Watch Wolfen For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This review is sure to include some spoilers - so, readers beware...Good horror movie in which a more or less mismatched team of investigators tries to find out who is culling the population of a large and modern city. During the course of their examination, the investigators gradually discover that they share the urban landscape with an advanced kind of four-legged predator. Human beings are no longer the most dangerous thing around...I've called "Wolfen" a horror movie, as indeed it is, but it's a horror movie combined with a thriller and a dark, even ferocious satire. The movie excels at building tension and suspense, to the point where the viewer may very well share the protagonists' desire to turn and run away. There's many a "hide under the blankets" moment here... At the same time "Wolfen" has a unique visual flair, which owes much to the scenes "seen" through the eyes of the predators, with their heat-sensitive vision and their rapid movement.As I've said, "Wolfen" is also a dark satire on modern man's disregard both for nature and for his fellow citizens. The city pictured in the movie is a stone jungle full of injustice, inequality and decay ; even schools and churches have been abandoned. The rich cavort while the poor and the broken seek refuge in alcohol or drugs. At least a number of these outcasts could be helped or rehabilitated if care, medicine, housing were provided, but no, it's far easier to let them live and die among the ruins. If man is a wolf to other men, who's going to blame the wolves if they want to behave like wolves to man ?

Following a series of brutal killings, a New York detective investigating the incidents comes to believe that the incidents are caused by a pack of predatory werewolves out hunting for a specific target in their home-state and forces him to try to stop their rampage through the city.This one here turned out to be quite the enjoyable and underrated werewolf effort. One of the more impressive elements to this one is the fact that there's quite a lot to like here with the investigation into the initial attacks, which makes this one quite a bit of fun. Rather than being the usual stereotypical dull police procedural that it really could've been, this one here is a lot more lively when it comes to the officers investigating the incidents as the clues are quite broad yet don't really fit together and the ability to make them all fit together gives this one some rather enjoyable areas working throughout the first half. These are quite logically played-out and make this one turn into a really intriguing werewolf-attack study as they piece the clues together, from the autopsy reports to the boardroom investigating the first attack or the different scenes of them out on foot attest. Once it manages to get past that aspect of this one, it manages to get incredibly enjoyable with the attack scenes which are really good here, from the opening stalking of oblivious security guards to the partying couple in the park, the chilling ambush of the junkie in the abandoned building or the later stalking of the couple in their apartment where they remain oblivious to their observer outside skulking between the buildings. That picks up considerably in the final half, though, with the big attacks finally coming through with the great ambush in the church ruins as well as the finale in the streets outside the bank where it really lets their furious side get shown and manages to really give this a nice finish. The last plus here is the rather inventive use of their signature heat-vision tracking that looks really cool and unique throughout here being different enough to stand out and yet being quite logical. While these here make this one quite fun, overall it's still somewhat flawed. The biggest issue to contend with is the fact that this one doesn't have very much werewolf action at all until the final half, leaving them not just off-screen but barely even shown at all. With the focus on the investigation taking place for the majority of the film, we get very little screen-time for the creatures who are barely glimpsed even when they do appear since the body-count is depressing and disappointingly low for such a werewolf movie since it's finally nearly ninety-minutes into this one before they even appear which leaves this one feeling like quite a drag. No matter how good the attacks actually are, there's so few of them due to the investigation of the attacks rather than committing more so that causes the pacing of this one to drag down to a real sprawl which hampers this one considerably and is the weakest factor against this one. Likewise, the fact that the creatures are just simply portrayed as real wolves is a bit of a disappointment which makes their scenes look nothing more than just being surrounded by dogs and means we lose out on the transformation as well so it does feel incredibly weaker in those regards. That is enough to drag this one down with that other factor here.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Full Male Nudity, drug use and violence-against-animals.

1981 is regarded by horror fans as the Year of the Werewolf. Three high profile films came along to revive the moribund sub-genre, pushing it to new extremes with cutting edge creature effects. "An American Werewolf in London" and "The Howling," both being masterpieces of varying degrees, get all the attention. However, "Wolfen," the third killer wolf movie of the year, shouldn't be overlooked. It's very different from the other two but valuable in its own right.Based off the debut novel of Whitley Strieber, back before the author lost his mind, the film follows police detective Dewey Wilson. A local millionaire and real estate developer, along with his wife and body guard, are mysteriously murdered. Paired up with police psychologist Rebecca, and with help from an eccentric zoologist and forensic mortician, Dewey further investigates the crime. The hairs of an unknown subspecies of wolves are found on the quickly piling up bodies. Dewey and Rebecca's paranoia begins to grow, both feeling stalked by wolf-like spirits. The local American Indian population calls them the Wolfen, beings halfway between wolves and gods. By why are they killing?"Wolfen" is ultimately structured like a detective story. We are presented with murders. Wilson and his pals investigate leads and clues. There are false starts, like the millionaire's activist niece or a militant Indian activist recently released from prison. As the clues slowly start to mount, the rational protagonists are forced to confront the impossible. Just when things are starting not to make sense, a character wanders in to provide some mystical exposition, setting up the last act where the murderer is revealed.The audience knows they're watching a horror movie, however. We know something unusual is happening. So the first hour of this two hour movie drags a bit. "Wolfen" attempts to build atmosphere by featuring mysterious POV shots, roaming first-person perspective with odd coloration. This effect is overused though, boring the audience. When unimportant characters are getting bumped off, it becomes clear that "Wolfen" is starting to spin its wheels. A stalking scene in an abandoned church really seems to go on. The first half at least takes the time to develop the relation between its protagonists, Albert Finney and Diane Venora developing a realistic romantic chemistry.Luckily, the second half of "Wolfen" really picks up the pace, building to an excellent conclusion. An attack in a zoo uses the unseen very well, tension mounting nicely. The case begins to affect Dewey and Rebecca's peace of mind. The film shows this fantastically, especially in a moment where Wilson sits in his car, catching a glimpse of a wolf pack briefly. Though the POV shots are overused, they wind up disguising the titular creatures. When they are first revealed, during a nighttime shot in the same abandoned church, it's truly startling.The film's climax is fantastic, the primary characters surrounded in a public place by the monsters. The tension rises each time a new wolf enters the scene. "Wolfen" has a wolf-aided decapitation that rivals a similarly excellent moment in "American Werewolf." As the chase moves into an apartment building, some intense thrills are generated. A shot cutting between the detective's eyes and the alpha wolf's eyes really stands out. The conclusion nicely balances ambiguity and answers, keeping the entities mysterious while still providing a satisfying ending.Finney breathes some new life into the wash-up detective character type. He conveys a real weariness. The movie's excellent supporting cast helps too. Tom Noonan and Gregory Hines are both highly likable as the eccentric zoologist and pragmatic forensic specialist. The characters are likable enough that, when they start die, it really effects us. "Wolfen" might not be on the level of 1981's other wolf classics but it's a worthy horror-thriller in its own right, an effectively orchestrated fusion of mystery, horror, and atmosphere.

I'm a huge fan of horror movies (or monster movies as my brothers and I called them). I look at the several years on either side of 1980 as a second golden age for horror films, with the first being, of course, in the 50s. Wolfen is, at times, confusing. When the movie ended, I wasn't quite sure what had happened, but it didn't matter; the parts between the beginning and end were wonderfully frightening. Finney and the lovely Venora play NYC detectives trying to solve a growing number of mutilation killings around a neighborhood being demolished for redevelopment. (Abandoned buildings seem somewhat sinister all by themselves.) The credits are salted with names you'll recognize, but for most of the cast(as noted by the lack of photos), Wolfen was their fifteen minutes of fame. Specials effects seem primitive compared to today's computer generated, gee whiz stuff, and are mostly over-saturated shots used to show POV from the wolfen and to show the mayhem inflicted on various folks by wolfen. Despite the lack of sophistication, the POV effects and careful camera angles left me wanting to shout out warnings to the stalked. The tension in this movie is palpable and the characterizations by its cast are completely believable.