WEREWOLF BY NIGHT (2022) – Fancy spending a night of monster hunting in black and white?

Here is a mini movie of sorts to usher in the Halloween for the less discerning viewers. At a running time of 52 minutes, this plays more like an episode from an anthology TV series. It has an interesting premise, taking place over the course of one faithful evening. A bunch of monster hunters are gathered in a secret location to compete for the possession of the “Bloodstone”, a sort of powerful magical stone that can kill monsters. This is yet another creation from the Marvel universe but thankfully does not have any superheroes in tights to hover over the screen. Instead, it is supposed to take place in a universe where monsters exists and as well as hunters who are there to hunt them.

What immediately sets this apart from all the Marvel stuff we have been bombarded with, is the black and white format that it chose to take. Added to this is the music and camera angles reminiscent of the oldies. All these lend an air of nostalgia and film noir to the whole look and feel of the movie. As a directorial debut by Michael Giacchino (who has been mainly focus on film scores), this is a commendable effort. Afterall, it succeeded in getting the viewers’ attention, and the movies does look great. My problem with this is that apart from the classic film noir style, it fails to come across with a clear objective of whether the movie is a comedy, a superhero movie, or a horror movie. Despite its tongue in cheek style and some over the top acting, the film is not funny. It also fails as a horror movie because the make-up effects for the monsters were pretty lame. They look more at home with the monsters we see in Sesame Street. The black and white format may disguise the lack of details in the sets and costumes, but they still came across as being cheap looking. The action sequences were also unimaginative and not gory enough to satisfy true horror fans. Again, much of the blood were camouflaged by the black and white format to soften the overall impact.

Werewolf by Night comes across as quite an ambitious and creative attempt experimental attempt to present something different. However, it ends up just looking pretty while failing to leave any lasting impression on the viewers. Given the vast number of Halloween inspired movies and TV Series we have released this month, I would recommend giving this a skip if you are pressed for time and need to be selective over what horror fare you wish to see this month.