• Gerardo Valero from Mexico City
Something strange happened to me while watching the recent Benicio del Toro movie "The Wolfman." I suddenly realized I wasn't being scared in the very least. Nada. Like Dr. Chilton once said referring to Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs" "my pulse never got above 80".
Despite the movie's constant and frantic attempts to scare the audience with surprising and loud growls, with beheadings and half-eaten corpses, nothing worked, I've a hard time understanding why.
Is it my attitude towards the genre?
No at all, I'm a fan of John Landis' "An American Werewolf in London", the subject of this review, a movie with much of the same special effects but made 30 years before; a movie that has the apparent disadvantage of having to use the much less creepy setting of modern day London; a movie in which most of the beast's attack sequences were filmed by using a "hairy dummy" sitting on a cart instead of the ultimate, beloved CGI; a movie that set itself the odd challenge of being funny and scary, often at the very same time.
So why bring up a new film in order to review an old one? Because in this particular case there is no better tool for understanding why one of them works than to point out why the other one does not. "The Wolfman" isn't a terrible movie, it's well designed, decently acted and with the right creepy setting. If anything I'd have to criticize (as usual) its CGI effects that have the title creature jumping from roof to roof like Spiderman but this wasn't that big of a deal for me.
"An American Werewolf in London" tells the story of two American friends back-packing through the English country. They are attacked by a strange beast and only one of them, David, survives, he is taken to London where soon-after, similar deaths start to occur in most unusual circumstances and he starts waking up in very unusual places. What appears to be his dead friend, warns him that this will continue until he should take his own life. Is he hallucinating? Is he double-hallucinating? Is there any way for him to avert his own death without getting more innocent people in harm's way?
Landis directs this film with a clear awareness that the things that scare us the most, reside in our imaginations, never just on the screen.This doesn't mean he cheats the audience by not giving them their Werewolf's worth (so to speak), just think about the incredible scene of the transformation done by the legendary make-up artist Rick Baker which was daring enough to be filmed in plain daylight, basic enough since it was made in the age before computers and also is exhausting in its detail. To this day and after several viewings: #1 I'm still trying to understand how they could possibly do it and #2 I still get creeped out of my mind.
So then what's the moral of this story for the next film maker who wants to make either a new Wolfman or Werewolf movie? Maybe that the success in this type of enterprise is in applying the right proportions; the more here is never, ever, the merrier; maybe that we have to grow to care for a film's characters if we are to actually feel concern about what their outcomes will be and yes, as much as the flavor of London added to the benefit of AAWIL, simply changing it's setting to Paris for a sequel, isn't going to get the job done either.
Footnote: After watching my review on video, I feel necessary to clarify what I mean by a "double it's only a dream sequence". "An American Werewolf in London" has a scene in which you think you are watching the main character having a standard "it's only a dream sequence", only to later learn, he's actually having a nightmare within his nightmare which felt totally original to me when I first watched the movie. I also address Roger here because I remember him and Gene Siskel referring to the standard "it's only a dream sequence" with an "I hate it when that happens!" reply.
Our Far-Flung Correspondent Gerardo Valero visits an American Werewolf stalking ground. (photo by Monica Valero)
I felt like this was the biggest problem with the new Wolfman. Only the sketchiest of backstory was provided for any of the characters. All of the setup at the beginning of the movie mechanically moved the story toward body parts flying around. Later, we learn quite a lot about the father/son dynamic, but by then I had already gotten bored.
Thank you Geraldo for giving some well earned credit to this film. I understand why many critics didn't find this to be a 'great' film - the character studies aren't incredibly moving - and the flow of the film isn't always at it best. But, the viewer 'cares' about David, his nurse, and Jack (ah Jack! Always popping up in darker places!) And, it's such a roller coaster ride. I like being scared - then laughing out loud. The movie is great fun.
I was in London last year - I HAD to take a picture while on the tube. The shot is looking down the empty escalator to the train platform below. Very few people will get it... But I know what it's from. It makes me smile when I remember the film.
Roger - have a good day.
An American Werewolf In London is a very underrated film. It's two flaws, imho, are it shortness and its rather abrupt ending, other than those, I love it and think it's about time for a re-evaluation.
The New Wolfman? Nah, from what I've been hearing, I think I'll take a pass. Thanks for the heads up!
Btw...
The Howling is also an underrated film that makes a great companion piece to AAWIL, both funny and scary at the same time.
Excellent read! Also, great to see you on the Far-Flung Correspondents panel at Ebertfest. It was the best panel I attended, and I attended 'em all, including mine.
London is the better film, but Wolfman wasn't bad. CGI was a distraction (I found the one scene of the creature's clawed hand lowering into frame while chasing someone much more effective because it looked real), but I walked away with a smile on my face, perhaps because the now-unreliable critical consensus had me prepared for a disaster. A good sense of humour helps any film, and Wolfman had a few nice moments - I'm sick to death of jump scenes, but chuckled when Benicio was on the receiving end of two in very close succession. Three in a row would have doubled me over. And I for one didn't mind the rooftop chase...by that point I was so pleasantly surprised by what I was seeing I was ready to cheer when he howled. It's not up there with AAWIL or Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it's not far off. Hire all three for a fun night.
I understand what you are saying, but is that really how you judge the modern day horror film? whether it scares you or not? Horror has always been my favorite genre, particularly because it entertains me the most, not because it scares me. Once I reached a certain age, there wasn't much a horror movie could do to truly frighten me anymore, I find that this is true for most people. I personally really enjoyed the new Wolfman, did I find it scary? of course not, but it sure was fun. In fact I believe The Wolfman is by far the most underrated film of this year so far. To appreciate it, you have to understand what it is, it's a throwback, a big budget B movie. What most critics consider flaws, such as the booming overwhelming score, the overacting, the quick cutting between scenes, these are staples of the classic universal horror pictures, and they are well preserved here. I was a little disappointed by the way this film was received, I think it deserved better. I grew up with An American Werewolf In London, and it did frighten me when I was little, but we can't penalize modern films for not having the same effect, it's just where they fall on the time line, that can't be helped.
I've only seen bits and pieces of An American Werewolf in London, but one of those bits is the transformation scene, and his first night of killing, where we hear the wolf and see its shadows, but only see the creature itself rarely.
I do think you're right, Gerardo, about movies that show the monster little by little, instead of all at once, working better than movies that are more interested in showing off their CGI creations. The classic example of this is Jaws, where the music substitutes for the shark for most of the film. And again, this is a movie which made us care about the characters, because if you don't care about the characters, their deaths are just a number, and their struggles are moot.
Great minds, etc. When I saw the first paragraph of the article in preview, I immediately thought of how I, also, found the recent "Wolfman" movie enjoyable enough but never actually scary -- and also how when I saw "An American Werewolf in London", I felt a palpable sense of fear during the scene on the moors. Even though it was a fusion of horror and comedy (one of the first of a big trend that continued for a number of years), it achieved true horror by, first, giving us characters we could identify with and care about, and then putting them in a believable situation where any normal person might be scared out of his wits. Being out in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, and hearing things you can't see, is an experience we've either had, or can easily imagine -- and it's scary on a primal level.
The scariest part of AAWIL is the scene when David sees the hospital bed in the middle of the forest and the ensuing action. This freaks me out whenever I watch it.
@Cedric As my friend Ali told me last week, there's a good movie hidden somewhere in The Wolfman.
@Karen I love the way the guy at the tube station just frerezes because of the adrenaline (otherwise, he may have gotten away). Isn't that just the way nightmares work?
@Scott The Howling's special effects do give AAWIL a run for their money.
@Tom It was great fun meeting you Tom, your Q&A session after PPINK FLOYD THE WALL was most memorable. I also love the way you'll always get to your seat by jumping over several rows of them!
@JT What inspired me to write this article was the fact that I felt The Wolfman could and shold have been better. I felt it truly was a missed opportunity more than anything else.
@ Tom Yes, I believe a movie like The Wolfman can be judged based on whether or not it scares you. Isn't that the whole point of a horror movie?
@Literary Dreamer Hollywood today just can't seem to be able to learn from it's own succeses.
@ Steven The scene in the moors is terrifying no matter how many times you see it. To think the effect was achieved with a dummy just amazes me.
I did not enjoy the new Wolfman because it was too fast. I grew up on B movies and the know the best part is always the slow, dread-filled buildup. Them! is a great example. When that policeman goes outside, you hear a shot and scream- oooo, that still scares me.
The Wolfman never stopped moving. I mean the film, not the creature. I thought the story was good, but there was never any real pause for reflection, what I find is necessary to build the suspense. You have to have time to wonder about what horror is going to occur in order for that dread to build up. Otherwise, it is just jump out and kill and who is really surprised by that? And I have to say that I waited a long time for this remake, really anticipated it, so I am angry that it had a good story and potentially interesting characters and twist (the whole way his mother actually died, yeah, I'm slow on the uptake cause I didn't get it right away) and they opted to make it some Transformer-type action flick instead of a classic suspense. (nothing against Transformers- when I pay for giant robots fighting I want to see a lot of giant robots fighting)
My parents left me at home once watching a 12’ black and white TV when I was about 10 years old. Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolfman came on. When they came home they found me on the porch with the front door open just a crack. I was too scared to be in the same room with that movie. No blood, no actual violence, it was the tension, the same effect Alfred Hitchcock so often succeeded in inflicting on audiences. I’ve watched that movie many times since and learned to have sympathy for someone who had lost control over his will thru no fault of his own, to the point that death is the only release. Today’s usual product of blood and gore is sickening to me, you don’t experience true horror at the movies much anymore, which is the only place it should be, maybe that’s the problem.
I agree, Gerardo, Wolfman did not scare me either. To be fair, the makeup and look of the picture is the best I have seen in a werewolf film. However, I was really let down by most everything else. The screenplay has some really laughable dialogue, with several of these howls (the wrong kind) being delivered by Anthony Hopkins. The pacing and the use of music and sound is also wrong. It begins way too fast, the werewolf attacks at super-powered speed and the sound and music tell us when to be scared rather than support the natural scares. The technology is also faulty, the obvious CGI werewolf running through the woods looks fake. American Werewolf in London was alright, I actually enjoyed The Howling, another early eighties werewolf movie.
Also feel a new direction is needed for this genre. Finally watched Twilight and got an idea. I really liked the vampire baseball game sequence. How 'bout a real R rated monster sports movie bloodfest?
Werewolves-Vampires-Ghouls Battle in the World Series of Goreball.
Don't know how to get a believable Living Dead team together though. Terrible hand/eye coordination--them being so spastic and slobbery and brain addled and all. Any ideas?
Guess what Roger? They have Steak 'n Shake here in Ohio. Everytime I have stopped by it feels like Ebertfest isn't really over.
@ Michael: How about the dream sequence in which David's entire family is killed? Hard to say which one is creepier but the point is ithat all of these elements add to the suspense in a way THE WOLFMAN never even dreamed of.
@theallbadhat: One has to wonder if and how much the studio forced Joe Johnston to include a certain number of action scenes as for the movie to appeal to the younger audiences. I find it safe to say it didn't really need them.
@ben: It takes nothing more than renting any Hitccock movie to immeadiately learn what's wrong with THE WOLFMAN.
@Bob Grothendick: I agree, telling an audience when to be scared and actually scaring them are two completely different things.
@john in denver: Hi John. To me, the title Wolfman vs. Werewolf sort of brings to mind some sort of wrestilng match title or the like.
Wrestling!
A great idea, Gerardo. Wolfman vs. the Werewolf seems fair. Maybe Hellboy vs. the Hulk. Endless potential scenarios. My dream match up would be Halle Berry vs. Michelle Pfeiffer battling it out for Catwoman honors. Always preferred lady wrestling.
Good read, Gerardo (great project, Roger!). I disagree, however, with your comparison, as I don't think the two movies are aiming for the same effect. An American Werewolf in London is a dark comedy that uses horror as its excipient while The Wolfman is nothing more than a B horror movie, which succeeds in getting the audience to jump and scream regularly throughout the show, by making use of sudden images and sounds... although in at least one scene Johnston took his time to get the effect: the asylum scene, where we get to see not only the slow transformation but also the horrified reaction of the witnesses and the hilarious reaction from the detective (now that I think of it, this may be my favorite scene in the movie).
I love An American Werewolf in London; it scared me and of course made me laugh the first time I saw it (when it first came out in cable... stupidly I did not go to see it when it played in theaters), and still does every time I have seen it again.
The Wolfman... much as I liked it, I'm not sure if I'll ever try seeing it again. I love B movies but there are lots of films out there yet to be seen, and if I have to, for sure I'll pick a dark comedy to watch again than a B movie, any day. Who knows, maybe when my kids are old enough to be interested in monster movies. Too bad we don't have matinees anymore. They were the perfect setting for this type of movie.
Salud, Gerardo.
(Por cierto, si alguien está interesado en leer en Español, mi crítica de The Wolfman: http://ideasdejoel.blogspot.com/2010/02/el-hombre-lobo.html)
Ah, great ending line: "Until next time, el balcón está cerrado"!
Congratulations, Gerardo, on the homage!
(I just saw the video review, after reading all the opinions...)
I actually liked the New Wolfman. Yeah, I'm a little embarrassed by that given the film's reception. I will say the villain was disappointingly easy to spot.
@Joel: Agree, both movies are of a very, very different nature however, their common denominator is that they both tried to scare you, only one succeeded though.
"El balcón esta cerrado": asides from being a homage to my friend Roger, it just seemed like the right way to end all of my reviews, after all, it´s one of the all-time great closing lines for any TV show
*Me encantaría entrar ver tu crítica pero no pude entrar.
Mike: THE WOLFMAN is not an easy movie to discard. It could and should have been great.
Great article about the werewolf/wolfman movies and what is actually scary. I think that CGI effects are so impersonal and obviously computerized that it completely loses the humanity of a movie and drains any scariness out of it. Some of the scariest movies lately are The Orphanage, Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. These movies had minimal use of computer-generated nonsense and were much scarier and down-to-earth because of it. Big-budget moviemakers that want to make a genuinely scary movie would be smart to watch those films instead of going for the fast-edited, computerized route.
American Werewolf in London was one of the first horror movies I ever saw. Perhaps it was the first one. I was ten when I watched it and I found it extremely disturbing, especially the end. I have not seen it since, largely because I am too afraid to be disturbed by it again. It lives in my memory, vividly, and so there is no reason for me to see it again.
I don't think CGI movies can have that kind of lasting impact on viewers. CGI is intended to create highly realistic looking special-effects sequences, but it is really the very worst--or perhaps most obvious--verfremdungseffekt. All these new CGI movies, I predict, will have little if any staying power in the imaginations of viewers.
For some reason the link above included the closing parenthesis...
Here it is, my review of The Wolfman, in Spanish:
http://ideasdejoel.blogspot.com/2010/02/el-hombre-lobo.html
Gracias. Until next time, El balcón está cerrado.
I followed the making of THE WOLFMAN from the moment it was announced because I love werewolves. Considering all the behind-the-scenes issues I was going to be happy with a movie that was just watchable but instead got a decent little B-movie out of the deal. Not a great film but much better than it had any right to be after what it took to get it to the screen.
I think you've got a good point with the tendency to show 'to much' to the audience these days, and it applies to far more than just werewolf movies. Everyone is trying to outdo everyone else with their CGI work and spending so much money on it that there's no way they're not going to make sure the audience sees every dang pixel.
@Ira: Agree with you on what makes a movie scary, I just can't understand why many people in Hollywood don't seem to get it.
@Eli Katz Let's not forget James Cameron was actually able to extract real emotion from his CGI creatures in AVATAR, in other words, one thing is whether something is achievable, another is actually achieving it.
Now that Hitchcock has been brought to the discussion, let's not forget a great Hitchcock movie filled with CGI, wall to wall, completely put to the service of suspense: Minority Report (I know, I know, but don't you agree it's the kind of film Hitch would've made if he was still around?). Although the scariest scene here does not have any CGI in it (at least not that I can tell): the one where Max Von Sydow threatens Tom Cruise's wife by simply moving away the chair. Brrrrr...!
Now, let's not blame the technology, but its user. It's like blaming the brush rather than the bad painter for all those corny paintings of big eyed children crying that became so popular in the '70s.
(Of course, when it comes to horror, less usually is more; as you yourself have said before, Gerardo: Jaws, Alien, etc.)
And of course real emotion can be conveyed in a CGI character when real artists are behind. How about, just to mention one of Pixar's, Remy in Ratatouille?
@Joel: "Now, let's not blame the technology, but its user"
Amen!
I severely wanted to love this movie from the instant I learned last year of it being made. To me, the over-the-top gore and manic speed of the werewolf in action were a bit of a letdown but being such a fan of the original, I was most disappointed by Anthony Hopkins - both the character and his performance. Remembering Claude Rains as the moral compass of that film, I can't abide turning the father into a wolfman himself who killed his own wife. I felt Hopkins the actor overwhelmed the film, and from an effects standpoint, looked fake in werewolf mode. I liked the way del Toro's Wolf Man looked, and I liked his performance and Emily Blunt's, but Hopkins, who I normally like greatly, just did not do it for me this time. Moreso it was his character than him. It felt like the Jerry Springer dysfunctional family version of the story. All that said, I appreciated and was entertained by the movie while I was watching it. Maybe I'll give it another try someday.
I really can't wait to see Breaking Dawn and the Wolf Pack in it, 2011 is going to be a great year!