Werewolf? Over there behind the CGI effects.

The Wolfman

I love movies, but have a special place in my heart for horror movies. I enjoy being scared when I see a movie. I love the "I bet the creature is going to pop around that door..... huh? I thought it would have been Aaahhh!!!" anticipation of what is going to happen and where and to whom of horror films.

Now, I should say that I generally do not appreciate what I call torture films. Sure, there are a few that do things well, but generally the "take 1 psycho, add teenagers, multiply by weapons = corpses" doesn't interest me much. I like either fruaght with tension psychological horror films, or old timey monsters. So when I saw someone was making a new Wolfman film, I looked forward to seeing it.

*Note I will try to avoid any plot or story spoilers, but read at your own risk*

The movie stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving. Benicio plays the Wolfman in question with Blunt as the woman he loves, Hopkins as his grizzled old dad full of wisdom and secrets and Weaving as Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard (yes, the same character from From Hell, but no relation to that movie).

Del Toro is the wayward son who returns to his family home after his brother is killed "by something horrible". He meets and falls in love with his brother's ex-fiance, trades pithy wisdom with his estranged dad, meets some gypsys, gets bitten by something, becomes the beast, heads and viscera fly, Wolfy gets caught by Aberline of the Yard, taken to London, rampages, returns home, plot twists, secrets revealed, conflict and it all ends on the moors.

Overall, if you like monster movies, this is worth seeing, but only barely. If you do not like monster movies, avoid this as there is nothing to redeem it otherwise, although Weaving does a good job in an underused role. The actors, generally quite talented, are all as wooden as fenceposts in this. The movie is too long by about 20 minutes (cut out some walking around please) and the "romance" is tacked on and unbelieveable.

The only thing that saves The Wolfman are the scenes where he is a wolfman, transforms, rampages, etc. Even this, I almost disliked as it again relied too much on CGI and not enough on reality, but there were enough scenes of him in makeup to save it for me. Back in 1981 there was a film called An American Werewolf in London. It was AWESOME. David Naughton was the werewolf and, without any CGI, had the best transformation scene in film. Since then, film makers have embraced the computer as a source for special effects and I get why. It is a long process to transform an actor without them and time is money when filming. However, for me, the key is realism. Take for example the recent Underworld movies that also feature werewolves. I see the effects and do not believe at all that there are actually werewolves in the scenes. I know it is a CGI animated wolfman doing impossible things. I personally would rather see a well made up actor, possibly on wires for big jumps or whatever. I want my werewolf to be as real as possible as for me, that is what scares me, not pixels.

So, if you like monsters and have the patience to put up with the rest of the movie, The Wolfman is passable. However, if you're in the mood for quality lycanthropy, go rent An American Werewolf in London instead.