Marvel Hall-o-ween-Hall-o-Watch: Werewolf By Night (2022)

Watched:  10/10/2022

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  (checks notes)  Michael Giacchino.  Huh.

This fit the dictionary definition of "fine".  I'm not mad I watched it, I wasn't against what the story was trying to do, but as pal JAL rightfully pointed out, the Marvel machinery seems to have taken over for a portion of the film, and I'm not sure it was to the movie's benefit.  

Werewolf By Night is no one's favorite thing in comics, and if I'm tracing the lineage correctly, the character (Jack Russell, which surely is someone @#$%ing about) appeared in 1972 at what I'm assuming was part of the 1970's monster explosion as classic horror became hip for kids again.  But, also, the Comics Code was no longer nun-teacher strict about rules, and things like "no vampirism, no werewolfism" were stricken from the code.  

This thing is a kind of neat experiment by Marvel - making essentially a TV special that works much in the same way we used to get both the famous kids' stuff like Charlie Brown, but also some older-skewing fare.  Werewolf By Night is maybe 45 minutes, has a more humble budget than, say, Endgame, and exists as a fun holiday treat.  But it's Marvel, so it's also opening the door to the weird and horrific corners of the Marvel U from whence we get Blade the Vampire Hunter (still in development), actual Dracula, but also fellows like Man-Thing.  

But as a 45 minute, moderately budgeted film, it's also led by a first time director in Michael Giacchino, who you know as one of the current wave of actually very talented film scorers.  Why direct?  I have no idea.  But I do think, the oddball impact is that you can see what rails Marvel clearly puts around directors as a support system and to ensure certain bits of quality are maintained.  But, in this case, I'd say that's where the film gets away from them.

The film has the vibe of someone trying to borrow from Universal horror pictures who doesn't actually know what made up the 1930's and 40's Universal cycle of horror's look and feel.  It is definitely in black and white (which some Marvel horror was in the 1970's, natch), but it lacks a certainly visual moodiness and the weight of scenes moored by cameras the weight of an automobile.  I am not insisting that anyone shoot everything in American shots for 45 minutes on grainy film, but continuous camera movement is not how Tod Browning and James Whale were shooting movies.  It lacks the expressionistic ethos or methods used in both Universal and RKO horror - ie: anyone can turn down color-gradient, not everyone knows what to do next.  

Personally, I always wish they'd at least... try?  But assuming your average Disney+ subscriber would be jazzed about adherence to methods of a century prior is probably immensely wrong-headed . So... it's fine.  This wasn't made for me, specifically.  But it has the feeling of "this entire set is neon, just like everything was in the 1990's if my 30 year old memories of Nickelodeon shows are correct".  

That established as set and mood, it's time to move on to the story - which is: a league of monster hunters has seen the death of their champion, who wielded the famed Bloodstone.  They will enter a maze and do battle with a monster specially captured for this event, and whomever wins claims the Bloodstone and title of head monster-killer-guy for themselves.  The stone contains particular but largely undefined super-powers and sure is a thing weirdos want.

Like all good Universal Monsters (minus Dracula) it's less the monsters who are the problem and more the people.  One of those people is the estranged daughter of the dead Ulysses Bloodstone, Elsa, and another the un-fun step-mother of Elsa, Verussa.  

SPOILERS

The monster being hunted is Man-Thing, Marvel's precursor to The Swamp Thing and a cool idea no one ever seems to use well for two months consecutively in the comics.  He looks amazing!  If smaller than I'd expected.  Neat!  And with decidedly more personality than I'm used to, honestly.

I was more or less onboard with everything but once the movie kicked into "he's a werewolf now" sround the 38th minute...  it feels like Giacchino just handed the project over to Marvel's stunt coordinators and DPs.  We'd seen some unpromising Black Widow rip-off moves earlier, and in this sequence - I was not expecting Kung-Fu Werewolf.  Like...  it felt weird and unmotivated.  He was moving more like a lemur than a wolf or beast.  I can definitely be okay with Wolf-Man makeup, thought it seems odd to do so when that was always more or less an artifact of limitations of make-up in 1941.  He's mostly comics-accurate and that's fine.

But, yeah, it just sort of spiraled into a normal Marvel fight thing with some added blood.  It feels like it really, really missed a chance to do something *different* for the final fight, something frightening and maybe put the audience on edge about whether it was actually okay to root for a lumbering werebeast.  It flat-out feels like a missed opportunity to do something unique for Marvel, with a not-really-a-battle and remind people: this is a horror movie/ comic.  It would have been interesting to see what happens when you have a room full of people who don't have a silver bullet between them taking on a clawed and fanged juggernaut with every bestial advantage (ie:  you've made a terrible mistake), not see a monkey-ish dude bop about like a fuzzy Moon Knight.

It didn't *ruin* it for me.  I think the players were good, the overall tone all right, the set-up and overall story kind of delightful.  And while I know everything at Marvel is really a set-up for something else, it was closed off enough at the end to feel complete while also making me curious for what else was in this world.

But I wish it felt like there was slightly more vision to it and it didn't, as JAL pointed out, default to Marvelness quite so often.