Werewolf by Night

The creases in the poster are a neat trick.

[Continuing our run of somewhat after the fact reviews …]

Directed by Michael Giacchino, screenplay by Heather Quinn & Peter Cameron, starring Gael García Bernal.

This is something of a surprise. Slipped out without too much publicity in October was this one-off Hallowe’en special. Werewolf by Night was one of Marvel’s hit series when it diversified into horror series in the 1970s, along with titles such as Tomb of Dracula and the less successful The Monster of Frankenstein. But since then, while the series has occasionally reappeared, it’s hardly been one of Marvel’s mainstays. So for the MCU to turn to this character, even for a one-off special, is unexpected.

The surprises keep coming, as this is not much like any version of Werewolf by Night you may have encountered before. Certainly, there is little here of Gerry Conway and Mike Ploog’s whitebread Jack Russell. Instead, we get a nicely-made homage to the Universal monster movies that originally inspired the comics, mostly conducted in black-and-white.

In Gael García Bernal we have a Latino lead character, far more sophisticated than we might have expected. The plot owes something to The Most Dangerous Game, and surprisingly little to Marvel characters. Aside from a well-executed Man-Thing and monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, who appears as a corpse, the various supporting characters appear to have been devised for the special. Either that, or they are very, very obscure. There aren’t even any references to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is very much a standalone.

With less than an hour, the special moves economically, without any flab. Jack’s appearance as the werewolf is postponed until as late as possible; as with many superhero productions, the main actors want to spend as little time as possible under heavy make up, or as CGI versions of themselves.

Werewolf by Night is not particularly horrific, but it is a nicely-constructed piece of television. Done right, this could be developed into a full-blown series. As it is, it’s nice to have this one-off.