Student happy with quality werewolf movie
Saturday, July 10, 2010 at 2:19PM By Jeremy Gatlin
Look out your window. Is the moon full? If so, you might want to hide before the werewolves find you.
“The Wolfman,” a remake of the 1941 film, has clawed its way into theaters and tells the story of Lawrence
Talbot, played by Benicio del Toro, returning to his family estate after receiving word that his brother went missing after an encounter with a mysterious beast.
This film has made its way onto a very short list of werewolf movies with the most recognizable movies on that list being “Van Helsing,” “Cursed,” the Underworld franchise, and “New Moon,” according to www.boxofficemojo.com
This saddens me, because I’ve always found werewolves to be much more fascinating than vampires. For a long time I’ve been wanting Hollywood to turn out a good werewolf movie that had a great a story, effective scares, and awesome special effects.
“Van Helsing” was a muddled mess because of a incoherent plot, poor character development, and special effects that were somewhat cartoonish. “Cursed” was awesome for the first five minutes because of its shocking beginning and then collapsed in on itself because of some very noticeable script problems. The
“Underworld” series stylistically tried way too hard to be hip. As for “New Moon,” don’t even get me started.
There’s a sense of mystery, tragedy, and rage about werewolves and I don’t think the creators of some of the werewolf movies successfully captured all of it. However, “The Wolfman” has.
The dark and brooding atmosphere of this movie is ominous and downright scary. Also, the disease of the werewolf that causes Lawrence to slowly lose his mind and become the titular character is absolutely chilling and tragic due to del Toro’s brilliant performance.
And let’s not forget the incredible special effects. Rick Baker, who has been doing werewolf effects for years, has perfected his work with this film.
The werewolf effects look quite convincing during del Toro’s transformation sequences and gives the audience a sense of dread. Also, today’s advances in technology allow the Wolfman to unleash his fury on whomever he comes across.
There are some gruesome parts that made me cringe, but the movie never focused on the gore like most horror movies. Instead, it focuses on the story and allows the cast to carry the story like a good movie should.
“The Wolfman” is truly the best werewolf movie ever made and Hollywood should make an effort to make more movies like this.
he film stars Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt and is rated R for bloody horror violence and gore.
