Hello and welcome back to another edition of Hate Watching, my movie mockery project. It's easy to be this sardonic and unproductive when your job allows you such a huge amount of free time.
Just in case you missed it, here's part one of my Wolf Man breakdown:
http://gregtheexile.blogspot.com/2010/06
And now, the exciting conclusion!
When we last met, Hugh Hefner had just completed the awful transformation from leisure suited aristocrat to horrifying wolf beast, and the indication is that his Dad, Anthony Hopkins, has done the same. Time for some father-son bonding! Let's fire it up.
A piercing howl fills the air, and the jaded people of Gloomdeathston lock their doors and guzzle their drinks. Except Elrond. He's out of the bar like a shot, which shouldn't surprise us. Any werewolf would take one look at those mutton chops and recognize a kindred spirit.
Wolf Hugh scrambles through the woods after a deer, but falls into a clever trap set by the Mustached Gentlemen. Unfortunately, so does one of the Gentlemen. He is, of course, promptly eviscerated.
You know, I put that Thriller werewolf in the last article as a joke, but now that I get a good look at this one, they're more similar than I'd thought. Maybe if Hugh had a letterman jacket instead of a wardrobe full of rare animal skins, he'd be more palatable.
Wolf Hugh dispatches a few more Gentlemen and then easily leaps out of the trap. Huh.
One of the Gentlemen runs away through the woods with a pistol, shooting over his shoulder at Wolf Hugh, who really does take bullets like a champ. He stumbles into some quicksand, because Blackmoor is known for treacherous quicksand traps. It's known so well that nobody ever feels the need to mention it, or even allude to it. But here it is, quicksand. So, knowing there is no escape, the Gentleman turns his pistol on himself.
But alas, a click. No more bullets. It's just as well. Like werewolves, Mustached Gentlemen are only vulnerable to a very specific ammunition. (Not silver. Beeswax solvent. It destroys their glorious mustaches.) Wolf Hugh catches up and rips his head off, separating him from the source of his power (Mustache) and preventing regeneration. Wolf Hugh continues mangling Mustached Gentlemen by the soothing light of gunshots.
The next morning, Human Hugh Hefner wakes up in a tree, covered in blood and filth. Dad is right there, wearing a stylish outfit and a proud grin. See? Bonding.
Unfortunately, as a famous Admiral once said, it's a trap. The Mustached Gentlemen Reserve arrives on horseback to capture Hugh, and place him in the care of a hideously anti-Semitic stereotype.
Evidently the system is unaware that Hugh is a werewolf, and thinks that he's just a delusional psychopath killer. Obviously, the only treatment is to dip him in soup.
Hugh begins to experience some pretty trippy nightmares as a result of London's finest 17th Century Psychiatric Treatment, which basically consists of torturing the patient, body and soul, without pity or remorse, for several weeks at a stretch. I don't understand why this doesn't help.
Dad finally visits in the torture dungeon psych ward and tells Hugh the story of the time he went to the Mountains of Mist and encountered Gollum.
It turns out that being bitten by a Gollum is what made Dad a werewolf, and that he, in fact, was the one who killed his wife. Hugh, stumbling upon this scene, repressed the memory of her gaping neck wound and imagined she'd killed herself with a razor instead. You know, standard Gypsy family stuff. Those Gypsies. And Dad has been well aware of his werewolf status for 25 years and simply failed to disclose. So now that everyone thinks they've got the werewolf chained up, Dad is free to Wolf It Up. Dad's kind of a Wolf Dick.
That night, which will be a full moon, Doctor Jewfreak holds an assembly, the purpose of which is basically to mock and laugh at a suffering human being. It's like a roast except without the good natured atmosphere. Elrond is there, because he knows some real zingers.
Of course, this little experiment goes horrifically awry.
Wolf Hugh impales Dr Jewfreak on a fence, rips out the liver of the medical attendant, and escapes to run on the rooftops of London. Elrond chases him, blasting away, along with half the police force. Luckily, the London Police don't usually carry guns, so they aim like Stormtroopers. Hugh basically has the run of the town. Elrond is quite upset at this turn of events.
The next morning, Human Hugh is camping out underneath a bridge and Gwen is running around town with an umbrella. It rains a lot in London. I'd never heard. She enters a building where Hugh is sleeping under a table, and once again they have a long, awkward conversation. Like most movie women, she immediately takes the most nonsensically emotional route, suggesting that if werewolves are real, there must be such a thing as magic and they'll be able to find a cure. No, that's really what she says.
They make out, because this is a movie. Seconds later, Elrond arrives with the London branch of the Mustached Gentlemen. It's a huge organization. Elrond shows her the newspaper account of Hugh's Wolf Rampage last night and warns her that if he approaches her, she should hide and send up the Mustache Signal. He then draws his pistol and shoots a mirror, thinking Hugh is behind it.
Nope. Like a moth to the flame, Hugh's found himself some flashy garments and a top hat and is walking the streets of London.
His mission? Buy all the newspapers and get his face off the streets. Unfortunately this results in Hugh carrying a conspicuous stack of newspapers that have his face on the front page. Needless to say, people notice. Meanwhile, Gwen studies Lycanthropy, which is the disease of being a fucking werewolf. She reads from only the most reputable texts.
Again with the Gypsies. Hugh, meanwhile, journeys on foot to Blackmoor. You know, that faraway farm town that Hugh had to take a long train ride and then a carriage to reach? That Blackmoor.
Meanwhile, Elrond and his buddies load up some pistols with silver bullets. While they're in a carriage headed for Blackmoor. And Gwen is riding a horse to Blackmoor. Everyone's going to Blackmoor.
Gwen begs a Gypsy woman to tell her the cure for Lycanthropy. Of which there is none. Still believe in magic, bitch? Hugh reaches his Dad's house and is greeted by Osama Bin Laden, whose kidney failure has finally caught up with him.
Hugh wanders through the house with a shotgun, ostensibly to shoot his dad. I don't really know why. Is this one of those "kill the original and you're cured" werewolf movies? I guess we're going on a Gollum hunt.
Hugh confronts Dad, who is playing the piano and quoting scripture. I think the director is trying to cram as many creepy/tragic vibes into one scene as he possibly can. A child eerily humming a nursery rhyme, a thunderstorm, and a phonograph playing opera music are all curiously absent.
Hugh attempts to fire his shotgun and of course it clicks, allowing Dad to counter with his MacGuffin Walking Stick. He smashes a table full of bourbon into a lamp, and immediately the whole room goes up in flames. Dad proceeds to beat Hugh around the room, and monologues like the Dos Equis man he so closely resembles.
While they struggle, the moon comes out and they both start morphing into werewolves. Cool.
And when the transformation is complete, it's time for the long awaited Werewolf Grudge Match!
But then Wolf Hugh knocks Wolf Dad into a fire and tears his head off.
Just then, Gwen and Elrond show up, and since women in movies are idiots, she knocks his arm as he attempts to shoot Wolf Hugh. Do you have any idea how expensive silver is?
So Elrond misses and they get knocked down by the werewolf. Of course Gwen escapes without a scratch while the werewolf chews on Elrond's shoulder.
Gwen, of course, snatches the gun with the five werewolf-killing bullets in it and runs away as fast as possible, because women in movies are so goddamn dumb it's incredible.
She leads the werewolf on a merry chase, far away from the open, well-lit area of the house where even an untrained moron could shoot the easily seen werewolf. Instead, she heads directly into the darkest, foggiest, most werewolf-friendly part of the Blackmoor woods that she can possibly find. Incredibly, she ends up on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Where the hell is Blackmoor?
She turns around and what do you know, Wolf Hugh is right there and he looks hungry. Gwen immediately drops the gun, because women in movies are catastrophically stupid and Gwen refuses to be an exception, and attempts to convince the slavering beast that he's not a monster and that he doesn't have to hurt Gwen.
Just as he's about to rip her head off, which would have been AWESOME, the Mustached Gentlemen Brigade (Supernatural Beast Division) arrives with torches and bloodhounds. Wolf Hugh turns around and starts howling for some reason. Gwen uses the distraction to pick the gun back up and shoot Wolf Hugh in the heart. Wait. What?
Treacherous bitch.
Now the Mustached Gentlemen catch up and look at Hugh's body for a minute, while Elrond stares at the moon and we wait for him to become a werewolf... but nope. Gwen monologue. Yayyy.
And that's the end of The Wolfman. Overall I'd say it was pretty good, if it did drag a little. I really had to reach to make fun of it sometimes. I'll pick a genuinely bad movie next time... probably one of the Twilight films. Or The Last Song, I think I have that on my PC.
See you next time! Hope you had fun!
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