Saw The Wolfman last night and was very impressed. It's a traditional telling of the tale minus silly gimmicks and hipster deconstructionism. It's very gory, well acted by all, and was so smoothly edited (by the great Walter Murch, Dennis Vurkler, and Mark Goldblatt) it carried me like a flying carpet from scene to scene.
I come from the more traditional werewolf camp. I only liked parts of American Werewolf in London (the opening sequence on the Yorkshire Moors), but I despised the comedy and lines like "I shouldn't have called you meatball!" The Howling is an old favorite -- although, these days, the setting (a retreat for werewolves) rubs me wrong. The Werewolf of London is great, and I like the original The Wolfman for sentimental reasons (it is actually quite slow and uneventful). Wolfen? Loved the Whitley Streiber book, was half-hearted about the movie.
Other notable werwolf movies in my history have been The Company of Wolves, a werewolf flick with a potent erotic angle, and Brotherhood of the Wolf -- actually, since it's not 'Brotherhood of the Werewolf', it's not technically a werewolf flick. Still, it's meaty wolf cinema.
Also worth noting is Pedro Olea's exceptional El Bosque Del Lobo (AKA The Ancines Woods), an ultra-realistic realistic werewolf tale that has remained fairly obscure.
Universal's new lyncanthrope entry has had a checkered production history with directors replaced and werewolf designs rejected, approved, and rejected again willy nilly. Thankfully, none of the film's trial and tribulations are in director Joe Johnston's final cut.
The film has a refreshingly uncluttered narrative with just enough backstory and expositional window dressing. Would have been nice to see more of the Gypsy Woman/Talbot "relationship", but the film is what it is, and it's not too shabby at all.
Benecio Del Toro strikes the perfect chord as Lawrence Talbot, a Shakespearean actor who returns to his family home following the death of his brother. Before you can say "The moon is full!", Talbot's life is changed by a creature painting the town red. Del Toro plays Talbot as sullen and introspective, and this choice pays hefty emotional dividends.
Anthony Hopkins is terrific as Talbot's father, a man harboring a fascinating secret. A couple of reviews have criticized his performance as ineffective and "hardly there". I disagree. Hopkins brings great authority to his role, and sells the pulpy nonsense that is the lyncanthropic curse like a veteran snake oil salesman. Hugo Weaving, as a Scotland Yard detective, is mostly all surface because he's written that way, but I enjoyed his contribution, too.
I often complain that books and movies are rarely equal to their cover art. Well, The Wolfman is full of delicious cover art moments, and feels like a monster movie made for monster movie lovers by monster movie lovers. There is no visible effort made to appeal to those not comfortable with brutal monster violence. The romance is not forced, either. The central characters are adults, not teenagers. It was so refreshing to see grown-ups on screen with not a shitty, attitude-ridden pubescent asshole in sight. I was in heaven.
The Wolfman's creature designs, courtesy of a slew of talented make-up artists (including the great Rick Baker) are truly brilliant. In some scenes, the hero werewolf reminded me of the machine gun-toting werewolves in American Werewolf's dream sequence. A similar, cruder version of this film's make-up style can be seen in 'Werewolf Women of the SS', Rob Zombie's fake trailer in Grindhouse. In a couple of shots here I felt like I was watching a Guy. N. Smith cover bristling with life.
Once or twice, I saw the ghost of Paul Naschy's 'Waldemmar Daninsky' in the Cimmerian dark of the cinema.
The resemblance is uncanny, isn't it?
It all felt good to me.
Enjoy the company of this wolfman. I did. And I will again.
This mag, published by Fantaco Enterprises Inc, was not terribly well printed, but the content was great.
Now and then, I stumble across magazines that feel like I was consulted on the content. The sensibility is uncomfortably close to my own. This '83 issue ticked every box for me.
Excellent contents page. Superb layout.
Some art from the underrated, obscure shocker Blood and Lace ('71), and a very fine ad mat for Mansion of the Doomed ('76), an American Eyes Without A Face. This "Obscurity of Humane Horror" article, which is a rebuff to comedienne/actress Carol Burnett's comment that horror films "Have no regard for human life or sensibility" crystallizes the thinking behind the magazine's editorial choices, and what excellent choices they are.
"There are horror films out there other than Friday the 13th, Rosemary's Baby, and Scanners," writes editor Barry Kaufman, "and it's only here that you'll read about many of them."
True to his word, Kaufman includes a review of House Out Frontiers (someone chopped the 'With' off), which, in fact, is House Without Frontiers (La Casa Sin Fronteras), a rare, obscure film from director Pedro Olea. I have wanted to see this film for years, having once seen Olea's quite amazing The Ancines Woods (El Bosque Del Lobo, '71)...
...a thoroughly amazing "werewolf" pic, based on a true story, set in the 19th century, that may have inspired Christopher Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolf.
English translation is 'The Forest of the Wolf'.
A Spanish DVD is available.
Prolific filmmaker Donald Farmer contributes an intelligent article on Salo, a film I admire for its audaciousness, but always find a little bit boring. I like individual pieces (the graphic pieces!), but the rest I have a hard time trudging through.
Blood and Lace review. Nobody's ever been able to figure out how the film earned such a mild rating (the equivalent of a PG).
Lemora - A Child's Tale of the Supernatural ('74) is one of my favorite films of all time. In his article, Kaufman argues that its blunt anti-Catholicism may have been one of the reasons why the film failed to connect with audiences at the time of its release. I'm not so sure I agree.
Do devout Catholics flock to see such films? Is an anti-Catholicism stance (in a horror film) potentially hurtful to a film's chances?
My feeling is Lemora didn't connect because it's such an unconventional horror film. Its languid, dream-like pacing, simmering eroticism, not--exactly-overt lesbianism, and refreshing climax, in which Evil wins, may not have satisfied the viewers expecting a neat little shocker with a neat, conservative conclusion. Who's to say? Moreso, the film just wasn't well distributed and advertised, so didn't stand a chance of catching on.
I totally adore it, and find it to be one of the most subversive mixtures of horror and sexuality ever committed to the screen.
This great still from Andy Milligan's Bloodythirsty Butchers adorns the back cover; unfortunately, the movie did not live up to the promise of its promotional imagery.
It was sad to see the demise of Demonique. Fortunately, it still lives on paper and inside the scans above.
