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*. 

Full Moon High (1981) Review

Tagline: “He's today's teenage werewolf... only the rules have changed!”

Full Moon High (1981) Review

 

I’m not really a fan of writer/director/producer Larry Cohen’s films, so why am I reviewing this one? Well, Full Moon High is listed as his one and only authentically branded “horror comedy” but it should really just be filed into the comedy genre, because before there was Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox in 1985, there was this sort-of-spoof of werewolf tropes combined with classic teen comedy tropes. In some ways, it’s even funnier than Teen Wolf, but it’s far more obscure, even for fans of Larry Cohen, and there are more than a few valid reasons as to why.

First of all, this movie is kind of unhinged. It’s not so much because of the premise—a high school football player named Tony, played by Alan Arkin’s son, Adam Arkin, gets turned into a werewolf while on vacation with his dad in Transylvania—it gets unhinged because of the editing and pacing. A good comedy will use comedic timing intentionally with the editing, but that is not what happens here. Scenes will end super abruptly, sometimes before a character is fully done talking, or before it feels like the scene is even over. It jumps around chaotically from scene to scene, and much like the spoofs or sex comedies to come throughout the decade, the premise is mostly just a framework for Cohen to hang jokes from. Some of the jokes actually hang as intended, but most just fall right off the framework and crash to the ground.

The first joke is actually worth a chuckle: all that can be heard are growling, animalistic sounds, which you expect will be from a werewolf, but then it cuts from the opening titles to a football game, and the sounds are attributed to the players. Adam Arkin is a bit strange in the lead role, though able to deliver the jokes consistently well enough, but there’s not a lot of substance to his character. I think one of the best scenes with him is when he’s turning into a werewolf in his bedroom and his dad (Ed McMahon) confronts him, then he chases his dad down into the house’s underground bomb shelter, where his dad declares “the commies turned my son into a wolf.” There are definitely a number of dated jokes, especially of the homophobic variety, but the hit-or-miss ratio of gags and bits will vary for some. I did laugh a few times throughout, but the whole thing was a little too inconsistent for me, and again, just too unhinged. In a later scene, Tony asks a classmate to videotape him turning into a wolf, and he attacks her, then she attacks him back and all of a sudden it becomes a parody of Psycho with her trying to stab him in the shower.

I don’t understand why the full werewolf head and body weren’t used in more shots than just the one scene where Tony is first attacked early on, because it actually doesn’t look too bad considering the low budget, but I suppose it would have been tougher to shoot and wouldn’t have fit the tone Cohen was going for. The makeup on Adam Arkin is fine, taking direct inspiration from the classic Werewolf of London look, but a lot of the time the scenes of Tony as a werewolf are shot from his POV, which gets tiring. He’s one of the least vicious werewolves I’ve ever seen, which is one of the reasons Full Moon High lands squarely in comedy, not horror-comedy. He even says he just “nibbles” people, and the newspaper headline says “WEREWOLF ANNOYS COMMUNITY” which is another one of the best jokes.

It feels as though it takes too long to get to the actual premise, which happens about halfway through. Tony can’t die and he can’t age, so there’s a time skip and he goes back to high school years after he was supposed to graduate, and then three different women become interested in him, but he’s hesitant, and kind of whiny after a while, too. After the footage of his transformation is shown to his class (we the audience, unfortunately, don’t get to see much of it), Tony gets arrested, and a psychiatrist played by Adam Arkins’ real dad, Alan Arkin, comes on the scene and ends up being the one to shoot him with silver bullets at the end after Tony joins in on the homecoming football game. It’s quite something to see a real-life father and son have it out on a football field while one of them is a werewolf and the other is a shrink who uses verbal abuse to “cure” his patients.

Of all the werewolf movies released in 1981, with the others being An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and Wolfen, Full Moon High is probably my least favourite next to Wolfen, and it’s the messiest of them all, but it’s not without some merit. Despite not being a Larry Cohen fan, I would at least give this one a soft recommendation if you like this era of comedy, but it certainly isn’t required viewing if you’re in it just for the werewolf, and if you want an actual blend of horror-comedy, don’t even bother. I’m not a big Teen Wolf fan (original movie or show), but I don’t think it compares too much, despite their similarities. Cohen took inspiration from I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), and Teen Wolf clearly owed a little something to Full Moon High. If you want a movie that’s actually scary and funny and well made, though, just stick with An American Werewolf in London. 

The Werewolf (1956) Review

Tagline: “It happens before your horrified eyes!”

The Werewolf (1956) Review

 

How’s that for an original title? One of the very first werewolf films ever made, often cited as the first, was the silent short film from 1913 also called The Werewolf, but it’s considered a lost film because the only existing film reels burned up in the Universal Studios fire in 1924. Perhaps producer Sam Katzman (who also produced one of the best-worst giant monster movies ever, The Giant Claw) was paying tribute to the extinct granddaddy of werewolf cinema with the title of this one. Despite being made forty-three years apart, there are two things they have in common: this werewolf doesn’t need only a silver bullet to bring him down, and it doesn’t take a full moon to aid in his transformation, either, though the reason for the latter is vastly different.

The story begins with a stranger walking into a bar in a small town. He doesn’t know his name or if he’s from around these parts, and a thug confronts him outside and tries to take his money, but the stranger kills him in an alleyway and runs off. We don’t see him change into a werewolf, but a little old lady does, and unlike many other werewolf films, these townsfolk become convinced there is a real werewolf on the loose in no time flat. It’s kind of funny they’re so quick to believe it, but that also gets the story going quicker, which is appreciated. The man turns out to be the subject of experimentation from two evil doctors who are trying to create a serum that will allow people to survive a nuclear holocaust. Becoming a werewolf is, unfortunately, just one of the undesirable side effects.

The Werewolf, despite its generic title and bare bones storyline, fits in nicely with the 1950s atomic monster trend, linking this traditionally supernatural beast with the nuclear scares of the time. The irradiated werewolf (otherwise just a normal one) is on the run, but the man’s wife and son show up to identify him as Duncan Marsh; he had been in a car crash and mysteriously disappeared after the doctors found him. There’s not a lot of mystery to the story, nor is there much tension. The majority of scenes are melodramatic dialogue exchanges without a lot of energy, but the werewolf scenes are entertaining, though far and few between.

I didn’t expect a lot from this movie, but the werewolf itself, despite only appearing a few times, is probably among the best cinematic examples from this decade, which didn’t see many lycanthropic films released. If you liked seeing The Wolf Man traversing the foggy woods in the Universal classic, you might enjoy seeing this man-wolf roaming around the forests of Mountaincrest (real filming location: Big Bear Lake), though the woods themselves don’t have quite the same kind of style and gloom. The first time we see Duncan change into the creature the effect is done using the same technique as previous werewolf films, with lap dissolves as more makeup is added. I have to laugh at the first transformation, though, because unlike the older Universal films which took the time to painstakingly line up each transitional shot so the dissolves looked more like a live transition, they couldn’t even line up the dude’s eyes, and he has four eyeballs for a second as the image fades and changes. There are three transformations total, which is pretty ambitious for a low budget film. The makeup isn’t as bad as you might expect, but he does look a little like a drowned rat at times.

Though the violence is tame by today’s standards, in comparison to The Wolf Man from just over a decade earlier, this werewolf kills quite a few more people than Larry Talbot did in his premiere film, though it’s all kept off screen. The best scare is when the evil doctors break into the jail to inject Duncan (who has willingly gone there so he won’t hurt anyone else) and they turn him over in bed, expecting him to be asleep, but he’s already undergone the transformation, and then he kills them both. The funniest moment of all comes earlier, when the townsfolk are searching for the beast in a very cliché angry mob (they even have flaming torches later on) and a guy traps Duncan in a mineshaft. Duncan emerges having turned into the werewolf and another guy shoots at him, then the sheriff runs up to the guy and says, “Who told you to fire that shot?” to which he replies, “That creature up there!” as if he’s saying the werewolf itself told him to shoot it.

Though The Werewolf takes itself extremely seriously, it’s a pretty silly movie that’s unfortunately only punctuated by worthwhile moments amid many dry scenes of uninteresting characters talking. There’s some entertainment value thanks to the titular creature and the environment in which the film was shot, but I’d only recommend checking it out if you have a particular interest in this era of horror and don’t mind a more languid lycanthrope.