Continuing the horror film reviews that this month has inspired, next in line to be looked at is 1941’s The Wolfman starring Lon Chaney Jr. The classic tale of man becoming beast, of superstition spitting in the face of sense, of the mind controlling all matter is often regarded as one of Universal’s strongest horror films, and continues to hold a firm place in the consciousness of the film industry. Easily recognizable and imitated constantly, it’s earned its place as the greatest werewolf film. But its grand reputation aside, one must ask if this movie worth the time of a modern audience, and to answer that question, I must give a resounding, proud and mighty: MAYBE.
This film has a story that is completely equal in its iconic status as its horror films comrades. However, this film’s story has a feature that sets it somewhat above the others- it actually feels kind of layered. Other films of the era suffer from being extremely shallow and two dimensional, a simple story of black and white, good vs. evil. Wolfman though, doesn’t have this. It is the story of Larry Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr., who comes to a town that’s exceedingly superstitious of a monster a werewolf, a man who becomes a beast, and attacks people at night. Larry is bitten by a wolf, and begins to be infected by the disease. It’s up to Larry to control this monster, lest he be killed or worse yet, fall into his own madness. The story has many dimensions to it, Larry’s transformation, the perception of his thoughts as mad, the culture of the city he’s in, and what it means to be cursed to the cursed person and the one’s their close to. The story really works, and delivers in all of these areas. It is really quite well developed, something you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a horror film from this era.
I wish the highly developed story could have translated to the characters moving around in it. The characters are just forgettable, even the ones that should have been interesting, like Larry or his father. While Larry’s madness and transformation are easy to remember, his lack of personality makes him rather difficult to remember as a person, not just as a theme. And none of the other characters have any real impact….there just there, either to yell and scream, or to get attacked by the wolfman. The emotional disconnection to the characters is a rather great detractor, and though it doesn’t take away the film’s appeal, it just makes it somewhat forgettable. The actors have to deal with this issue at its worst. No one gives a bad performance, Lon Chaney Jr. in fact, does a fantastic job as the monster and as Larry Talbot, but with nothing for the cast to work with character wise, what else can they do except just be on screen?
This film is rather mixed on the grounds of pure cinematic appeal. The atmosphere of terror that fills most of the other classic horror films is present, but in far weaker amounts than what one would hope. While never supplying absolute scares, the other Universal films are great at creating a sense of foreboding and building terror, something Wolfman doesn’t do a good job of unfortunately. The make up for the wolfman looks fantastic, but just loses a lot of meaning when the film just isn’t very scary. It does a good job of being a fun Halloween film, but just doesn’t have the charm that most others have.
The Wolfman should be seen by every horror fan that is without a doubt. However, who can say if they will enjoy it? It’s far less absolute than say, “Dracula” or “Creature from the Black Lagoon”. Overall, the film is a fun watch. There are better horror films, but this is a pretty good one.
Final Rank:B-
+good effects, great story and themes, and well done performances
– forgettable characters, lacks pure chills of its classic monster brethren
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