Wolf (1994) Review

Tagline: The Animal Is Out

Wolf (1994) Review

 

Wolf is a strange movie. What’s really strange is how much I liked it when I first saw it, because I was just a kid and I had hardly seen any R-rated horror films up to that point, but there was something about Wolf that really captivated me and I remembered it fondly for years. The way it begins is a genuinely great hook, with Jack Nicholson driving down a snowy road in the middle of the night with the full moon looming in the sky. He hits a wolf, gets out to check it out, gets bitten, gets back in his car and drives off, but then as the story starts up, you begin to realize this isn’t like The Wolf Man or An American Werewolf in London. It’s not a typical horror movie, but more of a romantic drama, with some horror underpinnings and the usual werewolf clichés.

The wolf effects are weirdly minimal—not bad, per say, but questionable, especially given it was Rick Baker who did the effects, and he created two of the best werewolf makeups/practical effects of all-time, for An American Werewolf in London and the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man. There is much more time spent with Nicholson looking like a regular guy going through the motions of his daily life, and he practically sleepwalks through the movie. He works at a publishing house and has a rivalry with James Spader, who is reliably great, and he gets caught up in an affair with Michelle Pfeifer, who is also quite good.

The soundtrack is by Ennio Morricone, who wrote some great tracks for classic films like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and John Carpenter’s The Thing. His music here is good, but it’s also repetitive, in a way that both makes it memorable and kind of annoying, mainly when Jack is running around at night doing werewolf things. There are some interesting visuals and pretty funny parts, like when Jack pees on James Spader’s shoes in the bathroom because he’s “marking his territory” and Nicholson’s subdued performance makes it even funnier.

I don’t really know if I can give Wolf a solid recommendation. I think maybe the reason I enjoyed it so much at a young age was because it’s not overly scary, it’s honestly pretty tame and kind of a harmless piece of entertainment, but the slow pace and lack of commitment to the more monstrous aspects of the story rob it of some of its potential.