DVD Review: Classic Horror with The Wolf Man - Page 2

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

Later that night, as fate would have it, Larry is bitten by a werewolf when he tries to save Gwen's friend from an attack by what he thinks is a wolf. Maleva, the Gypsy crone (the sublime Maria Ouspenskaya) tells him that her son (Bela Lugosi) was a werewolf, and now he, too, is cursed. Lugosi, in his role as Bela the Gypsy, has only seven lines to say, but makes the most of it. Which is kind of ironic when you think that he finally gets a role after Dracula that makes good use of his singular accent. Lugosi originally wanted to play the lead role, but that would have made an even more incongruent relationship between Sir John and Larry, so he was offered the key role of werewolf catalyst instead.

Sure enough, Larry soon succumbs to his curse of lycanthropy, and starts seeing pentagrams — the mark of death — on the hands of those he loves. His father doesn't believe any of this superstitious nonsense, but people start dying when Larry changes into the Wolf Man and goes on the prowl.

Universal, wanting another memorable monster to add to their A-list, changed the initial ambiguity of the script, which left the audience wondering whether Larry was a real werewolf or just thought he was one, and had Jack Pierce take his previous, more human-like makeup for Henry Hull in Werewolf of London and go hog-wild with it here.

Pierce's unique stylization makes the werewolf come alive with a feral humanity sorely missing in today's CGI-generated lycanthropic concoctions. The painstaking lap dissolve process that appears for seconds on screen actually took hours of laborious filming as layers of yak hair were applied to Chaney's face and photographed. During the procedure, Chaney had to lie very still and in the same position, and probably would have loved to take a bite out of Pierce during the process. But the ground-breaking end result is worth it, and the procedure improved in the course of subsequent films.

The mist-enshrouded forest set, designed by Jack Otterson, with its gnarled tree limbs and unnatural, dark landscape, gives The Wolf Man a claustrophobic and surreal tone of brooding isolation, and provides the perfect stage for Larry Talbot as he struggles against his estrangement from the townspeople, his father, and his crumbling peace of mind and normal way of life.

Heightening this feeling of dread and pacing the tension well, the now familiar music — which was subsequently used in many Universal movies including the Sherlock Holmes series — with its ominous, tri-toned opening beat followed by precipitous drum rolls, alarming horns, and emotive strings, is a classy addition to the modest production and enhances the action scenes as well as the quieter moments of impending doom.

Article Author: ILoz Zoc

Founder of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTT D), expiring writer of Zombos Closet of Horror Blog, and valet to Zombos, the noted B-movie horror actor (to his few remaining and decaying fans).

Visit ILoz Zoc's author page — ILoz Zoc's Blog