There is something so unnaturally unnerving about mist. It’s a frequently employed idea in horror, most obviously in The Mist. But why on earth does a weather pattern create such a creepy atmosphere? Perhaps it’s metaphorical for an unclear path, or something hidden. Or maybe it’s just because it’s convenient for something that is literally hidden. Such as a giant werewolf. Needless to say, Joe Johnston’s revamp of the classic Gothic horror genre has swathes of the stuff. It starts and ends in misty woods, Benicio del Toro is often seen brooding in fog, and even London has a certain cloudy feel to it.
The way the film creates atmosphere is actually one of it’s strongest points. There are moments in the film of true Gothic splendour, and Johnston has absolutely nailed the eery aesthetic. By muting the colours to an almost monochromatic palette, Wolfman looks and feels like the black and white films it is homaging. It’s to the director’s credit that this monster-pic is not as ugly as Universal’s previous horror re-boot Van Helsing.
However, beyond the beauty of the mansion and the moors, the film is a rather tepid series of clichés that, whilst diverting, never quite grips in the way it should. We have the grizzled old men in the bar spouting theories on the beast in the woods, and lone men wandering with torches only to swiftly disappear in a blur of black. There doesn’t feel to be anything truly original here. The result is that the action, whilst well staged, gets dull rather quickly. It does have moments of fantastic entertainment (SPOILER: A werewolf Anthony Hopkins on fire) yet it fails to consistently thrill.
This is also down to the performances. Del Toro is admirably restrained yet too often just seems bored, and Emily Blunt isn’t given much to work with. Anthony Hopkins, meanwhile, seems to flit between accents randomly, which is rather distracting from an otherwise completely bonkers, ambiguous character. The film, however, is worth seeing for Hugo Weaving alone, who is just brilliant as Abberline, the Scotland Yard detective who is called in to deal with the case. His deadpan cool as he argues with a bar owner is just one of the high points of an excellent performance.
So The Wolfman isn’t quite the glorious return to the days of classic Horror that universal were hoping for. It’s entertaining enough and it looks great, but a clunky script, old clichés and a reticent central character mean that it never quite transforms into the beast it should have been.
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