Wolf
(Region 2 Columbia Tristar DVD)
(1994)
review by Billion$Baby

This is such a cool fucking movie. Rick Baker provides more werewolf make-up effects for us, only this time around, the werewolves run and leap around on two legs. The make-up work is a tribute to the old Lon Chaney Jr werewolf flicks and it makes a nice change from what we saw Baker deliver in An American Werewolf In London. Those make-ups range from the subtle to the full-on where'd I put my razor? phases. Besides that, any film which features a werewolf duel at the very end will always get the double thumbs up from me.

Wolf has a witty script and it's directed by Mike Nichols of fully deserved The Graduate fame. Add Morricone's score, Jack Nicholson, James Spader and Michelle Pfieffer to the mix and gets pretty exciting. Pfieffer doesn't actually do much in this film other than look pretty...but hey, she's always good at that. Spader is in his oft seen 'completely slimey ass-kissing shit who can't be trusted' mode, and as for Nicholson, he's a decent businessman type becoming more and more ruthless as he turns into a werewolf.

Christ, with a line-up and premise like that, the film just can't go wrong! Will Randall (Nicholson) is bitten by a wolf in Vermont on March the 8th, a night when the moon was full and the closest that it had been to the earth in 100 years. Next thing you know, Jack Nicholson starts turning into Wolverine with heightened senses, new abilities and animal instincts. The marking of territory scene where Nicholson pisses on his rival's shoes and trousers or his frank put-down of Pfeiffer on their peanut butter lunch encounter is highly amusing stuff but it's definetly the wolfman sequences which stand out.

BTW Here's a tip for criminals, NEVER try to mug a werewolf.

Bad points? There's an incredibly embarassing and piss-poor Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers) cameo which sucks on a level I never actually thought possible. Quite how Scales' rubbish cameo earned her a mention in the film's opening credits is fully beyond me. Oh, and there's a bit where Nicholson's oh so English secretary says "It's about fucking time sir" in her oh so English voice. Hmmm. Other than those two brief niggles, it's all cool. It's not that violent and there are some sequences where it's blatantly obvious that it was filmed on a set but I find that only adds to the charm and reminds you even more of earlier classics like The Wolf Man.

This region 2 dvd is cack. The anamorphic print is rather grainy all of the way through and the alleged 5.1 sound is so bland that it might as well just be called stereo. You get a full-screen trailer as your
only extra. Wowee Zowee. What a poor release. Oddly enough there's a scene in that trailer which isn't in the actual movie with Nicholson blathering on about Mexican independance day in a kitchen somewhere. Very strange. This tribute to days of old werewolf film needs a much better release than this.

If I was writing a school report card for Columbia Tristar, it would read like this, "Must do better, Columbia doesn't pay enough attention in the classroom and needs to put much more effort in to get any recognition amongst the other hard working students." I'd put Columbia on six weeks detention and tell her to go stand in the corner with the other class dunce, Paramount.