We watched the Blu-ray of The Wolfman. It's the 2010 remake, directed by Joe Johnston. He's a guy who got started working effects on the Star Wars movies then in the late 90's started directing with Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. He followed that with The Rocketeer and Jumanji. I like several of his movies. He's only made a few films and he's working on the new Captain America movie now. Benicio Del Toro plays Lawrence Talbot, an actor working in London in 1891. That's one of the first big changes from the original. That movie was made in 1941 and seems to be set in about the same time period. They use cars. In the 2010 movie Emily Blunt plays Benicio's brother's wife. She comes to see him telling of the missing brother and appealing for his help. He refuses but next scene he's on the train to Blackmoor, a small town in the English countryside. Anthony Hopkins plays Benicio's dad and he lives in a big old house. It's pretty cool looking. That's the house in the movie on the left and Chatsworth House as it normally looks on the right. The whole movie has that dreary look to it.
Benicio learns on his arrival that his brother was found dead. His body was savaged by some beast and the locals blame the dancing bear at the gypsy camp. They are staying near the town offering their brand of entertainment. Benicio, now on a quest to find out what happened to his 
brother, drops in to check things out. He's visiting with the gypsy fortune teller when the local angry townspeople show up looking to kill the bear. During the angry confrontation the werewolf blasts through the place slicing up everyone who gets in his path. Benicio gets chomped on and stays in bed for a month. He rises a day or so before the full moon. The night of the full moon Benicio learns the truth and he changes into a werewolf. He goes out killing and next morning his father leads the police to him. Incarcerated he's given electroshock and dunked in a pool filled with icy water to help cure his 
delusions. Little do they know. During the month Benicio is chained up in the Asylum his father comes to visit and more truth is revealed. Daddy's a dick. The doctor, a smug bastard who likes his torture therapy and doesn't believe in werewolves, gets his when Benicio wolfs out and tosses him through a window. He's impaled on a spikey fence and the werewolf runs about London. Hugo Weaving plays the Scotland Yard inspector who is pretty much useless against a superpowered werewolf. Benicio heads home for a final confrontation with daddy.
I enjoyed it more than most remakes I have seen. I'd watch it again. It's dark and moody and pretty cool looking. It reminds me of the 30's Universal movies, which I am a fan of. It sounds like the unrated version is the better version to watch. Might explain why the theatrical didn't do as well as it might. Not very many good reviews and some haters over at the IMDb didn't like it too much but it scores well with people in general racking up a 6.2. That might be a little low. The score is a bit noisey but it's Danny Elfman. I'll have to keep an eye out for it when it gets cheaper.
Sperhauk found a cheap copy of a 4 pack of low budget horror movies, all of which were produced by Sam Katzman. We watched Zombies of Mora Tau. It's a 1957 movie directed by Edward Cahn. He directed 131 pictures between 1931 and 1962. I've seen a few of them but not many. Invasion of the Saucer Men, The She-Creature and IT! The Terror From Beyond Space stand out. ZOMT shares a story element with The Wolfman (and many others). A son, or granddaughter in this case, arrives home after a long absence and gets caught up with monsters. Autumn Russell stars as the girl who returns home. Sam the chauffer picks her up and on the drive to her grandmother's house hits a man in the road. Autumn gets all bent out of shape even after he tells her that it was no man. Her grandmother welcomes her home and explains it really was 
no man. It was a zombie. It takes a while to make Autumn believe that the zombies are real. Some treasure hunters show up in a ship. They are after the diamonds. The stones were stolen by some sailors about 60 years before. They went crazy and many of them were killed. The zombies were born out of that mess and all these years later, unable to rest, they are still guarding the diamonds, which are in the safe in the hold of a sunken ship. Five other expeditions have taken a crack at the jewels and all they got for their trouble was a free grave with a blank wooden cross to mark their passing.
Once the zombies trip to the treasure hunters presence they start attacking, both on land and under the water. They kidnap Autumn and there's a bit of a rescue. The zombies have a nice clean crypt with matching coffins. The noisey, ignorant wife of the boss man is kidnapped and turned into a zombie. Still not listening to grandmother they bring the wife back to the house. They aren't a clever bunch that's for sure. There's some diving action and the underwater effects aren't too bad for such a low budget film. 
They have to use those old diving suits since scuba wasn't readily available in those days. There's more running about and fighting the zombies. The zombies are super human in strength but they are afraid of fire. Why didn't they just burn them? Not sure but grandmother says they can only be released from their curse if the diamonds are destroyed, so maybe you can't destroy them that way. It's not a great script. The diamonds are recovered from the safe and that causes more trouble. Grandmother eventually "destroys" the diamond in a pretty dumb scene at the end of the movie. Not your best film but one that's worth a gander for the fan of such things. The dvd has three other fun films which we probably will get around too. I picked up dvdr copies of three of them from Turner Classic Movies a while back but who knows when they will return. I'd buy the dvd if I spotted it cheap too. The quality of the transfer was pretty good, there are some trailers and short films tossed in the two disc set.
Comments