Ever since Michael Keaton referenced it as a joke in The Dream Team, I’ve been curious about Wolfen (1981). With Albert Finney’s passing, I tracked down a copy to finally watch. A busy year for movies about wolves (this is not strictly a werewolf movie) with The Howling and American Werewolf In London released in the same year; this film does not have a show stopping special effects transformation sequence like those two horror classics but it is not as cartoony or comic as them either. It is a serious, atmospheric horror movie set in New York that follows the investigation of the high profile murders of a wealthy executive, his wife and their bodyguard in a park – their bodies gruesomely slashed. It’s up to cop Dewey Wilson (Finney) and psychologist Rebecca (Diane Verona) to solve the mystery, which leads to a connection with Native American construction workers and something hidden in an abandoned church in the Bronx. The only fictional narrative directed by Michael Wadleigh (guy who directed the Woodstock doco), this is a slow, eerie and absorbing film that brings together urban legends and big city paranoia. There’s a great lead performance by Finney who starts off as the usual drunk wiseacre cop, but the deeper he delves into the case, the more his solemn fear and obsession grounds the stakes of the movie. Great support from actors like Gregory Hines and Tom Noonan as well as heat signature creature POV shots that would have been an influence on Predator. Ecological themes about urbanisation and waste are deep in the mix here as well (adapted from the novel by Whitley Strieber). Recommended.
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