Lawrence Talbot's childhood ended the night his mother died. After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget. But when his brother's fiancée, Gwen Conliffe, tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search. He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline has come to investigate. As he pieces together the gory puzzle, he hears of an ancient curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full. Now, if he has any chance at ending the slaughter and protecting the woman he has grown to love, Talbot must destroy the vicious creature in the woods surrounding Blackmoor. But as he hunts for the nightmarish beast, a simple man with a tortured past will uncover a primal side to himself...one he never imagined existed.

I am not a big fan of modern horror because they always forget one important fact and that’s that you don’t have to show every grimy detail to scare people. More often than not in a film going audience that has been desensitized with violence and gore it is better to the let that audience use their own imaginations and that will truly frighten them rather then bathing them in a bath of blood and guts. The latest incarnation of man turned beast follows that route showing to much, giving to much away and leaves very little to the imagination. That being said Wolfman wasn’t that bad of a movie, it did have the elements of storytelling and buildup one would hope for its only downfall was the need to show you every grisly death and ever gruesome moment of this classic tale of a werewolf.

The latest tale of man turning into beast does follow a more classic storyline, a storyline somewhat akin to the original Lon Chaney Wolfman movie of the 1940’s with just a little twist on the tale as it gives something a little extra to this classic story. The film has a story, it has characters, it has a plot a lot richer than most of the recent werewolf movies we have seen. The man bitten by the beast was already somewhat of a tortured soul and now the addition and effect of the bite and the moon makes him confront his own demons. It makes for a fantastic tale, it makes for a good movie that is just slightly dampened with all the modern horror special effects.

Wolfman does capture the setting that is perfect for this kind of story that is for sure. This is the kind of tale that is perfect for the moors of England in a time when townsfolk might be found carrying pitchforks and torches fueled by superstition and fear. Just like the original Lon Chaney film that was set in similar circumstance the film takes you back to a time and a place that has its own charm and one that become haunted by a beast bent on destruction. The film also weaves in a tale of love and loss and heartbreak that give the film an extra dimension. Without the gore and blood and brutality of the director insisted upon and with more fog like the original this film might have been a lot better but is still an ok to good film despite all that.

Benicio Del Toro is completely miscast in the role of Lawrence Talbot despite the good job he does at it. He doesn’t feel nor soundlike an nineteenth century Englishman and although he put in a good performance he never truly sells you on the character. Anthony Hopkins on the other hand completely sells you the character of his father as well an nineteenth century Englishman so much so that you almost forget that it is Anthony Hopkins in the role. The Wolfman has a lot going for it but at the same time it has a lot going against it too.

Grade: C+