This news flash, Stephanie Meyer sets off to make Twilight short films….I wish I was joking folks. So this leaves me with the opportunity review something new(ish) from Twilight.
You know what’s scarier than Jacob Black “imprinting” on a toddler, Jack Nicholson. You know what’s scarier than Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance from the Shining. You know what’s scarier than Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance from the Shining, Jack Nicholson as the Joker. You know what’s scarier than Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Jack Nicholson as a werewolf.
We open on a road at night, on a full moon as we see Will Randall (played by Jack Nicholson) driving home from Vermont until he hits a wolf. Will gets out of the car and checks to see if it’s dead but only to find out that the wolf was just playing possum when it leaps up and bites him as he was trying to move it off the road. The wolf then runs away into some wood and Will quickly gets back in the car and drives off. We cut to morning as Will goes to work at a publishing house MacLeish House (where he works as editor-in-chief); apparently the publishing house is in the process of a takeover by a Raymond Alden. Not only that but there’s the possibility of Will getting fired after the takeover. Will has a talk with his protégé Stewart Swinton (played by James Spader) who just settled a publishing deal with an author. After a visit to a doctor, cut to nighttime as Will arrives at Alden’s house for a party. Soon after he meets with Alden (played by Christopher Plummer) and two have a conversation; Alden offers Will a position in Eastern Europe which that Will is removed as editor-in-chief. The two are walking towards some horses which for some reason are acting rather spooked. After the conversation, Will walks even closer to the horses as they began to panic and Will starts feeling some painful sensations. Will walks away and ends up at an area where he meets with a Laura Alden (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) who is Raymond Alden’s daughter. Laura figures that her father fired him but Will sees it as a demotion between being jobless or takes the job that no one wants. Will returns to the party and “congratulates” Stewart for his new position as editor-in-chief; though Will’s wife Charlotte (played by Kate Nelligan) is not all too happy about it. The next morning or should I say the next night Will is awaken by Charlotte who is surprised that he slept through the whole day. The two are having dinner until Will starts getting rather flirting towards Charlotte. The two start making out but thankfully the movie cuts to the next scene because I really don’t wanna see Jack Nicholson naked and thrusting ewwwwww.
Cut to Will taking the bandages off the bite wound only to see thick hair surrounding the bite wound and proceeds to cut them off. The next day at work things start to get odd for Will such as smelling a co-worker who had an early morning tequila coffee. More odd things began to take notice such as Will somehow senses that Stewart was in his office. Will is looking through a manuscript until one of his assistants enters the office and takes notice that Will is not using his reading glasses. This comes to a surprise to Will as it apparently turns out his eyesight has improved somehow. Will leaves his office and stops at the hall only to notice that his hearing has improved beyond belief as he can nearly everyone from great distances. Seriously was that wolf radioactive when it bit Will and now he has enhanced wolf powers? Anyway later Will asked Gary (the guy who had that tequila coffee) for any books on animal possession; as in demonic possession, a possession of the spirit by an animal that is. One book pops up Something Wild written by a Dr. Vijav Alezais. Will then proceeds to spook Gary by saying “don’t tell people he had a drop of tequila in his coffee, he didn’t have coffee this morning”. Will returns home as he checks the message machine only to hear that Charlotte is out of town for a seminar. As he’s the bathroom holding Charlotte’s bathroom he starts to smell something besides her scent that gets him suspicious. Cut to Will outside running around as if his tracking someone and ends up at Stewart’s place. Stewart lets him in asking what’s going on but Will doesn’t respond; Stewart puts his hand on Will’s shoulder but he bites him in the hand and leaps upstairs like freaking Spider-Man. Will enters Stewart’s room only to find Charlotte half naked; apparently she was having an affair with Stewart. Without even saying a word to either of them, Will just calmly leaves the apartment. The next day at work Will goes to his assistants asking for lists of authors they worked with and to set up an appointment with Alden. Will then confronts Stewart at his office; Stewart pleads for forgiveness and says I’ll do anything but Will is not buying this and says that he’ll get him. Later at Alden’s place Will goes to Alden and tells him that refuses to accept to Eastern Europe position and just leaves. Well that meeting was quick and meaningful.
Anyway as Will leaves the house, he sees Laura on horseback and walks towards her. But the horse freaks out the closer Will gets and Laura gets thrown off. Laura is upset telling him that the horses are afraid of him because they’re disturbed by his presence; which is oddly too specific for her to say that. Is this movie trying to tell us something about Laura? Anyway Alden checks on Laura and asked to join him for lunch but she declines and prefers to have lunch with Will. At a guest house Will and Laura are having peanut butter and jelly and some conversation; in the next room Will notice some photographs, one of which a picture of Laura but she says that’s her mother. COUGH….BULLSHIT….COUGH….. Will finds a picture of her brother who was a borderline schizophrenic and killed himself a year ago. Cut to the two near a lake and Will tells her of the events that are happening to him. Laura says that whatever’s happening to him he should accept it as a gift but Will is afraid that it will have a price. Laura invites Will to stay for dinner and he accepts but immediately falls ill. Laura gets him to bed and takes his temperature which turns out to be very high; Laura tucks in Will and leaves him to sleep. We cut to nighttime with a half-moon out and Will wakes looking rather Logan-ish with those magically acquired sideburns. And what interesting ember eyes he has ther……wait a minute. Will gets out of bed and then leaps right out of the window….Spider-Jack, Spider-Jack. Anyway Will sniffs around and sees a deer which means its supper time; the deer runs off and Will chase after it. The chase scene reminds of the opening scene from Twilight, if Twilight wasn’t so tacky and superficial. Will managed to catch the deer, bites it and snaps its neck; eat your heart out Bella Swan. Oh wait I forgot you don’t have a heart, nor a soul for that matter. Cut to next morning as Will wakes up cover in blood and freaks out; hey dude be happy you didn’t wake up naked in a zoo. Will heads back to Laura’s, gets in his car and drives away. At a hospital the doctor finds some scalp lacerations and wants to give Will an EEG and CAT scan but he refuses. Doctor says he may a concussion or blood clot but Will says that nobody feels this good with a concussion and a blood clot. Will shows up at a meeting with Alden about doing a press release on MacLeish’s polices that may have its top-rate writers to leaves; causing its reputation and value to take a nosedive. Alden decides to have Will call off the press release and to keep his job; meaning that Stewart won’t be taken over as new editor-in-chief. Will goes to his office and one of his assistant tells him that he has an appointment with Dr. Vijas Alezais.
A little bit later Will pays a visit to Alezais (played by Om Puri); this scene gets pretty lengthy so I’ll summarize. Will asked if there are any symptoms of what’s going on with him; Alezais simply answers that he’s turning into a wolf. Alezais explains that the person may not become evil and may not involve transformations when possess by the “demon wolf”. Will asked Alezais if there’s way to stop the transformation. Alezais gives him an amulet that can contain the wolf inside and might actually rid him of it. In exchange due to dying, Alezais asked Will for a favor to bite him; to turn him into a wolf. Will refuses, questioning why he would want to live in damnation instead of dying but Alezais doesn’t see it as damnation. Alezais lets Will keep the amulet and hopes that he’ll change his mind. Later Will calls Laura to apologize and explains why he left; he then asked Laura if he can see her at his place and she answers yes. Cut to nightfall and another half-moon is out, Will is on the prowl at a city zoo. He’s approached by the cops and are about to arrest him; but Will wolfs out and leaps away from the cops. Will is walking around at a park until he’s approached by three gangbangers asking him money as one member pulls out a gun. Werewolf Joker goes ZUUL MOTHERFUCKER ZUUL on the gangbangers killing two of them while one gets away. Cut to morning where Will gets a wakeup call from work; he shows up to work to sign the deal with Alden. Afterwards Will runs into Stewart in the restroom telling him that he has reclaim the editor-in-chief position. Stewart congratulates him and hopes that the two work together but best for the firm Will fires him. Stewart doesn’t take it too well and gets rather steamed but Will cools him off by peeing on his shoes. That’s right, the Joker just took a piss on Ultron; I know Avengers 2 isn’t out yet but when it does this joke will be relevant. As Stewart leaves Will goes to wash his hands and find his handkerchief covered in blood. He reached in his pocket again and finds two severed fingers; quite obvious from the gangbangers. Will panics and leaves work heading back to his hotel room; upon arrival he comes across Charlotte. She admits what’s she did was wrong and asked to come back to him. However, Will completely denies her a second and leaves her. As Charlotte leaves we see Laura sitting from a far.
Will enters his place and puts on the amulet as Laura comes knocking at the door. Will tells her to leave but she doesn’t and has a housekeeper to let her in. Inside she finds Will handcuffed to the radiator; she asked why he’s handcuffed to it and he answers that he’s turning into something dangerous. Will wants her to leave but Laura still refuses; she takes a paperclip starts picking the handcuffs. Will is confused of why Laura is being so curiously kind to him and she responds that she likes him and that he’s a good man. Laura gets Will free from the radiator and handcuffs his hands behind his back and then she immediately jumps his bones. I’m going ahead and say these two have a better romance than Bella and Edward. At least since Will and Laura met their chemistry developed naturally over time; not feeling all forced nor shallow. Whereas with Bella and Edward their romance has no sense of agency and gets tedious all the time they’re on screen. Also Laura has more balls and a spine than Bella. We cut to Laura sleeping by herself while Werewolf Torrance is prowling at the park and starts howling. I wonder if the creators of Jekyll were inspired by this scene. Anyway we cut to morning where Will is back in bed and wakes up Laura; a little bit a police detective Carl Bridger (played by Richard Jenkins) shows up on Will’s door and Laura answers. Laura lets them in and one of the detectives tells Will that Charlotte was redrumed....I MEAN MURDERED….last night. Found her body in the park with her throat torn off. The detective asked where was Will last night but Laura quickly answers that he was with her the entire night. Bridger asked Will to stop by at the station later today for an official statement and some issue samples as he leaves. We cut to Alden and Stewart watching the news and are shocked to know that Will’s wife was redrumed….I MEAN MURDERED! Stewart being an asshole uses this situation to get his position back from Will if he gets convicted. Laura and Will are driving back to her place; Will is convinced that he killed Charlotte but Laura tries to persuade him that he didn’t. Still heading home Laura notices a lot of dirt on Will’s shoe as he sleeping; thinking that maybe he might have killed Charlotte. She lost in thought about this until she hears an oncoming truck and drives out of the way just in time.
The two arrived to her place and Will ask Laura to lock him up before it gets dark. The only place that she can lock him up is the barn and he’s OK with that. Will hears a phone ringing and Laura goes off to answer it. On the phone it’s Bridger asking Laura to come in tomorrow with Will for a statement. Laura asked detective Bridger if he needs blood and tissue samples from Will; he answer that they be no good. Bridger explains that upon gathering issue samples from the body they found canine DNA. Meaning that Charlotte was attacked by some animal after she was killed; Laura stays in shocked to the revelation of Will being the killer and a werewolf. Laura heads back to the car and locks up Will in the barn. Little does Will know Laura is heading to the station to talk to Bridger. Nightfall has come as Will is in pain due to wearing the amulet that’s keeping the wolf inside him at bay. At the station Laura is approached by Stewart who there to give a statement (trying to screw over Will). Stewart is acting rather odd at the presence of Laura; even his eyes look spookily ember…..SPOILERS he’s becoming a werewolf. Stewart sweets talks Laura into having a drink and she accepts as Stewart is being called in. Luckily Laura’s bullshit radar goes off and runs away; Stewart starts telling Bridger complete bullshit talk about Will. He then asked him if he could see Will but Bridger points it out to ask Laura. However, they stepped out the office Laura is long gone and Stewart goes off after her. Back at the barn Will wakes up looking normal meaning that the amulet is working. Laura arrives home telling her gate security to let no one in until he calls in. But soon after that Stewart (looking like a hipster Sabretooth) arrives at the gate; after Stewart says a rather rapey statement on Laura the gate security tells him to leave. Stewart backs up but only to speed towards the gate, breaking right through it and runs down the security guard. Stewart is stalking around the place, comes across another guard and kills him. Laura loads up the car and is about to get Will but is stopped by Stewart. He demands Laura to tell him what’s happening to him; she tries to play dumb but it’s only making him more anger. Laura knees him the in balls…wolf-man’s got nards…and runs into the barn. Stewart soon chases after her while Will still locked in trying to climb out the stable. Laura sprays Stewart with fire extinguisher and makes a run for it but he leaps up in the air and lands on her dropping the keys to the stables. Stewart grabs the keys then throws them away trapping Will; leaving with no choice Will gets rid of the amulet.
Werewolf Ultron goes proto-Jacob Black as he attempts to rape Laura. Now all joking aside at least he doesn’t have a werewolf hard-on for a toddler; otherwise this film would’ve been way too fucked up to review. Stewart continues attempting to rape Laura as Will Hulks…..um….wolfs out. Will reverts to the wolf and managed to leap high enough to get out of the stable. Will leaps on top of Stewart freeing Laura; a fight breaks out between werewolf Joker and werewolf Ultron. Now if only this movie had werewolf Justice League and werewolf Avengers this would be awesome. Anyway Laura comes up behind Stewart with a pitchfork but he takes it away from her and swipes Will in the face with it. He then stabs Will in the shoulder and…..just runs away for some reason. Dude you had werewolf Joker on the ropes you couldn’t just stab him in the chest. OK when Avengers 2 comes out I hope you don’t suck as Ultron. Will goes after Stewart and leaps out at him; he lifts up Stewart and throws him on some stone steps. But it’s not yet as Stewart grabs these hedge-trimmers and leaps up behind Will. But in mid-air Stewart is shot dead by Laura who has grabbed the dead guard’s gun. With Stewart now dead Will goes to Laura and she holds his hand; then Will runs off to the wilderness….while stripping naked. Hey at least it’s a necessity and not some shameful, money grubbing fan-service. Later the police show up at the residence; Laura lies to the cops that Will has went to the airport. Laura’s father tells her that Stewart was shot dead by one of the guard. She even goes out of her way that her and Will were done and that she was gonna dump him anyway. As Laura walks away she asked detective Bridger if he wants another vodka tonic and in a confused response he says no. Still confused he asked his partner how she knows he’s been drinking and Laura gives the same response as Will. “I can smell it a mile away”; cue the Twilight Zone music. She walks away and we zoom in on Laura’s face with eyes now….ember…. So Laura is a werewolf, if so when did she and Will had unprotected sex and got infected? Was Laura a werewolf before her and Will met, if so was she the one bit Will? But then again why didn’t she change and kill Stewart? I better end this before I get cross-eyed. Cut to a close up shot of Will’s face as he becomes a full wolf; cutting back to Laura as the movie fades to black.
My Final Verdict: This film feels a modern day adaptation of the Wolf-Man I mean that in a good way. Jack Nicholson plays a character that has an excellent resemblance to Larry Talbot (The Wolf Man 1941) in the tortured soul department. The subtle transition man to wolf is lovely; excellent prosthetic effects too. The werewolves in this are terrifying and intimidating as they should be. They’re not a couple of pansy pedo-wolves fighting over a sociopathic husk of a character.
Well this is it, one more film and this one should be considered as THE anti-Twilight. Next week it’s Let The Right One In, stay tuned.
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