Wolf (1994)...

I hadn’t seen this movie in quite long time, but it was on TV here the other night – which I was grateful for, as it hadn’t been on TV for ages and I was beginning to think it’d never be on again.



**spoilers below if you haven’t seen the movie**

The beginning of the film, with Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) driving through a winding twisty snow-covered road in Vermont, New England, reminded me of the opening to The Shining. Yes, the fake wolf was rather obvious – and that’s one of the few shortcomings with the film. It’s a shame they couldn’t get a real wolf. Anyway, I was glad that in sprung up back into action, apparently none the worse for wear – after having bitten Will, that is.



I have to say, even *before* Will’s character starts undergoing physical changes, it’s hard not to see Jack Nicholson as already looking pretty werewolf-y. He’s pretty creepy-looking at the best of times, without need of excessive hair and fangs.

Anyway, it was interesting seeing Nicholson playing a ‘good guy’ (more or less) for once, as I’m so used to him playing the 'villain’. It was a bit difficult to buy him as this mostly decent guy who was surrounded by less decent folks such as his wife, his boss, and his competition, Stewart Swinton (James Spader) – but in comparison to them, he really wasn’t bad at all. The movie certainly liked foreshadowing what was to happen with Will – all the ‘dog’ references made early on.

There were, of course, the even more obvious ‘dog/wolf’ anvils, such as Will peeing on Stewart’s shoes in the men’s toilet – not that Stewart didn’t deserve it. He was such a backstabbing P.O.S. – and what made him all the more worse was how he’d pretend to be Will’s friend/on Will’s side and plead ignorance, then offer to quit (only to refuse to do so when Will said), and make out like he was actually half-decent. James Spader was very good as this character who you hated pretty early on, given how crafty he could be.

I thought that Michelle Pfeiffer was the perfect person to play off of Nicholson. Her character of Laura (the daughter of Will’s boss) was decent to Will at first when he was starting to feel the effects of the wolf bite, then she was a bit ‘rude’/stand-offish later, but I thought the two of them worked well. Pfeiffer’s energy made up for the instances where it felt like Nicholson was rather ‘low energy’ (that may have been intentional). I liked their scene together by the water (it was an interesting choice to have it mostly play from their sides/profiles).



I don’t know why, but after they got together, it was amusing to me that we heard Laura snoring in bed. It was easy to see why Will was so taken with her, despite the way she was acting towards him earlier. She just exuded sexiness and had this allure about her.

 

Another scene I really liked between them was after Will figured out what was wrong with him and he’d handcuffed himself to the radiator.



I liked that Laura knew how to pick handcuffs and was good at covering for him/helping him out with the police who came to question him...that was until she realised the full weight of what Will had done and what was happening to him. I thought Michelle Pfeiffer did a great job of portraying Laura’s horror over discovering what was going on with Will, then later all the bodies piling up/death that was surrounding her.



I’m glad Laura was portrayed as quite intelligent. She could tell Will was spooking the horses early on, when he hadn’t even realized it was him. She knew how to handle the cops who came to question him, she made plans to help Will escape, and was especially good handling creepy Stewart (and, smartly, bolting as soon as she got the chance).

Speaking of, ever since I first saw this movie, I always felt Spader was in his element as Stewart once he’d started to change. He was very effective as this creeper, and his unsettling eyes were just about the creepiest thing in the whole movie.



It’s always the ‘subtle’ effects I find the most effective - that, combined with Spader’s performance, made Stewart far more ‘scary’ than anything else in the film. Another part that always stands out in my memory of the film is the scene where he goes after Laura and is stopped by the guard at the gate. His line in reference to Laura always sort of amused me (there was some decent ‘dark humour’ in the film).



I actually found both Spader and Nicholson less creepy the more ‘wolf-like’ they appeared to get. All that facial hair and whatnot really wasn’t ‘scary’ at all. They were far more unnerving when it was just their eyes, I thought.

While Will did get his ‘hero’ moment (fighting wolfed-out Stewart near the end), I was so happy to see Laura able to play along with Stewart until she got the opportunity to knee him in the gnads, then used the fire extinguisher on him, and was just generally able to handle herself pretty well against him (considering she was still human at that stage). The best bit, though, was that *she* was the one to off Stewart.



Michelle Pfeiffer seemed to be channeling Catwoman towards the end there, as she started to change. I liked her covering for Will.


 
 

And also how we ended with her eyes changing, Will becoming full-on wolf, and them apparently going to meet up and live as wolves together.





All in all, I thought this was quite a ‘different’ sort of werewolf movie. It was more a ‘wolfman’ story (and yes, I do make a distinction between the two). I really like this one and The Company of Wolves, as I feel they both give us versions of the 'werewolf' story that we don’t typically get. I’m glad I got to see this movie again.

Random/amusing moment in the movie: David Schwimmer (Ross from Friends) as a police officer who tries to arrest wolfed-out Will at the zoo.