FILLERWEEN 4 - THE WOLF MAN (Extended Cut)

Hello and welcome back to the fourth installment of Filler Ween, where movies go after they die.

After the release of the first two Mummy films and Van Helsing, Universal took another jab at recreating one of their horror icons. It announced in 2006 that a remake of the 1941 movie The Wolf Man, which starred Lon Chaney Jr., would star Benicio del Toro, a fan and collector of the Wolf Man movie. Mark Romanek, whose work has mostly been involved in music videos and three feature films, was hired to helm the movie and wanted his take on the classic movie to be that of “a balance of cinema in a popcorn movie scenario.” All while this was going on, Benicio, who was also the film’s producer, not only looked towards the original movie, but 1935’s Werewolf of London and Curse of the Werewolf from 1961. The filmmakers even hired makeup artist Rick Baker, who worked on the werewolf makeup and effects in An American Werewolf in London, to update the original Jack Pierce design.

However, 2008 saw Romanek leave the project following creative differences with the studio. Of the directors offered to take over, the one who landed the job was Joe Johnston. Johnston’s previous work consisted of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, Jumanji, and Jurassic Park III, also brought along with him David Self to rewrite the script. If you aren’t familiar with David Self, he did the 1999 version of The Haunting (though it was rewritten to death by Michael Tolkin), Thirteen Days, and The Bourne Identity.

Johnston was hired on three weeks before shooting began, which resulted in Baker’s makeup only being done for the end of the transformation, while CGI would be done to show Lawrence’s change into the Wolf Man. The movie was shot mostly in 2008, though reshoots occurred in 2009. It didn’t help the movie’s release was changed multiple times, from its original November 12, 2008 release to February 12, 2009, the pushed to April 2008, only then shoved to November 6, until it was finally released on February 12, 2010.

The Wolf Man’s release happened alongside the Gary Marshall romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, and despite opening in second place, ended up being a box office bomb. The nail in the coffin came when Universal head Ron Meyer spoke of the film a year later, and referred to it as ‘One of the worst movies we ever made’.

So, how bad is the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man?

---

Overview:
In 1891, Shakespearian stage actor Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) is contacted by his brother’s fiancé Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt) that his brother has vanished from their home in Blackmoor. Resisting at first, Lawrence returns home to Talbot Hall, homed to his estranged father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), whom the two have had a rocky relationship. Shortly afterwards, Larry’s brothers body is found, which the villagers blame on a nearby caravan of gypsies. As Lawrence investigates, he is attacked and bitten by an unknown creature. As his wound slowly heals, Inspector Francis Aberline (Hog Weaving) arrives to consider the series of attacks. However, it’s not long before Lawrence learns the truth: he was bitten by a werewolf, and as long as the full moon appears every month, Lawrence is cured to forever turn into a killing machine: The Wolf Man…


Why, what’s this? A horror movie that (gasp) is an actual frigging horror movie? With blood, murder, and a man killing numerous people as oppose to not killing at all? And it’s…GOOD?! Oh, dear heavily God, run to the hills!

Yes, I know there’s probably people sick of me angry about the past Universal remakes going completely out its way to no longer be horror movies and instead go into a ‘fun family adventure’ movie series. Would you tolerate this if they did that with Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, or any of the slasher icons of the 1970s and 80s? Made them PG-13 movies where they’re trying to take over the world and doing constantly bad kid friendly jokes? No, people would be furious because there are people who respect and want to see those monsters being monsters! These are the golden age horror movie icons, they should have more respect instead of “Hey, why not make a Mummy out of nowhere and completely crap all over another culture because we can!”. And guess what, this movie treated The Wolf Man with frigging respect.

Sorry, wanted that off my chest. All honestly, whether you like this movie or not, there’s not avoiding what this movie is: a horror movie. A hard R rated horror movie that kept the original ideals of the character intact. And thank GOD someone got that right for one of these films.

The Wolf Man is played completely straight. He isn’t toned down, he’s nearly the same as he was in the original film, outside of a few changes and the addition of color and blood.

And guess what the movie achieved in doing that a lot of other movies have struggled at: being a good remake. The film keeps the elements from the original film, but also changes up some elements and deviates so it isn’t the exact same movie. It does the standard of what remakes should do: respect the original, but do something different so it isn’t an exact copy.

In fact, the movie makes nods to the original film numerous times without it being blatant. The iconic wolf cane, the town, the telescope, the antique shop, the chair that straps people down, there’s so many of them in here it’s amazing how much they referenced the original film. Heck, they even referenced the deleted bear scene, that’s impressive. And on top of that, the movie throws in some nods to other Universal films: the house burning down at the end, the angry mobs, the insane asylum, the shock therapy reminiscent of the electrical equipment in the Frankenstein movies. They did a callback to the American Werewolf in London car crash sequence, it’s great.

Outside of the original film, the filmmakers made nods to Werewolf of London from 1935, the first Universal werewolf movie. In fact, the use of that film’s ending works here really well.

Hell, the director’s cut on the DVD remade the 1941 Universal logo. I’m sorry, but that’s the kind of shit I geek the hell out over. The fact they took the time to recreate that shows how much these guys love those old monster movies and wanted it to feel like those types of Universal films.