Waterboarding the Wolfman

Subtitle: Dr. Strange-Wolf: Or How I Learned that Disney’s G Force is More Entertaining than a February Horror Blockbuster

I have learned to go into films with no expectations—even the ones I really anticipate. I am glad I adopted said attitude about the current remake of The Wolfman. Before I get started, please note that my review will contain SPOILERS. If you want to see the movie, skip to the *-*-*- line I have created at the bottom to avoid the spoilers. Otherwise, dig in, kids.

The film starts out with so much promise—and not just because the clerk carded me (at age 29) due to its being rated R when I bought my ticket. Benicio Del Toro looks a bit like Lon Chaney, Jr. in some of the opening scenes and I’m thinking, “OK, this could be good.” Anthony Hopkins is playing the father, which seemed like a great thing. I also liked the cinematography (to me, the dark cinematography was completely fitting with the tone), the setting, the moody soundtrack and the beautiful costuming. There were certain elements of it that reminded me of the 1897 flashback sequence in Dark Shadows and I kept secretly wishing that Barnabas Collins would show up with his cloak and cane (so sexy), especially when I saw the main character’s wolf’s head cane. And that’s where the flattery ends. Just when you think that perhaps this werewolf movie is going for a slick, film noir treatment rather than a cheese festival, you get dropped into a giant vat of stinky fromage. In the scene where Lawrence is bitten by the wolf and he’s questing through the fog and into the unknown, I still had hope. This particular scene reminded me of the scene in Faust when the title character conjures Mephistopheles in the middle of a foggy, creepy night. You expect only something diabolical to lurch forth and cause terror. Subsequently, when the gypsies retrieve Lawrence and sew his wounds closed, they debate whether or not to let him live knowing what he’ll become. This scene too was good. As Lawrence recuperates in bed, the film tumbles downhill rapidly and never recovers. In a bit of dirty pool, we learn that Lawrence’s memory of his mother’s suicide is inaccurate; instead, his mother was murdered by his father, who is, for reasons that baffle me, a werewolf. He was bitten by some weird-ass wolfboy in a cave on a hunting expedition and has been living as a werewolf ever since. His servant locks him in a self-made jail/crypt when there’s a full moon and he rides it out each month. Until he decides to “free the beast” and goes on a killing spree. We learn that the death of Lawrence’s brother was caused by his father because, of all things, he doesn’t want his son and his future daughter-in-law to move away. (WTF?!?) The father kills the servant and there is a final battle scene reminiscent of that godawful film Van Helsing between Father Wolfman and Son Wolfman. Long before that, I was already laughing and had lost any suspension of disbelief—that terrible battle royale was merely the poopy icing on a shitty cake. Instead of utilizing some very good possibilities, the oddball subplot of Anthony Hopkins’ character being a werewolf causes major distractions. Although I don’t particularly understand why Lawrence underwent a form of waterboarding in the asylum, I thought the scene in which he was put on display for a medical class during a full moon had enormous potential. Alas, it was made goofy and stupid. I think the most horrific scene in the whole film for me was when he leans down to drink from the Thames. Mmm, get a mouth full of that dirty, litter-strewn, eel-infested doo-doo water, Wolfman.


It’s a sad state of affairs when you rent G Force and come home to watch it after The Wolfman and conclude that it’s not only better but actually has more suspense and surprise than a horror “blockbuster.” I would rather watch secret agent guinea pigs than sit through an hour-and-a-half rehash of the already appalling Van Helsing. If that’s the sort of movie that gets you going, The Wolfman will be on your list of favorites.


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On other topics, I am still trying to shake off the case of SAD I have going. It’s not crippling by any means but it’s the worst bout of it I’ve had in a long time. My mood oscillates between wanting to eat a giant bacon cheeseburger with french fries smothered in ketchup and go to bed to wanting to drink creatine shakes and pump iron like a bodybuilder. (Neither of which I have engaged in, to be clear.) LOL. Makes no sense. I’m trying to tell myself to accentuate the positive aspects about the cold weather—gives a break from mowing the yard, no obnoxious insects like wasps, it speeds up your metabolism. But damn. There are so many negatives to it. My skin and hair are dry and I’m using tons of lotion and conditioner. My nose runs and my sinuses ache. I’m sick of bundling up and wearing multiple layers of clothes, thus generating hella laundry each week. I’m sick of feeling like I am swimming inside my winter clothing. It would be so nice to throw on a t-shirt, shorts and sandals and be out in the sunshine. Little did I know when I was mowing the yard in a pair of shorts in November how much I would miss the Indian summer. Damn it! I think it’s kinda like a feeling of wanting to continue the metamorphosis: to shed the winter cocoon of clothing and step out. I stopped by one of my favorite stores hoping that they might have some spring/summer clothes in stock because I have gotten rid of a shitload. I still have some short-sleeved shirts but I have no summertime bottoms at all. So I go in giddy thinking about the warm weather. I’m a bargain hunter but, like any girl, retail therapy is a welcome pleasure. To be fair, I realized that they engage in vanity sizing. But I must have been in serious denial about just how much vanity sizing this particular store engages in. The reason why I lump this tidbit in with my discussion of having the winter blues is because I am pissy about trying to determine my size. Right or wrong, clothing size is one of the yardsticks we like to use for measuring weight loss progress. I don’t think you can turn on late night TV without seeing a barrage of infomercials that all have the same basic construct: “I went from a size 18 to a size 6 by following (whatever) for six months.” Now it’s like, “Well, OK, but WTF does that mean?” It sounds so amazingly straightforward until you try to shop for clothing and discover that a size 6 at one place can be radically different from another one. I am still in my own process of trying to get in great shape and increasing my fitness level. I’ve made excellent progress but there’s still more I want to accomplish. Yet at this store, a place where I have bought many cute clothes in the past, I had to shop in the fucking children’s section today to find items that fit. At any moment, I expected Clinton and Stacy to pop out and ask me if I was shopping for a child or for myself, LOL. Meanwhile, the woman working the front counter looked a lot like a fusion of Nancy Sinatra with a middle school teacher I loathed. She initially greeted me and then offered me no other assistance, which is fine and is how I prefer it, but I found it strange because she walked around and spoke to every other shopper in the store except me. The smallest sizes this place offers are a small for shirts and a size 4 for pants/skirts. If the “standard” size 4 is something like 25 to 26 inches, I would guess their size 4 is more like 28 or 29 inches. And the small shirt is probably closer to what a size large would be in, say, the typical “juniors” department of another store. After rummaging through three or four racks, I realized I’d made a mistake in going there. I sauntered back to the kids section and actually found a shirt and a pair of walking shorts (similar to the editor walking shorts that Express makes). For someone like me who is turning 30 this December and is damn proud of entering a third decade of life looking and feeling good, it’s frankly embarrassing to be fumbling through clothes made for 12 year old girls like some pervy goon. I want to look like a woman, not a lubricious, Lolita-esque 7th grader. (rolling laughter) Anyway, as I looked around at the other clientele and the clerks and I thought about Nancy Sinatra helping everyone other than me it hit me: I am the bitch in this store. I am the one who’s getting the stink-eye and who doesn’t fit in. What’s scary about that to me is that I’m not some crazy-ripped Olympic athlete. Nor am I some spindly scarecrow and nor would I ever want to be that. I am still working on my own goals and I find it somewhat amusing that in our culture we seemingly encourage people to achieve weight loss but when they do it, there is an angry backlash. Buying fitness equipment is not cheap and neither is eating healthy. It’s cheaper to hit the dollar menu at McD’s than to get chicken breasts to bake at home. I dunno. I suppose I’m a little scared of what will happen when I finally make it to a point where I’m ready to enter maintenance mode. Will I have to shop at Wal-Mart for Garanimals?