The Wolfman, Universal Pictures’ remake of the 1941 classic, is a taut backlot tram tour of a dour, sunless 1880s England, complete with cobweb-infested castles, fog-filled cemeteries and forests, and topped with blood-soaked werewolves that would make the phony Lycans in the Twilight Saga quiver in their own puppy piddle. Simply put, The Wolfman is a devilishly fun haunted house thrill ride, only with more severed limbs, decapitations, popped out eyes, disembowelments and torn flesh.
The movie opens, like the original, with the poem:
Even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.
And then we happen upon Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt) writing a letter to Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), asking him to return to his childhood home of Blackmoor to aide in the search for his brother, her fiancé. Lawrence, a stage actor who, since leaving home, has been living in New York City, leaves London immediately. When he arrives at Blackmoor he is greeted by his father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), and is told his brother’s body was found. But we already know this because we saw his face slashed and his stomach torn open by a werewolf. Lawrence tells Gwen he won’t rest until he figures out what happened to his brother.


I’ve been tepid thus far on my anticipation of and my desire to see The Wolfman, but this new, edgier, darker trailer has piqued my interest enough that I have circled February 12, 2010 on my calendar. Not literally, of course. I’m not that nerdy, but you get my point.
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