Werewolf by Night 2022

[8.2/10] This was a pleasant surprise! I didn’t really know what to expect from Werewolf By Night. I knew it was a bit of a B-movie horror throwback, but that’s about it. And it turned out that Michael Giacchino’s directorial debut was spectacular, delivering on that updated Grindhouse premise in spades.

I particularly loved the moody suspense of this one. This being a Marvel Studios-affiliated production, there’s certainly a good quotient of action here. But unexpectedly, the special moves at a very measured pace, spending time with its characters as they skulk through spooky spaces, or sit and drink in a particular moment. It gives the audience time to sit on the edge of their seat rather than just leap from action set piece to action set piece, and helps evoke the particular vibe that Giacchino and company are going for.

That one is legitimately scary but also endearingly campy. On the one hand, Werewolf By Night has a certain Rocky Horror vibe to it – not nearly as subversive, but also reveling in its shopworn, theatrical energy. The collection of garish ghoul-hunters, monologuing about kills or betrayals or the macguffin du jour – a much desired magical gem called the heart of stone – has a certain outsized joie de vivre to it that really clicks and makes this a fun special to watch from beginning to end.

At the same time, it’s legitimately scary in places. The early section of the piece features a spooky Battle Royale/Hunger Games/Squid Game riff, with a pack of monster hunters unleashed on a Halloweenie playscape where they’re hunting a prized monster, and one another, in hopes of winning the jeweled reward. The sense of ominousness as they peek around corners, with deliberately-paced scenes, until some ghoul or foe pops up to disturb the peace, keeps the suspense high and takes the scare factor along with it.

At the same time, those steadily unfurling sequences allow Giacchino’s score (that’s right, he pulls double duty here) to shine as well. The music tends to be sparse yet eerie, using a low-pitched horn or the usual unnerving strings to set you up for the big crescendo. Naturally for a music supervisor turned film director, his sonic bursts and melodic traps dovetail perfectly with the visuals.

The special does let the beast out of the cage now and again, with Jack, the titular werewolf having a chilling transformation rendered largely in shadow and strobe light, with only the reaction of his unlikely companion, Elsa, and the grisly sound of the change, to heighten the terror of what we cannot see.

That's good, because once we do see Werewolf Jack, he looks a bit silly. Despite the fearsome but cuddly look of Ted, Jack’s mini-Cthulhu-esque pal, the fully-transformed Jack looks more like a character out of Cats than a friend to an Eldritch abomination. But that’s in keeping with the special’s B-movie homage charms, and what the make-up job lacks in visual splendor, the special makes up for with a horrifyingly awesome one-take hallway fight that shows how agile and terrifying Jack can be when his beastly form is unleashed.

I feel comfortable knocking the werewolf look because the rest of the movie’s makeup, costuming, and set design is exquisite. The characters aren’t really developed outside of Jack, Elsa, and Elsa’s evil stepmother. So giving them cool looks suffices for character in the monster mash battle royale. From a Viking berserker type, to an ersatz Blade, to a cool-haired wrist-archer, to a David Bowie-esque huntress, the special can get by on the cool factor alone. The same goes for Elsa’s Jessica Jones-style emo girl look, Jack’s Billie Joe Armstrong-esque punk markings, and Elsa’s stepmother’s grand dame of the night get-up. All look perfect, and sell the misfit vibe of the whole piece.

The same is true of the set design. The production strikes a nice middle ground between seeming theatrical and seeming real enough to pass the sniff test. There’s a giant spooky toybox feel to the whole thing, with layers and turns in a garden maze, and a taxidermized monster central lair that makes you want to hang out in these spaces on Halloween. The black and white cinematography accentuates it all, letting the eerie lighting and sidewinding shadows take center stage.

The story is no great shakes, but sound enough to meet the film’s needs. The sense of Jack trying to infiltrate this group of monster bounty hunters, but only to protect his friend, gives him a solid motivation. Elsa’s return as the prodigal daughter, with a desire to rebel and rid herself of her father’s legacy works s the same. Their unexpected alliance leads to a nice exchange about what family means that’s well-written. And the way it leads to a bond between the two of them, with a connection that allows Elsa to avoid even the monstrous incarnation of Jack’s claws, is nice place to land.

Overall though, this is simply a cool setting and setup to spend an hour or so with around the spooky season. It’s rare to see film balance its tone so expertly, leaning into the artifice of its presentation with style and spooky flair out the wazoo, while still managing to affect the audience with its exquisite craft and archetypal figures. It’s cool to see more of these out there experiments from Marvel Studios’, and if they’d like to keep dipping in the well of their more horror-focused comics, especially with Giacchino in tow, I’m certainly here for it.

While you could have filled the runtime to a feature length by fleshing out the other hunters a bit more, it still works great as a 53m special, dropping you right into the middle of this story and the community, with the carnivalesque grotesqueness of the hunt to determine who will wield the bloodstone. The mix of black and white and scratchy film grain gave it this great mix of old school classic, and grindhouse rawness, especially with the premise coming straight out of the cheese classic The Beast Must Die. Yeah, there's no surprise to Gael Garcia Bernal being the werewolf, even beyond acknowledgements in the marketing, but the story still unfolded with some great surprises (Ted!), Laura Donnelly is a fantastic take on Elsa Bloodstone, the magnificent Harriet Sanso Harris is chewing for the fences, and the hunters have some surprising faces like the always distinct Eugenie Bondurant, and frequent Muppet movie director Kirk Thatcher. It's gritty, lively, exciting, and quite funny at times, and is a really strong debut to what I hear will be a whole line of Marvel one-shots. Which, honestly, is a perfect format for certain characters. Dad and I are hoping we get a Dark Shadows style Tomb of Dracula next Halloween!