Howling at the Moon...

Despair by Gustave Courbet

So here I am, a woman whose favorite novels through the years have remained, respectfully, Wuthering Heights and Crime and Punishment. Human angsty-ness and brooding atmospheres, guilt and hallucinations, darkness vs. light, damnation and redemption and tortured human existence on the moors…or St. Petersburg…as the case may be…the usual I’m-a-human-hear-me-roar bit.

Wuthering Heights by Jena DellaGrottaglia-Maldonado

I am also a girl who loves her monster movies. Not the slasher Texas Chainsaw Massacre stuff, but the Underworld, Van Helsing, Dracula, Frankenstein, Clash of the Titans kind of stuff. I love Buffy and Edward equally for different reasons. Angel still makes my heart race a little bit. I love the Dresden Files and Battlestar Gallactica--the old and the new, Star Trek, also the old and the new in all of its variations…and the list definitely goes on.

Image By: Jim Dallmeier
From: http://www.dallmeierart.com/RAYHARRYHAUSENPOSTER.htm

I grew up with a dad who LOVED all of the old monster and Sci-Fi matinee movies. Movies by the likes of Ray Harryhausen and Ed Wood. Movies like Sinbad the Sailor, Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, and Bela Lugosi-fare, as well as all of the 1950’s & 60’s Sci-Fi, “This Planet Earth,” “Creature From the Black Lagoon” kind of stuff. He was a lover of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Flash Gordon in all of its Queen soundtracked glory, Blade Runner and The Thing.

All of this means, I definitely have a penchant for the fantastical and mythical, as well as a hearty, long-standing love affair with the B movie. If there is some monster madness going on somewhere, I am all over that…except for zombies. I use caution with the zombies because they kinda freak me out…kind of a lot. I know they’re not real…I’m just sayin’…

http://www.zazzle.co.uk/zombies+stickers

I tell you this, not to humiliate myself in front of your good senses, but rather so you can imagine for yourselves, the thrill that went up my spine and the elation that I felt when I caught my first glimpse of the trailer for Wolfman. My husband, who was sitting next to me at the time, without a word from me or even a glance (because my eyes were pinned to the movie screen in front of me), turned and said to me as he patted my leg, no doubt with a knowing look, “I know. I know. We will see it as soon as it comes out.”

True to his word, he took me to see it this afternoon. And-- Wow, I loved it! I could have turned around and watched it a second time without hesitation (of course once I had filled up my popcorn bucket and drink before the second showing.) Alas, this was not to be, so here I sit at my computer at home, hoping to put my thoughts and feelings, once again, into intelligible words for the rest of you few who may be reading.

Just like anything, and especially with monster-type fare, no doubt there will be many who trivialize it or try to classify it as cliché, or trite, or whatever it is they want to say to denigrate the film to try to discredit it for being a fun, dark, brooding, at times, campy, ride. For myself, I would classify it as stellar classic gothic fare that addresses a number of very human emotions that have remained constant through the millenia…and I enjoyed every minute of this Saturday Monster Movie Special, beginning to end.

I would categorize this version of the story told in the same pleasant company of Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott, The Lady in White by Wilkie Collins and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. All prime pieces of Gothic literary delight that have stood the tests of time, though not always of the critic, and do remain, to date, long-standing favorites of many readers through the decades.

But let me forewarn you. If you take yourself and your movies seriously, and you’re some kind of an art critic when it comes to film, save your chatter about the perceived modern human condition for something else. This is not the place. This movie is a fun, fun, fun, blood and guts, gore, darkness, howling at the moon, fantastic over the top Creature Feature and I guarantee you it isn’t going to win any Oscars. It’s just not. It would never be allowed. It’s not how the Academy rolls.

Anthony Hopkins does do an excellent job as the estranged, odd, quirky father and Benicio del Toro is great as the dark, brooding, thoughtful son…but it’s still not a story about Darfur, or Global Warming, or Chernobyl, or Child Prostitution and Human Trafficking, it’s not about Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll, or about Alternate Political Views and Lifestyles and How Misunderstood We All Are. We get that in our day-to-day concerns…this isn’t the venue for it.

This is about a man who turns into a wolfman, because he got bit by a wolfman, and his senses have been lost. He has a bloodlust, a berserk-ery that overcomes him when the moon is full, and he goes insane. Those who love him, think there is still humanity in him…if they could just get those teeth and claws to take a wee step back, maybe they could coax the man inside the monster out…but I think you know how that kind of story ends.

But I digress…

In this version of The Wolfman--there is everything in it to create a haunting story of unrequited love and tragic loss. There is the return of the prodigal son to the family estate. There is death alluded and mysterious, there is suspense, there is horror, there is suspended disbelief that a human being could commit such grievances against another. There is myth, legend, dripping claws and heaving bosoms all by the swell of the full moon eerily ensconced in fog.

It has the failing manor estate surrounded by lush greenery, the haunted forest, fallen chapels, secluded villages, a private estate mausoleum wherein lies an immortal statue in repose of the deceased mother, a haunting children’s nursery with estranged memories newly come to light, hallucinations, a late 1800’s ultra-creepy insane asylum, bands of gypsies with a dancing bear, and a Celtic circle of stones cloaked in foggy moonlight.

The movie is rife with emotion and humanity, both at it’s greatest and at its worst.

Danny Elfman, once again, delivers a soundtrack to exception. (As a side note, for those who may not know, he was the lead for the band Oingo Boingo. He has successfully gone from a young man’s career to an adults career as he has done successful soundtrack after successful soundtrack, of which this is yet one more.)

As far as the actual creature, there was a classic familiarity to the visage of the Wolfman. We’ve come a long, long way through the decades with our special effects, and this movie is no exception. My thought is that the look of this Wolfman is an homage to those Wolfmen gone before, which brings horrifying comfort to what you see up on the screen, if you will. You * know * this guy. And I have to say that I really liked that they didn’t make him some sleek CGI monster that is devoid of any humanity. It’s Wolf “man,” not wolf “thing” that turns back into a man later. Don’t get me wrong, he looks awesome, he just hasn’t had the human-y monster-ness digitized away.

In conclusion, the movie rocked. I loved it. I would definitely see it again. I came out of there with a grin on my face, glad that whomever had decided to make it, had followed through on the project. When it comes out on DVD, I will buy it. If there is a Director’s Cut, I will enjoy it.

In the end, my thought is that we can take a tip or two from the Wolfman. Not that we should set our worlds alight with blood and mayhem, but rather that there is really nothing wrong with a little howling at the moon to voice our despair, our loneliness, and our rage and confusion. It looks cathartic. In fact if more of us howled a little more often, maybe we’d be a little healthier in the long run.