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Werewolf By Night review: Just another Marvel show without much bite-Josh Stephenson-Entertainment – Metro
It’s more of the same, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It may be black and white, but it’s more of the same (Picture: Marvel Studios)
It seems every time a new Marvel show emerges from the pit of secrecy at Disney HQ the same words accompany it: this is a bold new direction for the studio and unlike anything you’ve seen before. This, inevitably, turns out to not be the case.
Marvel shows have a formula – a perfectly enjoyable one admittedly – and it’s rare for them to stray too far from it.
So when Werewolf By Night, an incredibly niche choice from the large pool of Marvel properties, was announced to huge fanfare with promises to be unlike anything we’d seen before, well, we were sceptical to say the least and do you know what… it is just another Marvel show.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing! Werewolf By Night has its own flavour – as do many MCU shows – this time paying homage to the classic horror films of the 1930s and 1940s.
It follows a secret cabal of monster hunters who gather one night to pay memorial to their fallen leader and crown a new one in a ritualistic hunt.
Gael Garcia Bernal and Laura Donnelly star as Jack Russell and Elsa Bloodstone, respectively, two monster hunters who arrive for the hunt with very different motives in mind. And who are they hunting? None other than everyone’s favourite creature from the swamp: Man-Thing. No, not Shrek, although could you imagine?
It’s billed as a ‘Special Presentation’, which is a fancy way of saying one-off, but if you think for one second this won’t tie into the larger MCU then, bucko, let me tell you about this bridge I have for sale.
But, more importantly, does it work as a homage and is it something genuinely different? Well, that’s a mixed bag.
Werewolf By Night is shot in black-and-white, a nice touch but also the easiest thing you can do to grant a retro feel. More important is that it has a strong grasp of lighting (stay with us here) – watch any classic horror film and they all make great use of shadow and contrast and Werewolf By Night captures that feeling to great effect.
Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone (Picture: Marvel Studios)
Scary, scary, scary (Picture: Marvel Studios)
The werewolf transformation scene, in particular, shows some impressive restraint forgoing an excess of CGI in favour of hinting at the goriest moments. Cheaper? Eh, maybe, but certainly more authentic.
It has an impressive score to boot with Michael Giacchino (who also directs) dripping every scene with these thunderous horns, which boom so hard you’ll be tempted to check if an orchestra has snuck in behind your sofa.
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But, unfortunately, most of this doesn’t land as well as it could thanks to those usual elements of the Marvel formula sneaking in. Did it need to tell so many jokes thus undercutting its tension at every possible moment? Did it need to commit to being more violent than most MCU shows but not gory enough to really inspire shock? Did it need to have the same-old, badly choreographed fight scenes that are 90% forward rolls? Could it have not spent a little more time setting the scene before diving into the action?
None of this is bad, per se, it’s just business as usual. Werewolf By Night is no grand sea change in the Marvel formula – and although it’s a pleasant enough tribute to the movies of Boris Karloff and co, it doesn’t come close to surpassing them. Ironically, it just doesn’t have enough bite.
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