Halloween Classics III

Hi there, welcome back to my little series where I yammer on about classic horror movies. Next up is 1941's "The Wolf Man," another Universal classic. I have a soft spot for werewolf movies since there's been this long running joke about me being a werewolf. I have no memory of how it started, but it stuck ... personally I think it's my sideburns and my overall sexy hairiness. Anyway, how does this early werewolf movie stack up to the shirtless weirdo in that teenybopper series? Read on to find out.

"The Wolf Man" is a classic werewolf story, I mean if you've seen one you've seen them all right? Well as far as plot goes sure, but werewolf movies aren't exactly about their plot are they? I mean a man is bitten by a wolf out in the wilderness, but as it turns out it's a werewolf. This dude doesn't believe in such crazy shit, that is until he starts waking up in tattered clothes with wolf tracks leading from his window. He'd like to think his transformations are just a dream, but an expert on the subject is always there to school him. There's a love interest who's willing to overlook the werewolf thing for love, but we know how the story ends, the werewolf has to die. It's been seen in everything from "The Wolf Man" to "An American Werewolf in London" (Best transformation scene ever btw) to even stuff like "Buffy" and "Supernatural," which take the same story and turn it on it's head.

There's the plot of every werewolf movie, so what's the big deal? If the plot isn't why you watch them, then what is? There's a couple of reasons actually. The first is technical, werewolves look badass, hello, so werewolf movies are a chance for makeup artists and filmmakers to show off like the studs they are. And here "The Wolf Man" certainly shines. Jack Pierce's makeup is brilliant and completely mental. He hits that balance that Disney got with the Beast, sure he's frightening, but you also kinda want to rub his belly and play catch with him ... or is that just me? Also, he kind of looks like me, if I grew a beard ... and hair on my entire forehead. Another big scene everyone looks for is the transformation scene, and for the time they did a pretty good job. I mean you can't go in expecting "An American Werewolf in London" what the hell is wrong with you? Basically you see Lon Chaney's legs get progressively hairier, then cut to: Oh my god a puppy!

Bawr!

Lon Chaney is also a really likable character. Even though he starts out the gate with some of the most painful flirting I've ever seen (seriously, I'm surprised she didn't call the cops), by the end I grew to really like the guy. Another reason werewolf stories are so compelling is that you see a man (or woman) swept up in events that are completely out of their control. They kill without realizing it, and have to deal with that weight. Good werewolf films are more about this inner turmoil than anything else. In fact they could almost be interpreted as abstract psychological thrillers. Am I reaching too far?

No, I'm not, actually this brings me to what I liked the most about this movie, which is how open ended it was, especially for the times. For those of you that havent given werewolves much thought, they have an obvious literary purpose. When humans began civilizing themselves, stories of werewolves started showing up. In fact, the first recorded version of "Little Red Riding Hood" involves a werewolf and is a lot more ... adult (if you know what I mean). Werewolves exemplify our base instincts, our animal sides if you will. A man who's normal during most days but with a little moonlight in his blood turns into an animal that eats his enemies and humps the leg of any pretty young thing? Try to not read that as your friend whose a total gentleman until he drinks too much. Or try not to read that as those darker instincts bubbling inside us. No matter how civilized we become, there's a part of us that still wants to run wild, eat raw meat, and fuck everything that moves. Don't even pretend like there's not.

This is what it's like to date me.

Now why the fuck am I blabbing about this crap? I'm not just putting that Folklore class I took as a senior to good use. No, this movie spent most of it's time making these very same points. Hell a character even let that Little Red Riding Hood tidbit slip. The character's go on and on about how the werewolf is just a representative of our darker sides, that possibly with the right influences a person might actually believe he was a werewolf, when in reality he was just acting out his base instincts. And when the movie ended I was left wondering if Chaney really was a werewolf, it's amazing to me that a horror movie from 1941 had such academic insight, and set things up for alternate interpretations.

Why was I left wondering? Let me tell you. Chaney hears a woman screaming in the woods and runs to her aid and he sees a wolf attacking her. Note it's actually a wolf, not a wolf man, and he beats the fucker to death but gets bit in the process. He isn't in time to save the woman, and police don't find a wolf at the scene, they find the woman and a gypsy (Bela fucking Lugosi, seriously). The police theorize that it was dark and foggy so Chaney only thought he saw a wolf. Now with all this talk of werewolves, having killed a gypsy, and being fucked with by the gypsy's mother, Chaney starts to believe he's a werewolf, and starts to act like one. At the end Chaney attacks the damsel, Chaney's father comes to the rescue and beats the wolf man to death, only to find it's his son. An accident? Well the wolf man was attacking the damsel, but there seemed to be a strange resentment between Chaney and his father for the entire film, so I don't know. Was Chaney really a werewolf, or was he just unstable from all the things he was dealing with (I didn't even touch on why he was in the town in the first place, which was the death of his brother)? Was this a monster movie, or an abstract statement about human nature with a completely fucked up Freudian ending?

I'm totally reaching, I know I am, and I don't care. By damn, the fact that I can even ask this question about a Universal Classic is pretty phenomenal don't you think? So yeah, I loved it. The fogged out sets look wonderful, and Lon Chaney's acting really grew on me, and the makeup's badass. I'm a sucker for werewolves and this is one of the originals, and actually delves into the real life folklore of it, and I really really dig that. So yeah, go watch it, it has fog and gypsies, what more do you want?