Werewolves Are NOT the New Zombies

Tyler Hoechlin of MTV's "Teen Wolf"

In the pantheon of Horror archetypes,Werewolf used to rank just below Vampire. Since a little black and white horror movie in 1968, werewolves have been knocked down a peg or two. Obviously, all three are insanely popular in genre TV. MTV's "Teen Wolf" (which I gave up on last season) and SyFy's "Being Human" and their new series "Bitten" prove that. They have been less successful on the big screen, of late. I don't know anyone who actually likes the Underworld movies and don't understand why they keep getting made and Benicio Del Toro's 2010 effort to reinvigorate yet another Universal Monsters franchise (The Wolfman) failed miserably and season one of producer/director Eli Roth's "Hemlock Grove" for Netflicks was a total bore. 

Personally, I can name only two werewolf movies in the last 30 years that were actually up to snuff. The first is director Joe Dante's (Mad Max; Gremlins) almost brilliantly realized 1981 version of Gary Brandner's novel The Howling. Featuring the first real physical werewolf transformation on film (thanks to Rob Bottin) and a very funny script by John Sayles, the movie ultimately fails when Dee Wallace (as a TV reporter) has an on-camera transformation, resulting in something that looks more like an over-sized Pekingese than a vicious killer.

Of course, probably the best werewolf movie ever made is John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. Scary, funny and romantic, Landis' movie set a bar which has yet to be met.

Runners up: Neil Jordan's very dark re-telling of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' The Company of Wolves and Christoph Gans' 2001 Brotherhood of the Wolf. 

Unfortunately, despite the presence of the eye-candy that is Jason Momoa, the upcoming French-made Wolves doesn't look likely to bring the subgenre back.

Personally... Cats are way scarier (and sexier):



More, anon.
Prospero

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I May Have to Subscribe to Netflix

Writer/Director/Actor/Producer/'JewBear' Eli Roth is one the horror genre's busiest men. He recently opened the first permanent Haunted Attraction in Las Vegas  and is about to appear in the US premiere of a film he both co-wrote and produced, the Chilean horror movie Aftershock. Roth's latest project is the 13-episode werewolf series for Netflix, "Hemlock Grove." 

Starring the highly underrated Famke Janssen (X-Men; House on Haunted Hill); Dougray Scott (My Week with Marilyn); Lili Taylor ("Six Feet Under") and Bill (son of Stellan and brother of Alexander) Skarsgard, "Hemlock Grove" appears to be the werewolf series that MTV's "Teen Wolf" aspires to be. And though "Teen Wolf" certainly has its moments, I suspect that "Hemlock Grove" will be both bloodier and sexier. 

Thanks to fellow blogger and Facebook friend JA of My New Plaid Pants, comes the following trailer for the series, which has Uncle P almsot foaming at the mouth:

Roth wrote and directed one of the funniest and smartest horror movies ever (the underrated Cabin Fever -link NSFW) and was directly responsible for the mid-oughts 'Torture Porn' genre, thanks to the gory and terrifying Hostel. Roth's most recent project is the feature length version of Clown, based on a short film about a man who rents a clown suit which he can't seem to remove. D, Mia and Barb - don't watch this. It has a very Evil You Know What:

I may very well part with some hard-earned cash just to watch what promises to be a rather insane show when Netflix premiers all 13 episodes of "Hemlock Grove" this coming April. Hopefully, my holiday bills will be paid off by then.

More, anon.
Prospero

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TV Review : "Teen Wolf"

I'm not sure when MTV changed from being all about music videos to being all about really bad "reality" shows. I had pretty much stopped watching the cable channel long before "The Real World" premiered in 1992. In 1999, the network gave us their first scripted show, the 'naughty' soap "Undressed." It lasted 6 seasons, but barely made a blip on my radar. I knew it existed, but never saw a single episode. Most recently, their version of the UK hit "Skins" caused a flap for its depictions of young people having sex, with many claiming it went beyond exploitation and flirted with actual child pornography. It was recently announced that MTV has canceled "Skins." Again, I never saw a single episode. And don't even get me started about "The Jersey Shore," which managed to ruin my childhood memories of Seaside Heights forever...

When MTV announced last year that they were re-booting the rather silly 1985 Michael J. Fox comedy Teen Wolf as a series, I laughed and thought "Yeah, right. That will be good..." Then I heard they were giving the property a 'serious' treatment and I have to admit, I was intrigued. So I found MTV on my provider's guide, set my DVR and hoped for the best. Now that I've seen three full episodes, I'm glad to report that the re-booted "Teen Wolf" is actually kind of fun and not bad at all.

Scott McCall (cutie-pie Tyler Posey) is a typical nobody in his small, northern California  town's high school. He spent the last season on the lacrosse team's bench and wants nothing more than to actually play this year. His BFF Stiles (Dylan O'Brien), is the Sheriff's son. When Stiles learns that half of a body has been found in the local woods, he convinces Scott to join him on a night-time search for the corpse's other half. Big mistake.

After getting separated form his buddy, Scott not only loses his inhaler in a deer stampede and stumbles upon the upper torso of a savaged woman's body, but is bitten by what appears to be a wolf. The next day, Scott can suddenly hear conversations from afar, no longer needs his inhaler and can apparently heal with miraculous speed. Stiles does some online research (we don't know if he used Google or Bing) and promptly pronounces Scott to be a lycanthrope. Of course, Scott scoffs until he's angered during lacrosse tryouts and finds his athletic acumen has also been boosted. Scott has also fallen for new girl Allison (Crystal Reed) and run afoul of the team's douchey captain, Jackson (Colton Haynes).

Produced by Russell Mulcahey ("Queer as Folk"), "Teen Wolf" is a smart and suspenseful take on the sub-genre, featuring some excellent performances from a young and attractive cast; smart writing that utilizes the idea of a werewolf as a metaphor for pubescent change without hitting the audience of the head with it (much like the Canadian Ginger Snaps films) and has a genuine reverence for the all the werewolf movies that have come before. Most refreshingly, the transformations don't involve tons of CGI or makeup - Scott's wolf persona is lupine without going full-on wolf; using fangs, claws and elongated facial features to create a beast that's much more human than canine. And in the most recent episode, a transformation is hidden behind a corrugated glass screen, allowing for some rather clever effects.

The adorable young Posey ("Brothers and Sisters;" "Lincoln Heights") is perfectly cast as a young man who has to hide a terrible secret while dealing with girls, high school and a part-time job at a veterinary clinic and O'Brien is adorkabley funny as the second-banana. Reed evokes Legend's Mia Sara as Scott's love interest (and daughter of werewolf hunter), while Tyler Hoechlin (The Road to Perdition) practically seethes as Derek; the hot, mysterious and experienced werewolf with a seedy past who wants to take Scott under his wing and teach him how to control his lycanthropic urges.

There are certainly better summer shows on cable ("The Closer;" "Psych;" and "Royal Pains," among others), but genre fans won't be disappointed by the clever and well-produced "Teen Wolf." **3/4 (Two and Three-Quarter Stars Out of Four).

More, anon.
Prospero

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Little Old Lady Got Mutilated Late Last Night

Universal Pictures practically invented the American Horror Movie in the 30's and 40's: Dracula; Frankenstein; The Mummy; The Invisible Man... and one my all-time favorites, The Wolf Man. It was the transformation that always got me. Of course in 1941, makeup artist Jack Peace couldn't have even imagined CGI effects, so it was done the old-fashioned way: replacement photography. They would take a shot of Lon Chaney Jr. lying on the ground, stop and apply some makeup and yak hair, take another shot, stop again and and more makeup, and so on. It was a long and laborious process that yielded mediocre results, at best.



In the 50's and 60's Hammer Studios revisited many of these characters, usually starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. They never took on werewolves, though there were plenty of (usually) bad werewolf movies. It wouldn't be until 1981 and director Joe Dante's The Howling, that the werewolf got scary again. For the first time, thanks to makeup wiz Rob Bottin, we got to witness a transformation that used neither replacement photography, nor hand-drawn animation. Using a series of bladders under latex, Bottin showed the audience painful stretching of skin and re-shaping of bone that would accompany an actual physical transformation into a monster. I was 20 and immediately decided I wanted to go into FX makeup (thankfully, I didn't, because I couldn't imagine CGI, either). And even though Dee Wallace ended up looking more like a cute little were-Pekingese puppy than a werewolf, the movie (with a screenplay by John Sayles), was actually pretty good.



Of course, later than same year, Bottin's protege, Rick Baker, would create a full-body transformation for director John Landis' An American Werewolf in London:



Landis' and Baker's work remained the standard (the team worked again on Michael Jackson's Thriller) and An American Werewolf... would be the best werewolf movie ever made for almost 30 years.

Then along came Jurassic Park, and CGI changed movie FX forever. And in 1999, Stephen Sommers got lucky with his new version of The Mummy, resurrecting a Universal monster that had appeared only in comedies like The Monster Squad and cartoon shows like Scooby Doo. Sommer's action-adventure movie took the shambling, decayed monster and turned him into a powerful (and yummy) magician as the antagonist, a soldier of fortune and a plucky (if klutzy) librarian as the heroes and used state-of-the-art CGI to create an amazing sand storm in this rollicking horror adventure.

Universal, thrilled to be able to revive a long-dormant franchise, greenlit a sequel and then allowed Sommers to make Van Helsing. The Mummy pictures had been so successful, they figured they'd let him use not one, but three of their classic monsters - Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolf Man - in what would become an overly-loud, overly-CGI'ed, over-blown mess of a picture. Bad acting, a ludicrous plot, corny dialog, ridiculous effects and star Hugh Jackman being shirtless for only a few seconds all contributed to a true epic fail.

On February 12, Universal tries again, reviving Kurt Siodmak's original plot and characters in The Wolfman, starring Benicio del Tor; Anthony Hopkins; Hugo Weaving; Emily Blunt and Geraldine Chaplin. Directed by Joe Johnston a hit (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Jumanji;) or miss (Jurassic Park III; Hildalgo) kind of guy, the plot once again concerns Larry Talbot (del Toro), and English ex-patriot returning from American to attend his brother's funeral. Talbot has a strained relationship with his father (Hopkins) and later runs afoul of a cursed gypsy on the moors, one night.

The movie has been bounced around for quite a while. Originally scheduled for release in 2009, it kept getting pushed back for re-shoots and re-edits (not usually a good sign) and composer Danny Elfman didn't get to finish his original score because the delays cut into his commitment schedule. Most recently, Elfman's replacement was removed and Elfman is back in. If it weren't for the movie's terrific cast (and even the best actors have made some stinkers), I don't know that I would be so anxious to see it. But the trailer still looks terrific:

D and I already have plans to see it. You know I'll be reviewing it when we do. Can The Wolfman be as successful as The Mummy in reviving a Universal Monster? Will it be a better movie than Landis' and Baker's classic? I'll be attending with not-quite high expectations, something worked out quite well for Sherlock Holmes, earlier this year.

More, anon.
Prospero

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Drinkin' a Pina Colada at Trader Vic's

"Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers at night/Becomes a wolf when the Wolf's-bane blooms and the moon is full and bright."



Nearly as iconic as the vampire, the werewolf legend is part of most cultures. A cursed human (usually because of the bite of another cursed human), becomes a bloodthirsty beast by the light of the full moon, transforming into a hairy monster intent on murdering everyone with whom it comes into contact.



One of the earliest film incarnations of this classic monster is the 1935 Werewolf of London, starring Henry Hull as a doctor who can only be cured of lycanthropy with the help of a rare Tibetan flower:

Six years later, Universal Studios would produce their own werewolf movie, The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the son of a wealthy Englishman (Claude Rains) who returns home for his brother's funeral, only to be attacked by a gypsy (Bela Lugosi) in wolf's clothing. Character actress Maria Ouspenskaya is the old gypsy who first spouts that little bit of doggerel at the top of this post. Chaney went on to make a career out of playing The Wolf Man in dozens of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs, including Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. But it's this film that most folks remember him for:

Using "Replacement Photography" effects to show Talbot's transformation, Universal's makeup artist Jack Pierce set the standard for many years to come.

There were plenty of cheesy werewolf movies in the 50's and 60's, including Michael Landon's infamous debut in I Was a Teenage Werewolf in which a young teen was hypnotized by a mad scientist into becoming a wolf at the sound of bell (calling Dr. Pavlov). 50's homo-eroticism at its best:

It wasn't until 1981 that Director Joe Dante (Gremlins) upped the ante on werewolf movies with The Howling, in which he and makeup FX wizards Rick Baker and Rob Bottin used modern physical makeup effects to depict a painful lycanthropic transformation on screen, that werewolf movies got interesting (and scary) again:

Later that same year, director John Landis would make the definitive 80's werewolf movie, An American Werewolf in London. Former Dr. Pepper spokesman David Naughten stars as David Kessler, an American student backpacking across Great Britain with his best friend (Griffin Dunne) who is attacked on the moors by a monster. Despite the ministrations of a cute British nurse (Logan's Run star Jenny Agutter), David soon finds himself killing random folks by the light of the full moon, transforming painfully in one of cinema's most memorable werewolf transformation scenes:

Sadly, the "official" 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris uses a bad script and lame CGI for its werewolves:

Even the presence of the beautiful Julie Delpy couldn't save that mess.



There were several terrible werewolf movies since, including the godawful Werewolf Vs. Vampire piece of crap Underworld and it's two (so far) sequels:

And I can barely bring myself to mention the atrocious werewolf comedy starring Michael J. Fox, Teen Wolf:

In 2000, Canadian director John Fawcett gave us the hilarious and chilling adolescent werewolf flick, Ginger Snaps:

Then, in 2002, director Neil Marshall gave us Dog Soldiers, about a group of British soldiers on a training mission who find themselves in the midst of a werewolf family conflict: