We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
Cody marvels at horror and monsters.
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT (2022)
Michael Giacchino is a composer who has previously contributed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe by composing music for on Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. After decades of making music, Giacchino is getting into directing now as well – and when MCU mastermind Kevin Feige asked which character he would like to work with if he were to direct something for Marvel, Giacchino made a very wise choice: “Werewolf by Night”.
That’s how we got this cool Halloween “special presentation” on the Disney+ streaming service, a 52 minute special that introduces Gael García Bernal as the titular character, Jack Russell. While Jack may be a monster when the full moon rises, when we first meet him in Werewolf by Night he’s passing himself off as a monster hunter, one of several who have been invited to the Bloodstone estate. Ulysses Bloodstone, a prolific monster hunter who utilized a powerful weapon also known as the Bloodstone, has passed away, and since he was estranged from his daughter Elsa (Laura Donnelly) there is no obvious heir to pass the Bloodstone on to. So his widow Verussa (Harriet Sansom Harris) is hosting a gathering of hunters – including Jack and Elsa – where they will hunt a monster and battle each other to see who will win the stone.
The monster that has been captured for this very important hunt is a creature that Marvel Comics fans will recognize as Man-Thing. Jack knows him as Ted, because in the comics the character was Dr. Theodore Sallis before he transformed into Man-Thing. Jack and Ted are friends, and Jack has infiltrated this monster hunter gathering in hopes of freeing his pal. But of course, the situation gets quite complicated, and bloody action ensues. For a Marvel / Disney show, there is a surprising amount of blood flying around in Werewolf by Night, but the special gets away with it because it has a TV-14 rating and is presented almost entirely in black and white, stylized in a way that’s reminiscent of the classic Universal horror movies. And once Jack fully transforms into a werewolf, he’s basically a badass, gut-ripping version of the Wolf Man.
Werewolf by Night is a quick blast warmed my classic horror-loving heart and left me anxious to see the further adventures of Jack Russell and Man-Thing (a.k.a. Ted). Here’s hoping Giacchino will be making some more monster specials for Marvel in the future.
THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF (2021)
There was a two year wait between the release of the first season of the Netflix fantasy series The Witcher and the release of the show’s second season – but the streaming service did try to make the long wait a little more tolerable by releasing an animated feature set in the world of The Witcher a few months before season 2 came along. So of course, being me, I didn’t get around to watching the animated feature, which is called The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, until I had already started watching The Witcher season 2... several months after it was made available.
Nightmare of the Wolf serves as a prequel to the live-action Witcher series. Witchers are monster hunters, and the show centers on one particular witcher named Geralt. Nightmare of the Wolf shifts the focus to a different witcher: Geralt’s mentor Vesmir. Over the course of this feature, we get to see how Vesemir came to be a witcher – and we also follow him on one of his most important and consequential monster hunts.
I generally find animated features to be a bit tough to sit through, but director Kwang Il Han and writer Beau DeMayo made sure that The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf held my interest throughout, and the running time went by rather quickly. Not only do we get to see plenty of creatures in this movie – creatures like leshers, demons, wraiths, basilisks, and even some “engineered crossbreeds” created through “mutagenic alchemy” – it also crafts an interesting story. Vesemir got into monster hunting on a quest for adventure and glory, but that decision has an emotional impact in the story of Nightmare of the Wolf.
If you’re interested in watching sword-wielding badasses and mages taking on a variety of monsters, with some intriguing and touching moments sprinkled throughout, and don’t mind that all of this is presented in animated form, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf is a fine way to spend 83 minutes.
THE INVITATION (2022)
Directed by Jessica M. Thompson from a screenplay by Blair Butler, the horror film The Invitation first caught my attention when it was announced under the title The Bride, at which time the legendary Sam Raimi was on board to produce the film. Raimi ended up leaving the project along the way, but I remained curious about The-Bride-turned-The-Invitation... and it turned out to be a decent flick.
Nathalie Emmanuel stars as Evie, a New York-based young woman who recently lost her mother and lost her father years ago. So decides to take a DNA test to learn more about her ancestry and see if she has more family out there in the world. She does, which ends up being an unfortunate thing for her. A cousin invites her to a family reunion / wedding celebration at a manor in the England countryside. Evie accepts the titular invitation – and once she reaches the reunion / wedding venue, she quickly falls for the lord of the manor, Thomas Doherty as Walter De Ville. Someone who, thankfully, isn’t related to her. But also someone she clearly shouldn’t be falling for.
We know Walter, and possibly Evie’s family members, are bad news because of the opening scene, in which a woman is so troubled her stay in the manor that she commits suicide. Then when Evie is there, we see more strange things happening around the manor... and it’s implied that some kind of deadly force or creature is lurking in its old rooms. Something that likes to pick off the servants.
The Invitation takes its time getting to the reveal of what’s going on at Walter’s manor, an approach that didn’t work well for blog contributor Priscilla when we were watching the movie together. That’s because she thought this was just another haunted manor movie, so she had a “been there, done that” feeling about it. But then the reveal came, and she started enjoying the more. Because this isn’t just another haunting movie. Since I write for the horror site Arrow in the Head, I already had the details spoiled for me way back when the project was being called The Bride. So I knew where this was going and had a good time taking the ride. At least until the final scene, which sets up a sequel we’re not likely to get (and which isn’t really necessary) in a rather silly way.
Emmanuel makes for a likeable lead, and Doherty has an inherently creepy quality about him, even when he’s supposed to be coming off like the appealing romantic lead. The Invitation is a serviceable horror movie, and we need plenty of those to fill up our Halloween season watch lists.
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