‘It’s not wolves, it’s Wolfen…’
There is no doubting that 1981 was the year of the werewolf. March saw the release of Joe Dante’s The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London, the greatest werewolf movie of them all, dropped in August of that same year. In a case of unfortunate timing, sandwiched between those two classics, Wolfen apologetically shuffled out under moonlight in the July. Unfortunately, it will always be remembered as the third-best werewolf movie of 1981…
Now, I must be honest at this juncture, dear reader. I watched Wolfen while recovering from a nightmarish bout of tonsillitis that resulted in an abscess and copious amounts of codeine consumption. As a result of this, I am perhaps unable to offer the kind of comprehensive review that people have come to expect of me. What’s that? You don’t expect a comprehensive review? Well, whatever low expectations you already have, I’m going to have to ask you to lower them even further. I’ve probably got no business writing a review for a film that I watched in a drug-induced haze in the first place if we’re being honest with ourselves, but in the spirit of gonzo journalism, I feel I must persevere.
Albert Finney is in this film. He’s great. He is a great werewolf. Was he a werewolf in the end? It’s difficult to say. He certainly looked like one. While The Howling and An American Werewolf… are both known for their incredible transformation sequences, Wolfen is known for pioneering the same in-camera effect to portray the subjective POV of a monster that would later become iconic in the Predator franchise. It’s effective here too. Unlike most werewolf movies, this one also has actual wolves in it.
And that’s it. That’s all I’ve got to offer. If you came to this review excited to read my in-depth analysis on an underrated lupin classic (what’s wrong with you?), then I can only apologise. For everyone else, go easy on the codeine, kids.
