The Wolfman (2010)
Directed by Joe Johnston
Lawrence Talbot, an American man on a visit to Victorian London to make amends with his estranged father, gets bitten by a werewolf and, after a moonlight transformation, leaves him with a savage hunger for flesh.
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35 films that influenced The Wolfman
What critics say influenced The Wolfman
Werewolf transformation effects are right out of Rick Baker's own seminal "An American Werewolf in London" The propulsive score by Danny Elfman owes much to Wojciech Kilar's for "Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula."
While that was handled with finesse in John Landis’ terrific 1981 cult movie, “An American Werewolf in London,” here the two collide and then collapse in their strained effort to come together.
Director Joe Johnston wants this movie to be the bridge between the restrained, atmosphere-soaked Universal horror classic and the grotesque likes of An American Werewolf in London and The Howling.
Thus, the special effects are both cutting edge in their digital depiction of the physical transformation from man to beast and gloriously old-fashioned in Rick Baker’s make-up effects that unashamedly evoke Jack Pierce’s work in the 1941 original (Baker was an inspired choice since he won the first-ever Oscar for make-up effects with his work on John Landis’s 1981 horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London).
As for Lawrence's initial transformationa centerpiece of any respectable lycanthropic yarnit leaves one merely aloof by the choice to go with CGI that doesn't come close to approaching the realism, ingenuity and fright of makeup artist Rick Baker's masterful practical effects in 1981's "The Howling" and 1982's "An American Werewolf in London."
Special-effects veteran Rick Baker—whose werewolf experience stretches back to The Howling and An American Werewolf In London—has designed a beast worthy of awe and wonder, but his wolf-man has more personality than The Wolfman.
But Rick Baker's werewolf design - a combination of his own "American Werewolf in London" morphing and Roy Ashton's makeup for Oliver Reed in "The Curse of the Werewolf" - is quite wonderful.
Although drawn primarily from George Waggner’s The Wolf Man (1941), which begat Lon Chaney Jr.’s career as a monster star par excellence (he would go on to play virtually every monster in the Universal catalog over the next decade), it also draws background from the oft-forgotten Werewolf of London (1936), which helped establish the on-screen lore of lycanthropy.
Curt Siodmak’s screenplay for the original 1941 The Wolfman is credited as the source for this Victorian-era retelling (there are elements also taken from the uncredited 1935 Werewolf of London) and, while great liberties are taken with the family history, it’s remains true to the basics and even begins by quoting directly from the source: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”
A double-werewolf smackdown feels too much like " Van Helsing ," a scene in London is nearly wasted, and Geraldine Chaplin , as the old gypsy Maleva, is frankly no Maria Ouspenskaya .
We tolerated the Mummy remake because it was big and fun (the sequels and spin-offs less so), but we dismissed the chock-full-of-monsters Van Helsing for being ludicrous and silly.
Anthony Hopkins, in his second classic horror remake (he was Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), pops up now and again looking malevolent, but Sir John is more a necessity of the plot than a legitimate character.
Unlike Van Helsing, however, they’ve learned their lesson about messing about with their successful formula of old and this new wolfman movie is based on the classic one – going so far as using Curt Siodmak’s 1941 screenplay as the template for this fresh go round.
Resting comfortably between the shrieking borefest that was Van Helsing and the lush gorefest of Sleepy Hollow, The Wolfman is not the unmitigated disaster that many were expecting … or even, let’s admit it, hoping for.
But compared to Van Helsing (2004), Universal's last exercise in high-decibel horror schlock, this is fairly satisfying, particularly a ghoulish episode in a Victorian insane asylum.
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Now with The Wolfman, which is the official Universal Pictures remake of The Wolf Man (1941), director Joe Johnston and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self have attempted to retain some of that old-time spooky atmosphere and character development.
If you follow movie news, you know this beauty has been delayed and tweaked for months by its studio, Universal, which allowed its 1941 classic film of the same name (sort of--it was called “The Wolf Man” then) to be bastardized by director Joe Johnston, the man responsible for such crowd-pleasures as “Jumanji” and the forever-memorable “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
Although drawn primarily from George Waggner’s The Wolf Man (1941), which begat Lon Chaney Jr.’s career as a monster star par excellence (he would go on to play virtually every monster in the Universal catalog over the next decade), it also draws background from the oft-forgotten Werewolf of London (1936), which helped establish the on-screen lore of lycanthropy.
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self, based on the 1941 film “The Wolf Man,” written by Curt Siodmak.
Joe Johnston sets his remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic The Wolf Man in Victorian England, a fitting backdrop for a Jekyll and Hyde–esque tale of men battling beasts within.
Anthony Hopkins, in his second classic horror remake (he was Van Helsing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula), pops up now and again looking malevolent, but Sir John is more a necessity of the plot than a legitimate character.
The decision to move the action to the Victorian era is a good one – audiences have fallen hard for the bravura visuals of these color leached, dark, inky looking ghost stories (ala Sweeney Todd, Sherlock Holmes, The Orphanage, et al) – and the lavish sets, costumes and Danny Elfman’s score (which seems to be inspired by Wojciech Kilar’s for Coppola’s Dracula) adds to the creepy/fun atmosphere.
As for Lawrence's initial transformationa centerpiece of any respectable lycanthropic yarnit leaves one merely aloof by the choice to go with CGI that doesn't come close to approaching the realism, ingenuity and fright of makeup artist Rick Baker's masterful practical effects in 1981's "The Howling" and 1982's "An American Werewolf in London."
Then again, director Joe Johnston (Jurassic Park III, Jumanji) is strictly a meat-and-potatoes type of filmmaker, not an ofttimes brilliant artist like Coppola, Nichols or Branagh, and it’s safe to state that the demands of The Wolfman were simply out of his range.
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Lawrence returns to his ancestral home only to be told by his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins, "Bram Stoker's Dracula"), that he found his son's body in a ditch.
If a comparison were to be made, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sleepy Hollow would be similar in style, even though The Wolfman does not have the eccentricity of the latter and the stirring sexuality of the former, both qualities sorely needed here.
The fangs look like they were purchased at a Halloween costume store and, during the big werewolf-on-werewolf clash, I was reminded of Bigfoot from The Six Million Dollar Man.