I have a soft spot for werewolf films. It's a
genre that's produced some classics (The Wolf Man,
The Howling, An American Werewolf in London,
Ginger Snaps), but has also produced more than its
fair share of bad films. This film has some good moments, but
it's ultimately an unsatisfying addition to the genre. Not one
of the bad films, mind you, just average.
Vivian is a young American woman living in Bucharest.
Vivian is also a werewolf, a member of a pack who closely guards
its existence from the world of humans, and she's been promised
to Gabriel, the pack leader. However, she meets a young human
artist, Aiden, and falls in love with him.
Director Katja von Garnier (Bandits,
Iron Jawed Angels) approaches the material with an
eye to naturalism rather than horror excess, creating a solid
film that owes as much to the romance genre as it does to horror,
but it lacks any real spark and feels like a made for television
film most of the time. Screenwriters Ehren Kruger (The Ring)
and Christopher Landon make major changes to Annette Curtis
Klause's novel, which will disappoint fans of the novel, but
even with its shortcomings, the attempt to create a lycanthropic
romance thriller is appreciated. Hopefully, another filmmaker
will revisit the premise and make a better than average film
out of it.
If there's one thing that works well in the film,
it's the transformation scenes, which are very graceful and
capture the beauty of lycanthropy rather than being gruesome.
The transformed werewolves are portrayed by real wolves instead
of animatronics or CGI creations, which makes them seem like
tangible possibilities that may lurk in the shadows of our world.
There are no great performances here, but Agnes
Bruckner as Vivian and Hugh Dancy as Aiden deliver solid ones
and have the good looks necessary for what are essentially "Romeo
and Juliet" roles. They don't seem to have much chemistry
early in the film, but their chemistry increases as the story
goes on, mirroring the growing relationship of their characters.
However, Olivier Martinez as Gabriel and Bryan Dick as Vivian's
cousin Rafe seem to have wandered in off the set of a daytime
soap with their unconvincing overacting. Gabriel as written
in the script should be a dark, seductive, and menacing presence,
but Martinez doesn't manage anything even close to that.
If, like me, you enjoy werewolf films, it's worth
a viewing, but wait until it's released on video (which shouldn't
be long considering how poorly it's performed at the box office).
