*WARNING: This post includes some spoilers as well as prolific, overstated sarcasm*
Visual Effects? Visual Effects? I am mildly appalled. Is this all we care about anymore? Have we become so anesthetized to big budget that we no longer appreciate the base wonder of a conventional horror film?
I want to take a trip back to the 1930s. Specifically 1931, the release of Tod Browning's Dracula. I still consider this one of the scariest films of all time, and it's because it breaks into that realm of horror so often forgotten in today's films. The slow rise of Bela Lugosi from his tomb, the quiet seduction of all your senses via fog, full moons, and wolf howls so you're easily snapped by the vampire's bite. It's that classic, conventional treastise we've made with those old horror films to not spark an immediate reaction that make us jump and squirm, but create a lasting atmosphere, an ambiance, that makes us pause before we enter a dark corridor.
So, ten years later, the original Wolfman was released and adopted the same style and tone as its monster movie predecessors. Heavy shadows, fog, dark woods, mysterious gypsy curses, and a story that proves ultimately superficial to the overall fact that we're dealing with an exploitation, of sorts, of the supernatural. But we still watch, entertained, because we enjoy the spooky thrill.
Might I add both films were Universal releases.
Now, you are probably rolling your eyes right now. You're shrugging off my exploration and reverence for those which came before because it's 2010. These things don't scare us anymore. We are scared by the horrific nature of a murder. The jumps and frights of blood splashing on a camera lens. The unexpected assault on our senses when we have a close-up of a neck being ripped open. However, I've come to find that kind of thing commonplace now. Visual effects may have made this Wolfman more modernly accessable, but c'mon. We substitute CGI bears because they kinda look real enough and god forbid we have a real angry bear on set. It's not like we have trainers for these things. Let's not be bothered by liability forms when we can just pretend a bear exists and add it in later. Yes, we're all so happy for that kind of visual effect.
I believe a serious risk was taken by Johnson and company, because they didn't compromise the original for a modernized bastardization. So easily could we accept something dry and overtold as long as it looks brilliant. Costs a lot of money. Directed by James Cameron. Sorry, wrong topic.
Now here we have an original story of a man who's lost his brother to a mysterious wolflike entity. Examining the gypsy camp to find out more about this monster, the man is bitten, infected, and wrought with the overwhelming task of understanding his past to overcome his future...as a werewolf. The dry, incosequential investigator, Detective Abberline, is not the bad ass detective (I'm sorry to all of you who expected Agent Smith part four), but a narrative device simply used to move Lawrence Talbot's (Del Toro) story forward. Would the suspense have been building as strongly had he not been chased back to the Blackmoor estate? The story isn't The Detective...it's The Wolfman.
The mild sense of romance surrounding Gwen (Blunt) and her inevitable rise to heroine seems more a sense of love transference than true love. Love for the man who came to your aide when your would be husband is mauled by a supernatural entity would result in a obligatory adoration, to get a little psychological with it. She would feel somewhat responsible for what is happening to him, and thus thrust herself into a position where she may help him, and according the gypsy elders, that's love. I consider the fact reconciled.
Sure, the film has moments of campy conventionality: Sir John Talbot (Hopkins) ripping off his shirt post-transformation (it's the werewolf shirt vs. skins match of the century), and the fact that Gene Simmons provides the werewolf's howl. But the fact remains, this film revers its predecessor instating a nostalgia most adaptations cast aside for "Hollywoodization," and utilizes the advancements film techonology can offer to enhance a monster movie classic. The jump out of your seat scares and truely haunting imagery displays a wistfulness for the old school craft of horror. And I feel that many people knock this film because of the regard they hold for the actors (Del Toro, Hopkins, Weaving) and not for the subdued nature of the characters in favor a driving story.
Unfortunately, people go for names now, and hold certain expectations based on those names. That's going to disappoint, because this film is what truely classic horror was and still could be (as it proves), but it seems we just don't care anymore.
I'm going to see Scorcese's new film Shutter Island tonight. Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo, Leo DeCaprio, Michelle Williams.
Fuck, I just want to go see a thriller about a mental institution.
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nay, catie, visual effects are not all we, or at least i, care about these days. they sure are nice, but they shouldn't be the backbone of a film. in this respect i think The Wolf Man and Avatar are pretty comparable. the former favors practical effects and the latter CGI, but to the same end of elevating style over substance.
ReplyDeletei haven't seen most of the Universal monster classics because i'm a huge idiot, but the reason most of those films are revered as classics may be due in part to censorship. when you can't rely on disembowelments and arterial spray to sell your film to the kiddies, you have to compensate by making a film with a good story, characters and ambience. Coppola's Dracula was a pretty fine balance of the two extremes. Joe Johnston didn't learn that lesson with Jurassic Park 3, and apparently no one pulled him aside and had that important conversation with him in between then and The Wolf Man. too bad, because he's not a completely incompetent director. the film wasn't a total waste of time.
yeah, i guess i'll cede that The Wolf Man had a good atmosphere. the English countryside was certainly very misty, and there were certainly lots of...um...impressive moon shots. it's not a modern bastard child in the vein of Dracula 2000, but you can't call something good just because it's a period piece.
as for Abberline, most films have a high percentage of throwaway characters, and depend on that to move the story along. if the time were taken to make everyone on screen a beautiful and unique snowflake we could invest ourselves in, we'd have to have a sleepover and 6 meal breaks every damn we went to the movies. but Abberline had considerable screen time and by the end he was essential to both the plot and the story. there's no excuse for him to simply be a narrative cab driver. Weaving didn't disappoint in his performance, however, so i'll be excessively generous here and blame his oddly flat character on studio interference.
to your comment about being drawn by names, naturally, we shouldn't care about names when we watch movies, at least when deciding what NOT to see. i'd never heard of almost any of the actors in The Fall, City of God, Apocalypto, A Serious Man, Slumdog Millionaire, Cube, The Devil's Backbone, The Servant, Let the Right One In, Oldboy, Carnival of Souls, Festen, or the Pusher trilogy to name just a few, but that didn't deter me from seeing or loving the crap out of them. a film with good word of mouth takes precedent over something that just has an actor i like.
on the other hand, aint nothin' wrong with getting excited at the prospect of an awesome cast. sometimes they turn me into butter on a summer day, as in Shutter Island. it's not just an intricate thriller in a mental institution. if that's all you're interested in, with no regard for who brings those characters to life, you may as well just read the novel.
occasionally i am painfully reminded that a name is never a guarantee of quality. just look at Eric Bana in Star Trek. what happened, man? you broke my heart, Fredo. unfortunately, as in the case of The Wolf Man, a promising cast can build our hopes and end up splashing our faces with warm pee. warm, pheromone-filled wolf pee.