Werewolf by Night (2022) Review

Tagline: “There’s no escaping the night.”

Werewolf by Night (2022) Review

 

At a time when Marvel fatigue was starting to set in, a new corner of the superhero-centric universe had a spotlight shone on it for a brief moment, but in the four years since, that spotlight hasn’t returned, which is kind of a shame, since Werewolf by Night, Marvel Studios’ first “Special Presentation” on the Disney streaming service, might actually be one of my favourite post-Endgame productions.

A bunch of monster hunters show up at a creepy mansion after the death of Ulysses Bloodstone, a mysterious man who wielded the mystical stone from which his name is derived. They enter a maze to compete for ownership of the powerful relic, including Bloodstone’s estranged daughter, who seems to be an outsider compared to the others. The first hunter we meet is Jack, who has dark eye makeup and seems very suspicious. It’s a straightforward premise that doesn’t get dragged out; the total runtime is less than an hour, but a decent amount of suspense is built up in that time, and it threads in many of the spooky supernatural elements from the Marvel comics that had been absent from the MCU prior to this.

Right away, Werewolf by Night feels like a classic Universal monster movie, complete with a title card and black-and-white photography that even has little bits of projection dust and imperfections added to increase the authenticity. A colour version was released a year later, but why would you want to watch that version and lose the gothic, classic feel? The existence of a colourized edition is not overtly blasphemic, though, since the special was shot in colour and changed in post-production. It’s not quite the same as Spider-Noir, which actually was shot in black-and-white, but the production quality of Werewolf overall is still quite notable. It doesn’t look like everything was shot on a green screen, because it wasn’t, and many of the effects and costumes look tangible, because they were done practically in-camera. It’s a bit of a tease when you know Marvel can afford to make movies and shows this way, but they just choose not to most of the time, likely because it’s cheaper and easier to change on the fly.

To me, it’s a bit too obvious too early on who the titular werewolf is even if you don’t know the source material, and we don’t get to really know the other characters too well, but once that werewolf comes out, it is a satisfying transformation, done in an interesting way, which makes for the most memorable shot of the whole thing. It actually gets quite violent with a lot of blood splattering, which is very unlike Marvel, but it would have been difficult to do the special well without it. The werewolf itself is very versatile, fast, and acrobatic, which makes it feel more like a comic book werewolf, but I mean that in a good way, actually. The look reminds me of how David Kessler looks midway through his transformation in An American Werewolf in London. The werewolf isn’t even my favourite monster in this special, though. I was very surprised to see Man-Thing, AKA Ted, who is a classic character from the comics, and looks pretty cool despite mostly being CGI. What I would like to see next from the comics is Man-Wolf, who is actually the son of J. Jonah Jameson!

Werewolf by Night is definitely worth watching if you have Disney+ and are even remotely interested in the MCU, whether you remain a loyal fan or are catching up on the best of the best in the back catalogue. It isn’t without some questionable visual effects or moments of that annoying Marvel cringe humour, but the latter is minimized, especially in comparison to movies from around the same time. The music is great, too, helping cultivate that throwback vibe it goes for, but it would have been really embarrassing if the music hadn’t been good, since this was the directorial debut of composer Michael Giacchino. In terms of werewolf movies and shows, it’s not really anything too special, but in Marvel terms, it’s a tantalizing morsel of the untapped potential that I hope they have the balls to explore further, either with more of these “specials” or a theatrically-released film. *Cough* Blade! *Cough*.