What better double feature than “The Wolfman” and “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”? Each is a remake of a classic Universal horror film set in the 1890s, unfolding gore galore with Anthony Hopkins running amok and nearly all the chips placed on visual style. One sinks, the other wins. By a fang.
In the long-delayed “Wolfman,” Benicio Del Toro (“Traffic”) plays Lawrence Talbot, an English-born stage actor with a troubled past and a smothering whack-job daddy (Anthony Hopkins in full nuthouse mode). Early in, Talbot vows to find the man (beast?) who ripped his brother to shreds, but … well, you know all this … Talbot is bitten by a werewolf and, in turn, becomes a furry killer himself. Roar. Slash. Howl. Who’s the first werewolf? Need I
ask? Nothing is shocking here, even with barrels of blood, guts and shattered bones being thrown at the screen. “Wolfman” works so diligently to create a mood of Euro-repression and horror that it forgets to create characters that breathe. The cinematography is so desaturated and drenched in fog, every actor seems to vanish into the background. I desperately wished this were shot in a stark black and white, as was the original, so it could have at least provided visual goose bumps. Not so. There’s a tail-end (sorry) fight between CGI werewolves that makes the recent “Hulk” film finale seem quaint. Emily Blunt co-stars as a Victorian dress, err, woman under duress.
C
Francis Ford Coppola -- past his 1970s prime -- cast Gary Oldman as the sadist warrior who renounces God and is punished for eternity to feast on blood in “Dracula.” Oldman rocks as the first vampire, who ages, morphs and disintegrates on screen, from warrior to wickedly old skin-and-bones drag queen to a pile of rats and then a human bat. The scenes where he licks a bloody razor and laughs as an infant is devoured are skull-splitting spooky. The visuals, music score and eroticism also crackle 20 years on and after the lesser “Twilight.” I’ve never seen blood so alive, such a full, living red character on film. What style. The movie derails in other casting. Keanu Reeves is a disaster as a law clerk. Winona Ryder comes and goes as the count’s beloved dead bride and then the reincarnated Mina. I’m not certain what creature lives above Cary Elwes’ lip, but I’m certain Elwes fears it to this day. I always waiver on Hopkins’ over-the-top Van Helsing, but I truly dug it this time. If any man can be fully delirious, why not this guy? Tom Waits, mad master of music, plays one hell of a Renfield. It’s all more camp, then art.
B
