Wolfen

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1981
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Michael Wadleigh
Genre:	Smart lupine chills
Starring:	Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083336/
Tagline:	It will tear the scream from your throat.
Favourite line:	"They kill to survive. They kill to protect."

Highly regarded horror fare from the early eighties.

The plot:
A series of bizarre murders plague New York, and beyond, with no clue as to motive or assailant.
Captain Wilson (Albert Finney) is drafted onto the case to seek answers as, unfortunately, a wealthy businessman has now been slain. See, the NYPD didn’t really care when it was just bums, tramps or blue collar workers dying, but now someone who matters is dead, time to seek the culprit.
A pathology report comes in, stating that non-human hair has been found on the bodies, the hair belonging to an unknown species of – gasp – lupus.
Wilson, convinced now that there is something beyond nature responsible, tracks the clues to an abandoned area of The Bronx, where he discovers something more than human, and more than beast, too.

Creepy stuff, this.
Sure, the werewolf tale has been told many, many times, but here the potentially stale is reinvigorated, both through smart scripting and a film technique that would go on to inspire other genre movies in the future.
Finney, as Captain Wilson, is an interesting choice for lead, looking for all the world like Your Dad rather than a leading man, which certainly adds to the charm.
Not high on the gore counter, there is the odd moment of splatter, but it’s quite comical, really, unintentionally. The film technique referred to is something called thermography, which gives a heat profile, rather than a straight image. This technique would, of course, later be used to great effect in the Predator movies, and there can be little doubting that the guys responsible for that little known movie franchise had seen this one in advance. The method is identical. Very frightening,. Very effective.
Mention of the music, also. Composed by James Horner, at times it is near identical to the score from Aliens, also composed by Horner. So the question is: Is it possible to plagiarise yourself? ‘Cos that’s certainly what’s happening here.
Intelligent, spooky and massively influential, then, this is thinking man’s horror.
Very good indeed.