New Wolfman film

[king_ghidorah]

Can't stand The Wolfman remake!!!  Grrr... I'd rather watch The Mummy remake than The Wolfman remake again

[werewolfwoman]

in an era of twilight waxed chested werewolves and Hostile, torture porn movies make big box office hits, the Wolfman had a hard time finding a happy audience. I think the new werewolf fan, who is into twilight hated the feral, monstrous wolfman and had issues with the graphic violence and gore. In contrast the fans of the very popular torture porn flicks, seemed to feel there wasn't enough gore and violence. The wolfman seemed to have a cult following but had  a hard time connecting with today's audiences.  Lets face it folks the modern Werewolf has been tamed and it seems like people didn't know how to handle the return of the werewolf as a tragic monster rather than a brooding love sick romantic figure.

I for one loved the movie, i am a fan of the original and was originally very cautiously optimistic about the remake.  I found the film refreshing in an era of  the tamed loved sick (neutered werewolf) a brutal monster flick returned the wolfman to a place of dark bestial horror. I think the wolfman is a cult film but failed the expectations of the studio, which hoped for a box office smash.  Monster movie have always been looked down upon by critics at large and if we look at the wolfman for a niche audience i think it could be appreciated.  A great example is American Werewolf In London, which had initially be panned by critics due to the introduction of humor into horror. The movie now is appreciated by many and considered a cult classic.  I hope that the wolfman will one day be considered the same and i think a loyal cult following is better than being part of a passing trend. I know the twilight fans say they love werewolves but will they still love the franchise in 10 years? I would take a small but loyal cult following any day.

i was happy to see  the return of the classic Gothic horror story and a werewolf with some serious bite.
When i saw it in theaters, I was so happy with it. I know the film struggled with rewrites, delays and budget cuts but i felt the final product was still well done.  The makeup was solid, the set design and cinematography was fantastic.
what can i say i like my werewolves tragic, with practical makeup effects and as what they originally depicted as monsters

[Scatter]

in an era of twilight waxed chested werewolves and Hostile, torture porn movies make big box office hits, the Wolfman had a hard time finding a happy audience. I think the new werewolf fan, who is into twilight hated the feral, monstrous wolfman and had issues with the graphic violence and gore. In contrast the fans of the very popular torture porn flicks, seemed to feel there wasn't enough gore and violence. The wolfman seemed to have a cult following but had  a hard time connecting with today's audiences.  Lets face it folks the modern Werewolf has been tamed and it seems like people didn't know how to handle the return of the werewolf as a tragic monster rather than a brooding love sick romantic figure.

I for one loved the movie, i am a fan of the original and was originally very cautiously optimistic about the remake.  I found the film refreshing in an era of  the tamed loved sick (neutered werewolf) a brutal monster flick returned the wolfman to a place of dark bestial horror. I think the wolfman is a cult film but failed the expectations of the studio, which hoped for a box office smash.  Monster movie have always been looked down upon by critics at large and if we look at the wolfman for a niche audience i think it could be appreciated.  A great example is American Werewolf In London, which had initially be panned by critics due to the introduction of humor into horror. The movie now is appreciated by many and considered a cult classic.  I hope that the wolfman will one day be considered the same and i think a loyal cult following is better than being part of a passing trend. I know the twilight fans say they love werewolves but will they still love the franchise in 10 years? I would take a small but loyal cult following any day.

i was happy to see  the return of the classic Gothic horror story and a werewolf with some serious bite.
When i saw it in theaters, I was so happy with it. I know the film struggled with rewrites, delays and budget cuts but i felt the final product was still well done.  The makeup was solid, the set design and cinematography was fantastic.
what can i say i like my werewolves tragic, with practical makeup effects and as what they originally depicted as monsters

What she said.

[king_ghidorah]

But, but, but you guys are....wrong 

Look, I love the original Wolfman, as well as An American Werewolf in London and The Howling.  My problems with The Wolfman remake have nothing to do with the gore.  I understand Rick Baker's reluctance about using that much gore in the film...and I semi-agree (the original films weren't gory afterall) but this is a new era, and you can't just have The Wolfman politely strangling his victims.  There needs to be real carnage to show just how monstrous the Wolfman is.

No, my problems with the film reflect my feelings with Jackson's Kong remake.  Both have some pretty decent designs for their titular monsters, and both have awesome production values but the stories, and the characters themselves are flat and dry...barren deserts devoid of life or fun.  What makes matters worse, is that both of these films try to heighten up the human drama but throwing in a bunch of unneeded baggage.  Did we need two Wolfmen??  Did the male lead in Kong need to be a naunced poet instead of a iron-jawed man of action??  In both of these films, the changes added don't do anything but slow down the narrative pace of the film and draw attention away from the reason we all payed to see these movies, monsters. 

Yes, we should care about the humans in these stories, and no they should not be stock characters.  Kong suffers from too much characterization...too much substance and civility.  Kong is supposed to be the best adventure story of all time( and the original still is), not some boring, period piece melodrama!  The Wolfman suffers because its human characters are bland and borderline unlikable, the story in which they opperate is also not compelling and the film lacks humor, which is essential in making us like Talbot.  The audience shouldn't want for him to turn into a werewolf.  He's a nice a guy, and someone we shouldn't want to see suffer.  Also...there really should have been more drama and thought involved in the transformations themselves....the first one just starts to happen.  It needed a build-up.  But most importantly...we're never given a reason for us NOT to want Talbot to change.  That's the key to a good werewolf story.  Sure, just like the primal side of Talbot, we want to unleash the beast on some level, but a good dramatic film also makes us regret that feeling as it means the people in his life will suffer.  The female in the Wolfman is about as bland as can be...the audience doesn't think she's ever in real danger, and even if she was, why would we care???  There's no sense of attachment at all!!

Finally, there's the monster himself.  Kong 2005 features a neutered version of Kong.  A giant ape that's a vegetarian, love-sick puppy, is a distant shadow of the original, part ape, part man, carnivorous, primal beast that was the original Kong.  Again, the film-makers opted for realism and they only ended up watering down the mythic qualities of what made the original Kong so special.

In the Wolfman, the beast is a beserker, which is great visually as it allows us all sorts of gory visera, BUT...it's not really keeping with werewolf myths and common sense.  If werewolves always killed 10 plus people a night, there'd be no one left in Europe as something that viscous would continue to kill, and continue to spread its curse to others.  I feel that the Wolfman remake is closer in spirit to the original Wolfman than the Kong remake is to Kong, but it would have been nice if the Wolfman only killed a person or so a night.  The lack of kills would make each one more powerful, and would have allowed for some very suspenseful moments as the Wolfman stalks his prey.  Now, I know there'd still need to be a big finale...so why didn't they have the hunters trying to kill the Wolfman as the finale??  It'd allow for a big scene of carnage, while still staying a little more true to the character.  The original Wolfman WOULD attacks his pursuers when provoked.

All in all...these films are gigantic disapointments to me.  Maybe I like The Mummy remake more, because I've always found the original films to be boring, whereas, I LOVE the original versions of, The Wolfman and King Kong.

[Unknown Primate]

... you can't just have The Wolfman politely strangling his victims. 

I still think the original Wolf Man is digging & ripping his claws into his victim's throats as he puts the strangle on them!  At least, in my monster world! 

[The Creeper]

I still think the original Wolf Man is digging & ripping his claws into his victim's throats as he puts the strangle on them!  At least, in my monster world! 

In my world too Mark!

[Unknown Primate]

 

[king_ghidorah]

Mine as well...but anways, I was just trying to say that type of shot wouldn't work so much in today's movies. 

[Unknown Primate]

Oh, you're absolutely right!  It would look just so tame nowadays, audience goers would be like, "What?  Where's the gore?".

[werewolfwoman]

i loved the original wolfman and feel the new one doesn't take away from my of the new one.  Where you see the characters as boring, i saw the performances as subtle, no overacting or hokey one liners. The new Mummy film was more like an action movie and had even less character development. I felt invested in the new wolfman's character. Del Toros's Talbot was controlled and sad which served to contrast the rage and brutality of the werewolf.
I also like the twist of having two werewolves, they showed the doomed  tragic fated characters. The battling estranged tragic family held all sorts of resonance in dealing with the sins of the father and fear of becoming our parents. The new wolfman was a modern take on Gothic horror. I also felt the final werewolf battle was fantastic and brutal.

The back story of the wolfman was that Sir John got infected by a feral boy in India or somewhere like it and so it would seem like he could possibly be the only westerner werewolf. People weren't killed in droves because he used to lock himself up but due to the fact he murdered his son he lost what was left of his sanity and refused to lock himself up after that. That is why he killed so many people in the beginning of the movie and yes i guess overtime if he lived many more people would have died. Laurance's transformed in the middle of london and went on a rampage and didn't have the opportunity to lock himself up like his father had for years before.
In  the original Wolfman, the wolfman would kill whoever he came across, that wasn't very many people. In new movie the body count was upped due to the fact the wolfman attacked a gypsy camp and a hunting party.
I think the acting was subtle and Del Toro mad many expressions that reminded me of Chaney Jr.  I thought the wolfman had a good build up and i like the contrast of  a man who desperately tried to maintain control versus the berserker nature of the werewolf. The werewolf is the id embodied and wouldn't the Id be incredibly monstrous?

as far as the new Kong movie i wasn't a really big fan of it. I don't think the wolfman needed humor it would be hokey or out of place with the gothic horror elements of the film, it was supposed to be heavy and dark. The new Mummy was all flash and superficial one liners and don't get me started on the god awful sequels. I think the new wolfman is leaps and bounds better than the Mummy which i think was an action movie with Mummy window dressing. Also the wolfman practical effects were amazing compared to the fully CGI Mummy.    back at ya

[AlwaysWitty]

There always was two werewolves. Still, it seemed pretty clear to me that the film was, while truly a remake of The Wolfman, deliberately borrowing elements from Werewolf of London.

[king_ghidorah]

The Wolfman's characters were so subtle as to be non-existant my friend lol. 

And yes, The Wolfman is an id but I'll disagree with you in that I don't think it's compelling for the Wolfman to kill whole swarms of people each night.  Yes, rage is part of that Id we mentioned, but so is just wanting to be left alone, to run free through the night.  The Wolfman would certainly kill you if he came across you...and he has to hunt at least once each transformation...I just think that it's a little much when he destroys a whole gypsy village in one night. 

And I think the whole sub-plot revloving the elder Talbot was just stupid.  I groaned in the theater when ol' pa werewolf started to change.  And I also HATED the sub-plot revolving around Talbot Jr. growing up in an asylum, being tortured ect.  He was already messed up to begin with before the werewolf bite!! I prefer what the original film did...taking a charming, good natured man and then showing this primal side to him. 

I can go on forever...I HATE this film.  Pure Garbage, and I mean...even the director admited this recently.  I'm just confused how any of you can like this film, but to each their own I guess. 

[zombiehorror]

I groaned in the theater when ol' pa werewolf started to change.

It took you that long to groan!?  It was obvious that that was where this film was headed way before pops started changing!

[king_ghidorah]

Lol I knew someone would raise that point.  No, it was very, very obvious the entire film.  I was just hopeful that when they finally revealed it..that it wouldn't look so bad or cheesy.  I was wrong.  BIG TIME

[werewolfwoman]

There always was two werewolves. Still, it seemed pretty clear to me that the film was, while truly a remake of The Wolfman, deliberately borrowing elements from Werewolf of London.

I totally agree about the elements of werewolf of london, especially in the back story of the fathers travels instead of a search for a rare flower, he was hunting exotic game. I also thought the scene where Del Toro was walking along the moors on his way to the final confrontation with his father, had  the look of  Werewolf of london. And yes- there was two werewolves in the original