The Wolfman

Poor Werewolves. We can all identify with that notion of being innocently and uncontrollably contracting something that transforms us into a horrific beastie. Why, only this week my nephew blessed me with a sneeze that's turned me into a melting snot-monster fit to dwell in the gutters of Street Trash territory. And while the werewolf has never been viewed in quite the same romantic vein as its cousin the vampire, there are many who identify with the wild and bestial free spirit of the lupine. Hence millions of absolutely terrible T-shirts of wolf packs howling at the moon worn by those who want to convey that, yes, they too would like to eat raw meat and piss on a pine tree.

It comes as no surprise that the Hollywood remake pack has finally come to feast on the remains of the classic 1941 Universal monster movie The Wolf Man. In fact, the real surprise is that the chance to resurrect the beast hasn't been seized upon sooner. The original is often remembered for its pathos and sympathetic creature, as much victim as villain, and in the right hands an update could clearly be potential Oscar material for some lucky star.

It is, perhaps, for exactly this reason that this new version, now called The Wolfman, has taken so long to reach our screens. First announced back in 2006, the film has had a notoriously troubled production with multiple directors and scriptwriters attempting to tame the beast while potential release dates came and went. Rumours of reshoots, redesigns and re-edits spread, causing concern among those who remember and love the atmospheric original. Could it be The Wolfman would end up as best in show, or just another shaggy dog story?

Changes to the plot are obvious from the beginning. Wolfman now takes place in the late 1880's and exists in a much more gothic world than the 1941 movie. Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) is now a Shakespearian actor performing in his native England after spending much of his life in America. Returning to his family home, Talbot discovers his brother has been found dead in a ditch, his body mutilated horrifically. Talbot is shocked by the state of his sibling's body, and struggles to deal with the death whilst coming to terms with meeting his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins). Talbot had something of a disturbed childhood, having been sent away for psychiatric care from the family home after the traumatic death of his mother. Haunted by the memories and the mystery of his brother's death, he wastes no time in falling head over heels in love with his brother's very recently bereaved fiancée, practically at first sight, before wandering through the forest to confront some gypsies who might know a thing or two about the death.

I don't want to give too much away, but a werewolf did it, and it's still pretty hungry for more of the family's blood. During a savage attack, Talbot is wounded by the furry fiend and soon starts having all sorts of strange visions and desires. Before long, he's uncontrollably transforming into a beast and running rampant with tooth and claw before taking shelter in the hollow of a tree. "Terrible things, Lawrence. You've done terrible things" utters his father with relish.

This really his high gothic, filled with physical and mental disintegration. The state of Talbot's fragile mind is reflected in the condition of the family home, beautiful in its grand decrepitude. Once a palatial manor house, time and disrepair have eaten away at the property leaving it looking burnt out and wasted. Ivy creeps up walls. Statues and urns lean on riverbanks, partly engulfed by the water. Branches of trees run wild like blood vessels stretching their way towards the moon. The film is absolutely beautiful to behold and features some stunning cinematography while at the family home. It's utterly geeky of me to admit it, but one scene featuring dust flickering through a shaft of sunlight had me thinking "this'll look awesome on Bluray".

As with the original, this film touches on psychological theories behind lycanthropy. Few in authority are willing to believe that such things as supernatural beasts can exists, and Talbot's mental history soon finds him having to deal with sceptical and barbaric members of the medical community. Although slightly anachronistic, there are elements of Freudian analysis at play here as a doctor attempts to prove to Talbot, and the establishment, that such tales of Werewolves and beasts are just externalisations of Talbot's inner horror at the death of his mother. Oh how wrong THAT turns out to be, as a doctor gives a speech to his horrified colleagues, unaware of the hideous transformation rapidly taking place behind him.

And I guess that's one of the first questions anyone has when watching a werewolf movie. How do the transformations look? Well, I'm very happy to announce that there are two excellent changes in The Wolfman. The first is sudden, brutal and unexpected, taking the audience by surprise as much as Talbot. It's hugely painful as bones pop and tendons stretch, while our hapless hero crawls vainly for help before the transformation is abruptly complete and he bounds away with bestial energy into the night. Once a wolfman, Talbot is vicious, deadly and uncontrollable, rampaging from one target to the next with little or no care for whom he maims and kills. He's a deadly, bestial, creature intent only on feeding and survival. It's a shame, then, that the sequences where the wolf is unleashed are all to brief. After an excellent and staggeringly chaotic massacre at the gypsy encampment early in the film, many of the action sequences feel somewhat muzzled. The sequence in London featuring the surgeons is a case in point, where the set-up and amount of carnage wrought are more than a little disproportionate. The ensuing chase across the rooftops featuring a climax with an attack in an overturned omnibus are over in a flash and, as a whole, the film feels almost as if it's restraining itself for a lower rating. And the final major battle between Talbot and the werewolf who created him is enormously disappointing and features a brief transformation so ineffective it brought laughs rather than gasps. This "ultimate battle" is over so quickly, and in such a stupid and clichéd way, it almost felt added as an afterthought.

And that is one of the big problems with The Wolfman. It packs a whole bunch of really good ideas into its running time, but never quite manages to glue them together. While Anthony Hopkins gives one of the finest performances I've seen him give in years, Del Toro lacks the charisma Lon Chaney Jr gave in the original and it's quite hard to care for him. The relationship between him and his brother's fiancée is both trite and unbelievably inappropriate considering the poor fellow's corpse is barely even cold. Those with a Freudian sense of humour may have to stifle chortles during a supposedly romantic scene by a river where the couple skim stones and Talbot takes her hand and says he'll teach her to "flick it". Now there's an image.

Comparing this film to its 1941 parent isn't entirely fair. They're almost two entirely different movies, with the older one being a simple tale of an ordinary man meeting his fate in an extraordinary and terrible way. The remake feels the need to add and expand, but with a running time close to double that of the original manages to be far less emotionally engaging on almost every level. Talbot is less convincing. The romance is ineffective. Even the ending feels the need to set up a sequel in a hilariously clichéd way - but the character that would be the new Wolfman could well make for a very interesting film. But one of the most frustrating flaws here is how talky these wolves are. There's so much dialogue, and it's all exposition that quite often explains what any right thinking person will have clearly worked out from what's just appeared on screen. It's as if the writers are so concerned by the state of modern horror audiences that they feel we need every tiny little plot point explained to us in simple terms. It slows the action right down and, again, removes any involvement you may be building with the characters. It's sad that Anthony Hopkins is saddled with much of this heavy dialogue as he acts everyone else off the screen and the constant soliloquising undermines his affable yet emotionally callous performance.

There are some nice little touches for fans of the classic original to look out for - A walking cane, for example, and Del Toro's appearance in some sequences is astonishingly like that of Lon Chaney Jr. The wolfman makeup very deliberately harks back to the more humanoid, less lupine, design of the first movie, and some shots of the beast stumbling through the woods could almost be straight from the 1941 film. Again, it is really these little visual touches and flourishes that save the film and keep you obediently watching.

The Wolfman is by no means a dead dog, it's just not of the pedigree it should have been. It feels like it set off with the best of intentions and amazing potential, but tried to do too many tricks for too many masters. The core of what makes 1941's The Wolf Man work, the sympathetic everyman embarking on a new relationship, is missing and we're presented with a confused emotionally wrecked actor who lacks charisma who hits on still-grieving widows. Sure, it's fun to run with this pack for a while, but it's not one you'll be too loyal to. You'll end up wandering off without a glance over your shoulder like The Littlest Hobo. While we admire the spectacle and revel in some fine performances, the end result is a bit of a dog's dinner.

Review by Paul Bird