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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Review of Universal’s The Wolfman (2010)

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, werewolf, werewolves on October 28, 2010 by Paxton

After this, there is one more day of AWESOME-tober-fest 2010. It’s hard to believe we are almost all done. I’ve been planning this since January.

Anyway, Day 4 of werewolf movie week. Originally, today’s review was going to be of Hammer’s 1961 classic, Curse of the Werewolf starring Oliver Reed. However, obtaining a copy of that movie was harder than I expected, so I moved the below review from the end of yesterday’s Universal reviews over to here. What may happen is that I’ll post “Special Edition” reviews in the next few weeks for AWESOME-tober-fest 2010 that didn’t make the cut. Movies like Curse of the Werewolf and Full Moon High as well as TV Shows Big Wolf on Campus and Hilarious House of Frightenstein would be included. So, without further ado, let’s move on to my review of Universal’s 2010 remake, The Wolfman.

As I’ve mentioned before, I loved the original Universal Wolf Man movie. Werewolves have been my favorite monsters for years. So, yes, I was super excited to hear Universal was bringing back their monster movies. They started with The Mummy back in 1999. Then around 2006-2007 I first read about The Wolf Man remake starring Benicio Del Toro as Talbot. While I’m not a huge Del Toro fan, I could see him as Talbot. Universal also went and got Rick Baker to do the wolf makeup and filled out the cast with other great actors; Sir Anthony Hopkins as John Talbot, Emily Blunt as Gwen and Hugo Weaving as a police inspector. Universal picked Andrew Kevin Walker to write the screenplay which was a great choice as he wrote moody thrillers like Sleepy Hollow, 8MM and Se7en. And Mark Romaneck was selected as director in January 2007 and he was, to me, unproven but he had all this talent around him so I wasn’t too worried.

Then the production problems started. Romaneck quit in February 2008. Universal considered hiring Brett Ratner (NO!!) but came to their senses and hired Joe Johnston to deliver the finished film. The release date slipped. It was originally scheduled for Nov 12, 2008, but it slipped several times until it finally landed on Feb 12, 2010. An interesting choice to open this on Valentine’s Day weekend. Also interesting was that at no time was the movie slated to be released in October on Halloween. The closest they got was November 2009. Wonder what happened there. Danny Elfman was hired to score the picture, however Universal didn’t think it fit with the tone of the movie so they hired another person to score it, but that too was scrapped and the Elfman score was reinstated.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Watching Universal’s Wolf Man movies

Posted in monsters, movies, reviews, Universal Studios, werewolves, Wolf Man with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, reviews, Universal Studios, werewolf, werewolves, Wolf Man on October 27, 2010 by Paxton

So here we are, Day 19 of AWESOME-tober-fest. We are in the middle of werewolf movie week. Yesterday I discussed The Howling and on Monday I talked about Silver Bullet. All of these were books I read and reviewed during werewolf novel week. Today, I go back to the beginning. The Universal Studios Wolf Man movies. This is where the current model for the modern werewolf was born. Universal made three werewolf centric movies. Although the Wolf Man would appear in several other “monster rally” movies, there were only three movies starring Wolf Man and included the Wolf Man in the title. Here are those three movies.

Werewolf of London (1935) – Contrary to what you might think, this was actually Universal Studio’s first “wolf man” movie (and widely considered the first mainstream werewolf movie). It was released a good 6 years before the now famous Lon Chaney Jr vehicle, The Wolf Man, and starred Henry Hull as the title monster. The legendary Jack Pierce created the wolf man makeup for use in this movie, however Henry Hull hated it and refused to wear the full wolf makeup (pansy). Pierce would create a “less hairy” version for Hull, but then go back to the “full hairy” version for use with Chaney (who was a badass).
In this movie, Hull plays Dr Glendon, a world renowned botanist who travels to Tibet to find the elusive Mariphasa plant which only blooms in moonlight. While there, Glendon is bitten by a creature that he leans later is a werewolf. Glendon returns to London with his Mariphasa sample and then we meet his wife who is WAY too hot for him. I mean, not only does Glendon look like he could be her father, but he’s also kind of a douche bag. He doesn’t pay any attention to her and keeps himself locked away in his lab. While sequestered in his lab Glendon keeps doing all these weird experiments to create artificial moonlight (how useful is artificial moonlight besides causing the Mariphasa plant to bloom?). Anyway, Glendon is visited by another creepy scientist, Dr Yogami, who knows all about the werewolf affliction he keeps calling Lycanthrophobia (which actually means “fear of werewolves” and not “is a werewolf”). Yogami says the Mariphasa plant can temporarily cure Lycanthrophobia (he keeps using that word) so Hull keeps trying to create his “artificial moonlight” when he finally (after about 45 minutes) turns into a damn werewolf (finally!). This happens a few more times until he finally attacks his hot wife and is killed by police officers. While dying, Glendon apologizes to his wife (you know, for trying to maul her) and thanks the police for killing him.
Not exactly the most “action packed” monster movie I’ve ever seen. Hull is a bit of an elitist a-hole as the main character, especially to his wife. And his obsession with creating “artificial moonlight” makes little sense. There is a good scene in the middle of the movie during a party at Glendon’s personal botanical gardens. Well, it’s good in that you see some ridiculously awesome plants including one that looks like a miniature version of the Sarlacc pit from Return of the Jedi. I read somewhere that this plant was supposed to eat a child during that scene but it was deemed too graphic (or too awesome, maybe). I say avoid this and start your werewolf journey with our next movie…

The Wolf Man (1941) – This is the movie everyone thinks of when you say “Wolf Man” or you are talking about the “original” Universal Monster movies. Lon Chaney Jr stars as Larry Talbot who returns home after his brother’s death. While fixing his dad’s telescope, Talbot happens to “peep” on the chick next door, Gwen. He goes over and puts some creepy stalker moves on Gwen, who at first denies his advances. Later on, for no reason whatsoever, she caves and agrees to go on a date. So Talbot escorts Gwen and her friend out to some old gypsy’s to have their fortunes read. Lo and behold, the gypsy turns out to be Dracula! Well, it’s Bela Lugosi playing the gypsy. Anyway, turns out Bela is a werewolf, attacks and kills one of the ladies and Talbot beats him to death with a cane, but not before getting bitten. This, of course, curses Talbot with werewolfism (and having the “werewolf poem” recited to him by every character in the movie every 5 minutes). Talbot’s Wolf Man goes on a rampage and is finally beaten to death by the same cane that beat the gypsy Bela to death earlier in the movie. Only Talbot gets beaten to death by his own father, The Invisible Man…or, Claude Rains, who played the Invisible Man.
Comparatively, this movie is much better than Werewolf of London. While Chaney’s Talbot does start off a bit lecherous when he puts the moves on Gwen, for the majority of the movie, he is a sympathetic character. You feel bad that he is cursed with this affliction (werewolfism). And the “full hairy” makeup by Jack Pierce is fantastic. Much better than the version used on Hull six years prior. The lady that plays Gwen, Evelyn Ankers, is really pretty. She makes a perfect scream queen and you like her character very much. It’s easy to see why this movie is still considered a classic and it also reaffirms why Wolf Man is my favorite Universal Monster.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Review of the movie The Howling (1981)

Welcome to Day 18 of AWESOME-tober-fest. We are finishing up this month long run into Halloween with reviews of werewolf movies this week. Today, I’m taking a look at a 1981 Joe Dante horror classic, The Howling.

Two weeks ago I reviewed the original 1977 Brandner novel, The Howling. While it was slowly paced, it was an adequate werewolf story I thought did a good job of setting up a possible series of books about Brandner’s werewolves as, from the book, they obviously had a much larger back story than was told in the novel.

Well, Brandner’s book was optioned for a movie and Joe Dante was picked as the director, Rick Baker was chosen to do the Special Effects and The Howling movie was made in 1981. Only, as Hollywood is want to do, the story was changed. Honestly, a lot of the major story beats were the same, it was many of the details that were changed. But Rick Baker wound up leaving the production to do the effects for American Werewolf in London so the end of the movie suffered.

The main character, Karen White, is a television journalist who has a bad encounter with a serial killer, Eddie Quist (played by the hologram doctor from Star Trek Voyager). After the serial killer is shot down when he attacks her, Karen and her husband travel out to this hippie community called The Colony for some rest and relaxation. They meet the creepy members of The Colony in this weird beach bonfire party scene where we are introduced to Marsha. Marsha overacts every single scene she’s in and constantly looks at everyone with these “crazy eyes”. She obviously takes a shine to Karen’s husband and everyone stands around awkwardly to some weird, out of place for a beach party O Brother Where Art Thou music.

Anyway, Karen is constantly haunted by her earlier encounter with Eddie and she starts to hear inhuman howling in the middle of the night. That howling draws her husband to this clearing in the woods where he has sex with crazy eyes and they start changing into wolves in the middle of sex and then, at the very end, they turn into cartoon wolves (seriously, I guess they ran out of budget because the end of the scene is animated). It’s pretty epic. After this, the husband starts to get violent and belligerent towards his wife, even going so far as smacking her in the chops when she continues to whine about the night howling and how different he’s been acting lately. Eventually Karen’s friend shows up, they start investigating the town, find out Eddie, who’s supposed to be dead, is actually there at The Colony and that he and everyone else is a werewolf. While trying to notify her husband, the friend is attacked and killed in a nice scene. I really like the look of the werewolf in this scene right before he kills the friend. You can tell Baker designed the hell out of this werewolf. Very demon-like. Bravo.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Review of Stephen King’s Silver Bullet

Posted in 80s, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, werewolf, werewolves on October 25, 2010 by Paxton

Welcome to the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest 2010. This week I’m reviewing werewolf movies. Today, I’m reviewing the movie version of Stephen King’s novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, the movie changed the title to Silver Bullet.

Released in 1985, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet stars Corey Haim as paralyzed Marty Coslaw, Gary Busey as his alcoholic uncle and Megan Follows as his sister. The movie was based on the 1983 graphic novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, also by Stephen King. The movie follows the basic gist of the novella about a werewolf terrorizing the small town of Tarker’s Mill, Maine.

This movie has garnered much hatred from Stephen King fans as well as horror movie fans due to the horrible quality of the movie. And yes, the movie isn’t that great. I watched it many years ago on video cassette and remember thinking it blew big time. However, I DVRed it a few weeks ago off of EncoreHD and watched it very recently and didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. It’s a fairly decent B werewolf movie.

Check out the trailer:

While the movie does take the basic plot elements of the novella; a paralyzed boy discovers a werewolf is murdering the people in his town, it pretty much eliminates following the werewolf’s killing sprees during the different cycles of the full moon throughout an entire calendar year. The movie takes place within a week or two during the Spring of 1976 (if the events do happen over several months like in the novella, the movie didn’t really do a good job of illustrating that). It almost makes the werewolf killings seem like a recent occurrence whereas in the book the killings build up over months and the town labels the serial killer The Full Moon Killer. Most of the movie is uselessly narrated by the sister from the future as if she’s looking back at that time in her life. There really seemed to be no reason to have this narration because the movie never really follows up on it.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf

Posted in cartoons, Halloween, holiday, monsters, TV shows, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, cartoons, Halloween, holiday, monsters, TV shows, werewolf, werewolves on October 22, 2010 by Paxton

Welcome to Day 16 of AWESOME-tober-fest. Today is the end of werewolf TV week. Yesterday I discussed one of my favorite cartoons, Fangface. Today, I’ll be discussing another personal favorite, The Cartoon Adventures of Teen Wolf.

Teen Wolf cartoon logo

The Teen Wolf cartoon was based on the characters in the 1985 Michael J Fox movie, Teen Wolf. Many of the movie characters show up in the cartoon. Obviously we see Scott Howard and his father Harold. Also showing up is Scott’s friend Stiles, Boof, Pamela Anderson and her neanderthal boyfriend Mick. However, only Harold Howard is voiced by the actor who portrayed him in the movie, James Hampton. A few other famous voice actors filled out the cast. Don Most (Ralph Malph) voiced Stiles and the legendary June Foray (The Flintstones’ Betty Rubble, Looney Tunes’ Granny/Witch Hazel, Rocky Squirrel/Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle) voiced Grandma Howard. So the cast was solid. Plus it had a kick ass theme song and a ridiculously ’80s opening with Teen Wolf listening to a Walkman.

I love this cartoon and that opening sequence so much that I use a still from it as my avatar/buddy icon on Twitter, Flickr and WordPress.

Teen Wolf cartoon headshot

Obviously, being a big fan of werewolves, and also a big fan of the movie Teen Wolf, I was going to love this show. Not surprisingly, the cartoon changed a few details from the movie. It added Scott’s entire extended werewolf family (see below), gave Scott a younger sister (he’s an only child in the movie) and making the fact that Scott is a werewolf a secret again. I didn’t really have a problem with these changes because it added something to the show. Making the werewolf thing a secret added a bit of drama that would be lost if everyone knew what Scott was. I was able to go with it and still enjoy the cartoon.

The show aired from 1986 to 1987. This encompassed two seasons, 13 episodes in the first, 8 episodes in the second. The reason there are only 8 episodes in season 2 is due to a cartoon voice actor”s strike in late 1986 that halted production during the second season. There was technically a third season aired, but it consisted entirely of re-runs.

Two VHS collections were released in the US. The first was titled Wolf of My Dreams and the second was All-American Werewolf (see below).

In the UK there was a 3 volume set of Teen Wolf episodes with funky artwork showing Scott transforming into the wolf across the three covers.

In Australia, they actually released the entire series on DVD which makes me jealous and pissed off at the same time because the set is in the PAL format. However, I do have a DVD player that is region free and theoretically converts from PAL, but I don’t want to buy this set and then they release American versions very soon afterward. Plus, I haven’t technically tested my DVD player’s ability to convert from PAL to NTSC so I don’t know how well it works. The picture may look like crap. So I’m stuck staring at this DVD box art and seething with unchecked nerd rage and envy at the “Land Down Under”.