Day 2 (September 2nd) - House of the Wolf Man (2009)

This tribute to the classic Universal monsters is perhaps described best as the most elaborate fan film I've ever seen. Writer/director Eben McGarr clearly has a great love for the classic monster movies and knows what goes into them. House of the Wolf Man contains all the traditional gothic elements and mystery that layered the originals, making this movie fit in perfectly with such second round Universal classics as House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. Fans of such characters as the wolfman, Frankenstein, Dracula, the mad scientist, and the hunchback will all find something to appreciate in this film.

That being said, unless you harbor a great love for those early monster classics, you'll likely have little patience for this merely competent addition, and without a fairly detailed knowledge of the earlier Wolf Man films there are a number of references and spinoff storylines that you're likely to miss. To make sure I wasn't missing anything and was remembering correctly, I had to go back and watch portions of the original films just to check my facts.

While I really enjoyed the nostalgic feeling of HotWM, it was greatly lacking in a few areas. The acting, for one, was wanting to say the least, falling far below the quality of even those cheesier performances in the classics. Most of the time this seemed to be a case of overacting. But, never having seen any of these actors in anything else, I'm willing to give them the shadow of a doubt and presume that the lack of quality was due to poor immitation of the those earlier performances, taken too far.

Starting off as a mystery, in the fashion of The House on Haunted Hill, HotWM begins as five strangers are inexplicably brought to a gothic castle by its mad scientist inhabitant, Dr. Bela Reinhardt. From here there are storms that make leaving impossible, mysterious animal tracks, portraits with moving eyes, an old gypsy, and pretty much any other element you can think of that goes along with the classics of this genre. Though for the bulk of the movie the story was comprehensive and smooth, well on par with any of its predacessors, it's in the last fifteen minutes, when the horror starts, that the movie seems to fall apart. This portion of the film is simply a mad dash attempt to squeeze in as many monsters as possible at the cost of the story. When one recognizable character appears in the last two minutes without introduction or precursor, I simply checked out, and the final scene of this movie was so sudden and inexplicable I was left totally baffled as the credits began to roll.

While not an extraordinary movie by any means, House of the Wolf Man is certanly enjoyable if you miss the days of the Universal moster classics. My primary word of caution would be not to go into it with high expectations.