Wolfen

Wolfen (1981)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: Michael Wadleigh

Starring: Albert Finney (RIP), Diane Venora, Edward James Olmos, Tom Noonan, Dick O'Neill

From: Orion

That black chauffeur and his exasperated “... white people” expressions: tremendous.

This was my way of paying tribute to the late Albert Finney; it certainly took a few days but at least I selected a film where he was the lead and delivered a fine performance. This has been compared to both An American Werewolf in London and The Howling due to all three coming out in the same year and being similar, yet this has various differences, some of which I dare not spoil.

This starts off with a wealthy New York City real estate developer and his lady friend being savagely mauled in Battery Park after sniffing some coke and doing other things that leave their black chauffeur shaking his head. If you want to make any pithy comments concerning real life people who were real estate developers connected to NYC, go ahead. Finney is an alcoholic police detective who is asked to investigate this bizarre case, which gets stranger as more people are slaughtered. Thankfully for him he has help from a wacky set of characters, such as wisecracking mortician Gregory Hines and as a weird taxidermist-as if there is any other kind-played by Tom Noonan. As I mentioned, this is different from the two more famous werewolf flicks that came out the same year; one aspect I will bring up is that some Native Americans are seen. They are typically played by ethnically correct actors, but the leader of that is Edward James Olmos; yeah, that is Hollywood although he did deliver a fine performance, as you'd expect.

This movie is more cerebral and thoughtful than a typical horror film, yet it still delivers some effective gory moments that will appeal to those who have that particular bloodlust. The cast as a whole does a nice job, from the names I already mentioned to Diane Venora, Dick O'Neill and some people who show up for one scenes... there is James Tolkan as the appropriately-named Baldy and hopefully no one misses Reginald VelJohnson in one scene as that's his first theatrical movie. Heck, a famous musician even shows up uncredited in a blink and you miss it moment that is mentioned on the Letterboxd page but if you don't want that spoiled...

This was set and filmed in NYC; thus, you get to see one of my favorite tropes, The Bad New York City of Old. That means how scummy Manhattan was and/or how run down areas like The Bronx were. The latter applies here, as those locales had abandoned buildings and the rubble from demolished areas... it looked like a war zone. There is a thrilling score from James Horner, great sound design and the POV shots are reminiscent of such later works as Predator. Those that want to see what is in essence a police procedural with some horror elements and plenty of dark, dry humor... this should definitely be viewed.