werewolf movies Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Retro Cinema: Wolfen
Filed under: Drama », Horror », Retro Cinema »
My friend Paul never looked at me the same way after I convinced him to see Wolfen rather than the latest James Bond adventure in the summer of 1981. I was planning my first trip to New York that fall and was utterly enthralled by the apocalyptic views of a burned-out South Bronx, looking like an exotic urban wilderness -- or Dresden after the fire bombings. I gloried in the long, gliding, low-angle Steadicam shots, enjoyed the tension generated, and tolerated the blood and guts on display. My soon to be ex-pal hunkered down in his seat, hating every second and throwing daggers at me with his eyes.
As the years have passed, I have nursed an untoward affection for Wolfen. Many horror fans have concluded that it is, at best, the weak cousin to the two other superior entries in the unofficial and unrelated "wolf vs. man" trilogy of 1981. Admittedly, An American Werewolf in London and The Howling rip Wolfen to shreds as far as style, pacing and dark entertainment value are concerned. Yet buried within the often lugubrious storytelling of Wolfen lies a gem of an idea and a radical approach to the traditional Hollywood fantasy of werewolves.
How did Michael Wadleigh, the director of 1969's landmark documentary Woodstock, come to direct his first fiction feature more than a decade later? And why adapt a novel by the notorious Whitley Strieber? One must first be disabused of the misconception that Wolfen is actually about werewolves or is a horror thriller; in a literal sense, it is more an environmental tract, a plea for man to live in harmony in nature, than it is any kind of supernatural fable.
Skinwalkers Is (Are?) Coming
Filed under: Action », Horror », Thrillers », Scripts », Distribution »
For some reason, news of the upcoming movie Skinwalkers has somehow entirely escaped my general notice. In fact, I'm not even sure I was aware the film was going to exist until very recently, when I read co-writer James Roday discussing it very excitedly. The film, releasing via Lionsgate this December, is now "in the can," and shooting for what Roday calls a "hard R," although an official MPAA rating has yet to be handed down from the great ivory tower. Here's what Roday had to say about his flick: "We're really pumped. We're really pumped about it. It's kind of a return to, like, basic human interaction storytelling in a genre package, which I feel like we haven't had in a really long time."The story in brief (from what I understand) is that of a 12 year old child "in the middle" of a battle between warring werewolf factions. Roday describes the story as an "epic, be-all-and-end-all of werewolf movies." I'm sure he feels particularly strongly about the flick as he helped write it an all ... but it's taking quite a stand to call your film the be-all-end-all of werewolf movies. Really, you are just asking for people to deride you before your flick even hits the screen. That said, I always seem to enjoy werewolf flicks even if they're terrible, so I'm sure I'll see this one.
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