like a cross between a man and a wolf, which is a novel departure from werewolves that either looked exactly like wolves or, more often, Kenny Rogers.



MOSTERS FEATURED

A whole pack of werewolves.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

I like Dee Wallace Stone’s dramatic on-camera transformation at the end of the movie. Although it is contrived, illogical, and the rest of the movie doesn’t support the tragic tone with which it is presented, it is a very memorable moment in the history of horror movies. Although, I think she transforms into some kind of Terrier.

SEQUELS

There were six sequels to this movie; apparently each one is exponentially worse than the one before it.

THE TRAILER



SEE ALSO

An American Werewolf in London 1981 Silver Bullet 1985

Does anyone remember Fox's 1980's TV show Werewolf? It was literally one of the first FOX shows. Back when people used to make jokes about the Fox "network."