Blood and Chocolate

This movie was based, and I use the term loosely, on a novel written in 1999 of the same name by Annette Curtis Klause. If you have images of Lon Chaney Jr. (the original Wolfman) in your head when you go see this movie, you can just leave that thought at the door. It is not happening in this movie. This is a werewolf movie that will not distract you with, ahhhhhhh, werewolves. Everyone is either a human or a wolf with a couple of seconds of glowing to depict the change. God bless Jack Pierce and what can be done with a little bit of yak hair.

On the movie's homepage, it is noted that "the filmmakers were intent upon avoiding a negative depiction of the loup garoux and the obvious trappings of the horror genre." They did this by building up the history of the werewolves as an ancient race trying to avoid men, and not necessarily all that evil (YAWNNNN). The basic plot line involves Vivian the cute werewolf love interest, played by Agnes Bruckner, falling for human comic book artist Aiden, played by Hugh Dancy, which pisses off the head of the werewolves Gabriel, Olivier Martinez (the guy who gets his head bashed in with a snow globe in Unforgiven from a couple of years back). The movie does play the Romeo (humans) and Juliet (werewolves) angle up, but the movie doesn't quite have the gravitas of West Side Story (and none of the music and very little of the dancing). I kept waiting for the touching werewolf moment where a werewolf holds the boom box above his head while "In Your Eyes" blares out through the window of the bedroom of the confused heroine, but alas it never happened (or maybe even Beach Blanket Werewolf).

So this movie tries to have it both ways, as a scary movie and as a modern update to a fairy tale. It doesn't really succeed on either count. It is not particularly scary, and the attempt to build up a mythology comes off as more labored than interesting. If you are in the mood to see a horror movie you might want to go see something else. If you are in the mood to see a more fairy tale type werewolf-friendly-take on the subject, you might want to check this out (I mean if you have NOTHING else to do). The movie is extremely well cast, and the cast does well with the little they were given to work with. It was really hard to tell if Agnes Buckner can act or not, because all she does is look stern in this movie, like she is watching your hand reach for her only Snickers bar. Oliver Martinez has such a distinctive voice that you could listen to him say just about anything and be interested. The love interest part of the movie actually takes up only seconds of rolling around in the grass, and because of this we never buy into the Romeo/Juliet thing. Also it is NEVER a good idea while eating at a sidewalk cafe to catch a young girl's attention by yelling out at her "Hey Wolf Girl". I have tried this before, and I can safely say it does not work. It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. Go with something more catchy like "Hey Cutie" or "What's Shaking" or "Do you happen to have a snow globe on you" instead. Now that I think of it, maybe RCA will find that long lost Elvis outtake "Hey Wolf Girl" from Clambake and bury it on another greatest hits album:

Hey pretty wolfgirl walking down the lane
Why did you jump on that wall, it looked real strange
With your scary howl, you make me shake my knees,
By the way, did you dust for fleas?

The dialogue is pretty lame overall, and the filmmakers lost a chance to pull us into the story. Is Children of Men still playing in the next theater?

You can write James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com