A Love Letter To The Universal Monsters That'll Leave You Starving For More: Werewolf By Night Review

Werewolf  By Night is a Disney Plus Special Presentation that is a MASSIVE love letter to the olden days of the classic Universal Monster Movies of the 1930s through the 1950s.

 

The film was announced this year at D23 in August, and it got a lot of folks (myself included) interested to see how Marvel and Disney would treat this special based on a very niche series of comics.

 

The film is the story of a group of hunters who gather at the funeral of the leader of the Bloodstone family and are thrust into a deadly competition for a powerful relic called the Bloodstone. While they’re competing, however, they’re also going up against a dangerous monster, and whoever survives this deadly competition is the possessor of the Bloodstone.

 

This film can be summed up in one word: Awesome. The film uses practical effects that look absolutely stunning, from the werewolf design down to the blood and gore effects. This brilliant use of practical effects will help the film age significantly better than films that choose to use CGI effects.

 

Speaking of that werewolf design it seems somewhat familiar to me. It was as if the designers took Jack Pierce’s design of The Wolfman from 1941 and mixed it with the werewolf design of Werewolf of London from 1935. Keeping the human characteristics of Jack Russell while also showing his inner beast works wonders here in this special!

 

Another thing that the film does well is the fact that it’s in black and white for about 98% of the film. This is what gives it that true callback to the days of the Universal Monster movies, and it gives the film a unique flare that Marvel projects today just don’t have anymore.

 

I’m perplexed that Marvel and Disney of all the companies in the world actually told a werewolf story that was dark and intriguing like this was. This special feels like it’s an episode of The Twilight Zone about one night in the life of Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone and man does it ever leave me starving for more.

 

I want to find out more about Jack and Elsa. Who they are as people, what their backgrounds are, how Jack ended up in the situation that he’s in, and much more. Marvel and Disney if you see this article, then I have one request for you. Can you please make more projects Like this?? Or hell, can you make Werewolf By Night have its own Disney Plus series?? Cause I seriously need more of this in my life.

 

The director of this short is Michael Giacchino, who you may know as a composer for various games in the 90s and early 2000s such as Gargoyles, The Lion King, the first Call of Duty game, and Call of Duty: Finest Hour as well as the first four Medal of Honor titles. That work in the gaming industry led to him getting opportunities to compose the scores for Alias and Lost.

 

This man has some seriously good directing chops too given how great this special is so I hope he gets more directing opportunities in the future! Because Michael knows EXACTLY what he’s doing and I think it would be a waste to just have him direct this special and not get a crack at anything else.

 

I also have to tip my hat to the performances in this film as the cast was very good. The two standouts however were those of Gael Garcia Bernal as Jack Russell and Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone. Both actors did a phenomenal job in their roles and I hope that they get to play those characters again in the future if Marvel does decide to do more with those two characters.

 

To wrap it up, I’ll say this. If you’re a fan of werewolves like me and you’re looking for another good werewolf flick to quench your thirst this spooky season, then you have to watch Werewolf By Night. This 53-minute special is a beautiful love letter to the Universal Monster Movie era that WILL leave you starving for more.

 

Thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you in the next issue.

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Films You HAVE To See When Getting Into Horror

 

The Horror genre is one of the most creative genres of film. So naturally, navigating such a creative genre is challenging when you’re just getting into it. There are so many options out there, from slashers to monster movies to, possession and religious horror, and much more.

Today I’m here to tell you about some films you should watch if you’re getting into the horror genre. I will cover multiple subgenres, talking about one movie a piece, with some honorable mentions at the end of each subgenre. With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?? These films are in no particular order.

 

Halloween (1978)

 When you talk about Horror, one of the most common subgenres that have always been brought up is the Slasher subgenre. Slasher films are one of the most simple subgenres of Horror, and they typically play out like this: a group of people gets carved up by a maniacal killer until one is the sole survivor.

The start of this genre can be attributed to films like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in my opinion, there’s one film that I feel did this the best out of them all. That film is 1978’s Halloween, directed by John Carpenter (a man who’s seen as one of the masters of Horror). Halloween has a simple storyline, but it also has a lot of depth in its characters and its villain, Michael Myers. 

Halloween is the movie that laid out the blueprint for slasher films going forward. Without it, you may never have gotten films like Scream or Friday The 13th, or The Burning. So it’s for that reason that I say you should make Halloween (1978) your first foray into slashers.

 

 Honorable mentions include: A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Scream (series), Friday The 13th 4: The Final Chapter, Child’s Play Trilogy, and The Burning.

The Lost Boys

The Vampire subgenre is one with a rich history. From Nosferatu in the days of the silent film in the 1920s all the way to today, vampires have been a staple of the genre, and the quality of vampire films has gone through some ups and downs. 

The Lost Boys is a masterpiece from this subgenre, in my opinion. A vampire film set in the 80s with the style of the decade on full display, a soundtrack that’s one of the best in Horror, and a coming-of-age tale as well.

 

 The film centers around two brothers moving to a town named Santa Carla, a city that looks peaceful but hides something sinister. That being a group of the hippest and cool-looking vampires you’ll see in this subgenre. The vampires in this movie are also some of the creepier ones you’ll find in this subgenre, so it’s a nice balance of style and creep factor that director Joel Schumacher accomplished in this film.

There are many films I could have chosen for a vampire movie, but The Lost Boys is THE film that perfectly sums up how great the vampire subgenre is.

 

 Honorable mentions include: Fright Night (original), Dracula (1933), Near Dark, and 30 Days of Night.

Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero’s zombie flick from 1968 remains a staple of the zombie subgenre. I chose this film specifically because it showcases what you can do on a tight budget, and it’s one of the earliest horror movies to be used as a vehicle for social commentary.

 

 The budget for this film was 114,000 dollars, which is ridiculous considering how good the film looks. The zombies' effects look great, and the storytelling is top-notch. The social commentary is also great in the movie as it uses the zombies to shine a light on social ills such as racism. It also sets up an excellent point of equilibrium from the start for you as the viewer. The film sets the town up to be read as Anywhere, USA, which shows you as the viewer that this is NOT a foreign land, but it’s happening right in your backyard.

 

 It also functions to utilize your expectations of this world regarding things like race, gender, and politics against you in what’s known as the disruption phase. It also sets up a point that a break between the past and the present is imminent right in the opening scene of the film. Not to mention the fact that this film is THE film that birthed the zombie genre in the first place.

 

 These reasons and many more are why I think that Night of the Living Dead should be your first foray into zombie movies.

Honorable mentions include: The Return of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead(original and remake), 28 Days Later, Day of the Dead, and The Crazies.

 

 An American Werewolf In London

The werewolf subgenre of Horror is the red-headed step-child compared to every other subgenre. Everyone usually overlooks it, no matter how great some of the films in this subgenre may be.

The best of this subgenre by far is An American Werewolf In London. Making its way to theaters in 1981 (the same year as The Howling), An American Werewolf In London came in and put werewolves back on the map after the Universal Monster Movie Era.

This film has it all: great characters, equally great storytelling, stellar special effects, and plenty of scares to go around. The special effects, made by effects legend Rick Baker, would win the first Oscar ever for Special Makeup Effects. They are one of the picture-perfect examples of how great practical effects are compared to CGI effects.

This film is also a perfect blueprint for combining comedy and horror. The Horror is this film is built beautifully, not relying on jump scares to scare you but instead it builds tension in its atmosphere and uses that tension and atmosphere to scare you.

If you watch a werewolf movie, make sure that An American Werewolf In London is at the top of your watch list.

Honorable mentions include: The Howling, Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps, Bad Moon, and The Cursed (2022).

The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 is a film that is a picture-perfect example of how to build tension in a Horror movie. This story of a group of scientists on a base in Antarctica dealing with an alien being that can assimilate anyone it wants is one of the scariest horror movies I have ever seen.

This is because The Thing has some of THE scariest and most effective practical effects I have ever seen. Made by effects legend Rob Bottin, an understudy of fellow legend Rick Baker, the effects of The Thing have aged like a fine wine. They still look as realistic and frightening today as they did 40 years ago in 1982.

The film also does a stellar job of building tension with its sense of atmosphere and how the characters interact with each other throughout the film. The way this film portrays isolation and the feeling of loneliness in a stressful situation is displayed with pure brilliance by Mr. Carpenter.  

It still blows my mind that this film didn’t do as well as it should have back in the day and that it nearly ended John Carpenter’s career because it should’ve been hailed as a horror classic long before.

Those reasons are why I say you should watch The Thing. It’s a great Sci-Fi/Horror film, and you should give it a watch if you want to see a showcase in tension building and isolation.

Psycho (1960)

The final film I want to suggest is Psycho. This film from 1960 is a master class in how to build suspense throughout a film from the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

The film is often shown in film schools across the country, and rightfully so because this story of a woman committing a crime and then laying low at what seems to be a peaceful motel only to find something sinister instead is a perfect showcase for character-building in a script and suspense.

You have Marion Crane, a typical hardworking American girl who decides to steal some money her boss gave her to put in a safe and flee out of her city. Throughout the film, you see Marion experience a wide variety of emotions, and you share them too because you’re wondering, “is she going to get caught?” or “Is she going to get away with this?”.

You also get introduced to one of Horror’s icons, Norman Bates. A character who starts out as a shy, meek character but throughout the film develops into one of the creepiest characters in all of Horror, with more layers to his personality than a fresh onion.

Those reasons and more are why I say you should give Psycho a watch. It’s a great classic film that stands the test of time 62 years later.

Those are the films I believe you should see if you’re getting into the horror genre. Do you agree with me?? Do you disagree?? Did I perhaps miss any that you feel should have been mentioned?? Be sure to let me know in the comments below.

Thank you so much for reading this issue, and I’ll see you in the next one. 

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The Cursed: The Best Werewolf Movie of the Past 20 years.

In the past 20 years or so, we've gotten a good chunk of werewolf movie. Some are big studio films like Cursed (2005), which I've already covered here on this blog and The Wolfman Remake from 2010. Some are more independent films like Howl or Wolfcop or Darkwolf.

One thing that's for sure though is the fact that the quality of these werewolf movies has been like a yo-yo. Up and down and up and down the quality has gone from film to film and it feels like every time we get one good one, we get about 2 to 3 bad ones in-between. Well today, I'm here to tell you about a werewolf movie that I don't just think is good, oh no...I think it's the greatest werewolf movie of the past 20 years.

That movie is The Cursed, not to be confused with Wes Craven's film which definitely lives up to it's name. This film takes a classic monster in the werewolf and makes a movie that is mostly unique and creative, which is something that this subgenre has needed for a long time.

The Cursed is a story about a peaceful remote village in late 19th century France that starts to suffer from attacks by a mysterious force that's rumored to be the result of a cursed land. This film does a lot of things that most major movie studios tell you not to do when making a horror movie. Those being: don't make a werewolf movie and don't make a period piece.

The reason for that is simple. Nine times out of ten, both werewolf movies and period pieces tend to flop at the box office nowadays. I attribute the failures of werewolf films to the poor reputation werewolves gained with the twilight films, and the fact that it hasn't been given a proper chance to get rid of that stigma. 

The downfall of period pieces though is a different story altogether, I attribute that to modern audiences wanting stories to be set in modern settings as opposed to periods like the 18th or 19th century for example. But this film? Throw all of those stigmas out the window, I'm gonna do BOTH, and I'm gonna do them both better than anybody has done in the last two decades.

This film accomplishes that by taking the werewolf subgenre and doing brand new things with it that we've never seen before now. Creating it's own werewolf mythology, not over relying on the titular monster to appear on-screen, not making silver the only way to kill the beast are just a few examples.

Let me go into more detail for you. You see, werewolf lore typically goes as follows: you get bit or scratched by a werewolf, you become infected, then you start to show more of a feral side. Heightened senses, increased strength, and not being satisfied with anything but raw meat are what goes on during the transition period. And typically to kill a werewolf you need silver of any kind, mainly a Silver Bullet will do the trick.

This film however does some new things with the transition period. When you're bitten in The Cursed, your body is taken over from the inside out and it's done in some gnarly body horror effects that would mildly impress Mr. David Cronenburg. The design of the werewolf is also unique in this film compared to other werewolf movies. You know how typically in a werewolf movie, the werewolf is wolf like in design and they usually go for a bipedal method of movement??

Not in this film, director Sean Ellis went for a four-legged hound design ala An American Werewolf In London. But unlike that film, The Cursed goes for not putting a whole lot of hair on the creature, which I feel is a nice change of pace in the design department. This film also goes for more natural lighting than studio lighting, which adds to the tension and the atmosphere in the film.

Speaking of atmosphere, this film is PACKED to the brim with it, perfectly building to the next scare and not feeling cheap with its jump scares. Another thing that this film does that not a lot of werewolf films do or want to do is it doesn't show the werewolf all that much in the film. It takes around thirty minutes or so for the first bite to occur and then another ten minutes for the first full fledged werewolf attack and even then the creature isn't on the screen.

This is something that studios across the world, big studios being the worst offenders, struggle with. They think that the werewolf is supposed to be on screen as often as possible during it's attacks and this film is solid proof to prove the exact opposite. 

Another thing that this film is unapologetic about is its use of blood and gore. The opening of the film sets the tone for this as there is a good amount of blood and gore during that section of the movie. There's not extreme levels of it of course, but there is a good amount of it regardless and there are moments throughout the film where the blood and gore is gnarly so if you're sensitive to blood and gore, be aware of that when watching this film.

Now even though The Cursed does a lot of things that make it fresh and unique in this subgenre, it does do some things that make it feel just familiar enough to be comfortable. Examples being using silver bullets to effectively kill the werewolf (although that's not the only way to do it). Another example being that you become a werewolf through getting scratched and/or bitten. It's these familiarities mixed with the new stuff that makes this film click and be as great as it is. 

And those are the reasons as to why I feel The Cursed is the absolute best werewolf movie of the past 20 years. Do you agree with me? Do you disagree?? If so, what are your reasons?? Be sure to let me know in the comments below!

I hope you enjoyed this issue and I'll see you in the next one.

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Werewolf By Night Announcement

Yesterday Disney held their D23 conference, which is where they announce all of their upcoming movies and TV shows for all of their respective studios. They announced a TON of cool and exciting stuff that's coming up in the next few years but there was one announcement in particular that caught my attention.

Here's the trailer if you want to check it out 

Werewolf By Night is the name of this TV special movie and it was THE announcement that got me the most excited out of all of them. This show looks like the antithesis of everything that Marvel has done over the past decade or so since starting the MCU.

Showing actual blood a gore?? Yep. going for a completely different style that makes Werewolf By Night unique compared to other Marvel projects?? Yep. USING PRACTICAL EFFECTS FOR THE FUCKING WEREWOLF?! yep, looks like it in the trailer.

This movie looks to be the best thing that Disney and Marvel have done all year long in my eyes and that's coming off of She-Hulk, a show which I thoroughly enjoy. One of the reasons for that is very simple: it's a werewolf movie. If you've seen my past posts, you'll know that I like a good werewolf movie...and Werewolf By Night looks to be a good one.

I like the fact that Marvel decided to not only go into what looked like the 18th or 19th century in that trailer, but they also put a black and white filter over the movie to give it that old-school feel of something that came out of the Universal Monster Movie or Hammer Horror days.

Now if you don't know what Werewolf By Night is, let me explain it to you. Werewolf By Night is a series of comic books first published by Marvel that ran from September of 1972 all the way to March of 1977. The series originally centered around a character by the name of Jack Russell (who is in the new TV Special) and before he could get this series of comics, Jack made his comic debut in Marvel Spotlight #2 which was published in February of 1972 as a test run and it lasted until Marvel Spotlight #4, then it got approved to be its own series after Marvel saw how popular it was.

Marvel may make a lot of decisions that make me scratch my head but this isn't one of them. I love the fact that they dove deep into the archives and decided to go all-in on Werewolf By Night. This is a series of comics that I didn't know existed until yesterday if I'm being completely honest, but it's on my radar now!

There is one thing that I'm concerned about though with Werewolf By Night...and that is whether or not the effects are going to be completely CGI or not. Don't get me wrong, I understand that CGI is easier to deal with than practical effects and that it's probably cheaper than practical effects BUT...CGI effects in my personal opinion, don't belong in anything to do with werewolves.

Look at films like An American Werewolf In Paris, Cursed, and even The Wolfman Remake from 2010. Those films all use CGI effects for things like the transformation sequences and whatnot, and they all look HORRIBLE as a result. Meanwhile, you have films like An American Werewolf In London, The Howling, Dog Soldiers, and Ginger Snaps that look like they haven't aged a day even though in cases like The Howling and An American Werewolf In London, those movies have been out for 41 years now.

So as long as Disney doesn't use CGI effects, I think it'll be an AWESOME TV Special and I can't wait until October 7th when it comes out! Are you excited for Werewolf by night? Do you agree with my opinion on the use of CGI? Let me know in the comments below!

I hope you enjoyed this issue, and I hope to see you in the next one.

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