Tag: The Wolfman

Oscar Predictions: Wolf Man

Leigh Whannell follows up his acclaimed horror reboot The Invisible Man from 2020 with another iconic interpretation of a genre classic in Wolf Man this weekend. Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner headline the low-budget Universal/Blumhouse production with Matilda Firth and Sam Jaeger costarring.

Originally planned as a vehicle for director Derek Cianfrance to star Ryan Gosling, Wolf is not generating the same acclaim as its replacement filmmaker’s previous venture. Invisible topped out at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 72 for Metacritic. Wolf currently sports a 60% Tomato meter with Metacritic at 49.

The only race where Wolf stands a shot at awards attention is Makeup & Hairstyling (for the latter designation of that category). 2010’s The Wolfman with Benicio del Toro and Emily Blunt actually won the Oscar for Makeup (before the Academy apparently cared about hair). A safe assumption is that voters won’t have this picture fresh in their minds a year from now to nominate it, but let’s see how competition stacks up. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

Oscar Predictions: The Last Voyage of the Demeter

André Øvredal’s The Last Voyage of the Demeter, based on one chapter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, certainly won’t sail off with a Best Picture nomination. However, there is one category worth considering. The ocean set horror pic is out this weekend with a less than impressive 44% Rotten Tomatoes log. Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Javier Botet, and Woody Norman star.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version of the Stoker source material took the Academy Award for Makeup and Hairstyling. Other monster mashes that competed in that race are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Shadow of the Vampire, and The Wolfman (which won).

Demeter is earning some kudos for the makeup work, including for Botet’s Dracula. The Makeup and Hairstyling derby is one that’s mostly immune to critical acclaim. Demeter‘s inclusion should come down to competition. Unfortunately for it, there could be plenty with Dune: Part Two, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Maestro, and Poor Things to mention some. It’s a stretch, but I wouldn’t completely discount this. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

The Wolfman Movie Review

Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman is so gloriously rich in its late 19th century English atmosphere that you’ll wish a better film had been placed in it. This is a loose remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney monster affair and finds Universal back in the creature feature business. I simply love the idea of horror flicks set in this Bram Stoker’s Dracula/Sleepy Hollow/From Hell type world. Unfortunately they are all superior to this, but this iteration of The Wolfman is not without its occasional merits.

The pic casts Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, a famous Shakespearean actor who is summoned to return to his childhood English village after his brother is brutally murdered by some sort of creature that’s terrorizing the area. He gets reacquainted with his strange father (Anthony Hopkins) and meets his brother’s widow (a perpetually sullen looking Emily Blunt). The family dynamic is a focus here, especially with daddy and there’s as much father/son wolfery issues since maybe 1985’s Teen Wolf. Of course, it turns out that a werewolf is doing the damage around town and soon Lawrence finds himself the victim of a bite. Full moons become a problem for him and that means he’s the subject of attention from Hugo Weaving’s Inspector character. This sets up one of The Wolfman’s very well constructed sequences when Lawrence escapes an insane asylum in grand and bloody fashion. By the way, you know when the doctor at a loony bin speaks of the advancements of their medical treatments during a movie set in this era, you’re about to watch something old school and barbaric.

When the freaks come out at night as Whodini would say (the 1980s hip hop group, not the magician), The Wolfman follows the tenets of the genre closely and doesn’t offer up much new. There’s CG special effects that veer between acceptable and shoddy. Del Toro is surprisingly dull in his role, though props go to the filmmakers for keeping his hairy makeup design close to that of Chaney’s from the 40s. It’s really Hopkins who gets to have the fun part and there are glimpses of just how menacing he can be.

The Wolfman also takes awhile to get its motor running and I never shook the feeling that there’s a number of other examples in this genre that worked better. For a lazy night on the couch, this is fairly acceptable entertainment but not much more save for the lovely ambience.

**1/2 (out of four)