Witz Flix: The Wolfman

In case you can't read it from the movie poster, the promo reads:

"Even a man who is pure of heart
and says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf
when the wolfsbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright."
-Old Gypsy Poem

...Gypsies...not known for their poetry. After watching Drag Me to Hell, I'd say that gypsies, in general, should be known for WAY OVERREACTING-- the entire time I watched that movie I just kept thinking, "HOW IS THIS AN EQUAL AND PROPORTIONAL RESPONSE!?" We're not here to talk about Drag Me to Hell, though, we're here to talk about The Wolfman. Like you, I know that The Wolfman is about Benicio Del Toro forgetting to shave. Let's get started:

2 min: It's 1891 and an old man is walking with a lantern in a creepy forest with a full moon overhead. Just in case he wasn't dead already, he shouts into the darkness, "Show yourself! I know you're out there!" Now, to my knowledge, nobody has ever shouted that and had a hot, naked girl pop out and kiss them, so I'm not exactly sure what he's hoping for, but a werewolf obliges, and treats his body like a pinata, slashing him with his claws until the candy pops out (read: intestines, which gives me a hilarious idea: whenever I accidentally have kids, I'm going to fill their birthday party pinata with lengths of sausage links so when they bust it open, the pinata spews forth guts. I know you're thinking, "That's horrible, why would you do that?" but doesn't it teach a better lesson than, "Beat something with a bat and candy falls out??").

4 min: The dead guy's fiancee writes Benicio Del Toro (his brother), asking to help find his missing brother. Benicio Del Toro looks like he fled a Three Stooges makeover and robbed a pimp. His fur coat and cane are not nearly as baffling as what happens when he opens his mouth: did you know Benicio Del Toro can speak NORMALLY??. He speaks to his estranged father, Anthony Hopkins, who has what I have to refer to as an overly lackadaisical attitude toward his other son's death. Strong odds on him being a werewolf.



8 min: Awesome exchange:

Man in Bar: What if it wasn't a beast, but a cunning murderer, who killed him and then tore him up to make it look like a wild beast was responsible?" (vaguely paraphrased)
Policeman: Ridiculous! Who would go to such lengths?!

...Uhhh....murderers? Off the top of my head, I'd say murderers would go to such lengths. But only because they're murderers. Was killing people that easy to get away with in the 1891?

Bartender: "What about that gypsy dancing bear, he coulda done it!" Classic. That bear just tries to bring a little bit of beauty into this world and they go and call it a killer. But, yeah, you should check the bear, that's a reasonable explanation since "wolf men" aren't generally real.

9 min: Hahaha, I LOVE it when movies go over the top out of there way to setup a racial stereotype.

Priest: Mosts unnatural wounds. Made by creature most foul.
Bartender: Damn gypsies! Wandering the countryside, bringing their woe and (dentistry??) with 'em!!

10 min: "He wouldn't leave the house on a full moon." So here's the thing-- there's a werewolf problem, ok, but it only comes out on a full moon, which is like...12 times a year. That's once a month. There are pizza, burritos, falafel, movies, cafes, bars, lectures, friends, and girls just outside my apartment on a daily basis and, yet, some days I just don't leave the house. How hard is it to not leave the house once a month, DURING regular sleeping hours?

13 min: Anthony Hopkins pops on what appear to be tinted swim goggles and heads to bed. I just...I need you to know these things.

15 min: We learn that Benicio Del Toro's mom killed herself when they were kids. Theoretically, because she found out she was in The Wolfman.

17 min: No matter how many times you say the name or show me Emily Blunt, I'm not going to remember who she is. That's just something I've come to accept. There's nothing recognizable about her-- it's like she was born without features. Anyway, she's Dead Brother's fiancee...well not anymore...that'd be creepy.

19 min: Anthony Hopkins says don't go out tonight during the full moon. Benicio decides to ride down to the Gypsy Camp, which looks significantly less fun than Camp Anawana.

"Camp Anawana, we hold you in our hearts,
and when we think about you,
it makes us want to fart."
-Old Gypsy Poem



21 min: Ok. Here we have the perfect example of why I don't like camping. The gypsies tell Benicio not to leave the camp because of the moon. A posse hunting the creature comes to the gypsy camp. Suddenly, The Wolfman shows up and starts ripping everyone limb from limb, killing anyone it comes near. Which raises the question: WHY DID ANYONE THINK THE GYPSY CAMP WAS SAFE? It's just an outdoor collective of shabby tents! Just because you have a fire and created a circle doesn't mean you're not going to be attacked in your sleep! "Witz, what part of camping don't you like?" The part where it's pitch black, I'm completely vulnerable, and I'm sleeping on rocks and tree roots when mattresses have been invented. Why am I the weird one?

OHHHH, the rarely expected through-the-neck-out-the-mouth kill. Looked a bit like this:



22 min: Well, turns out if you google, "Silver Bullet," you get way more vibrator links than I expected.

23 min: The werewolf attacks Benicio and flips him for real...by which I mean he gnaws on his neck and arm. Some men with guns arrive and the wolfman flees. The gypsies patch him up, knowing that he is now cursed. One says, "He can now only be released by someone who loves him," which seems arbitrary, even by werewolf curse standards.

25 min: Who the fuck is this chick-- oh, it's Emily Blunt.

28 min: Did I mention that Anthony Hopkins has a sikh living with him for no apparent reason? Just checking.

32 min: Benicio and Emily Blunt (by default, I still can't recognize her) are down by the lake and he shows her how to skip stones. It's not even flirty or romantic though, it's just kinda like, "Here's something you'll never miss not being able to do."

35 min: A posse comes to capture Benicio since he's gonna be a werewolf, but Hopkins scares them off. I'm not sure who we're supposed to be rooting for since they absolutely should capture him. Agent Smith from the Matrix is a detective on the case.

39 min: "If anything ever happened to you, I'd never forgive myself," Benicio says, as he sends Emily Blunt, who he's known for maybe three days, away...in the middle of the night...under a near full moon...alone...hm.

47 min: Benicio Of the Bull turns into a wolfman. This is why you shouldn't let him touch water.



Oh, and not to be a stickler, but shouldn't this movie be called The WolfMEN?? And since there's already a name for men that turn into wolves, shouldn't it just be called The Werewolves?

48 min: It's pretty hard to be scared of this guy-- he basically just looks like a super hairy jewish guy-- I mean, his name's Wolfman!

49 min: He starts killing everyone out looking to capture him. He's never gonna make the basketball team with this attitude!



Best Teen Wolf Quote (and possibly one of the best lines of all time): "You don't scare me, freak. Underneath all that hair, you're still a dork, Scott."

50 min: If I were a werewolf, I would absolutely play TV On the Radio's "Wolf Like Me" while I slaughtered. Would that automatically make me the first Hipster Werewolf? This movie would actually have been way better if they did it all modernized, "Romeo & Juliet" style with cool music instead of the usual instrumental score. Also, if they'd written a better script...

52 min: He's captured and locked up in an asylum. Everyone inexplicably thinks he's derranged and not a werewolf. They repeatedly dunk him in ice water and stick syringes in his neck, which looks almost as bad as having to get a day job again. Please, "share" this with your facebook friends.

52 min: If I were a werewolf, I'd make a t-shirt that said, "Our werewolf has a villager problem."

56 min: We were all right, Anthony Hopkins reveals that he's a Werewolf, Too (like Jason Bateman). He killed his wife. He killed his other son. This is why he can't have nice things.

60 min: SO they have Benicio restrained in a chair on the night of the full moon to prove to him and everyone else that he isn't a werewolf. The room is packed, which raises the question, WHO BOUGHT TICKETS TO THE SLAUGHTER ROOM?? If someone came up to me and said, "Yo, I have two tix to that show at The Asylum to see if that psycho turns into a werewolf or not, wanna come with for free?" I'd be like, "Are you out of you're fucking mind?? Look, The Asylum is a sweet name for a venue, but in the event that he isn't a werewolf, we're just sitting in a room for a while watching nothing happen, and on the off chance that he DOES turn into a werewolf, we're ALL GOING TO DIE." Of course, maybe they all kind of believe he is going to transform, which leads us to:

63 min: Benicio turns into a wolfman and proceeds to kill everyone. I've said this before in the past, but I have to repeat it one more time here: If you suspect a man might turn into a wolfman, AND you have said wolfman tied up, you should GO OVERBOARD. Just go wild with the restraints. Ropes, belts, chains, wire, whatever. Because you have absolutely no idea how strong that creature is going to be.

65 min: The Wolfman looks exactly like Wolf-Han Solo right now, it's awesome.


(best I could find)

68 min: Who doesn't move immediately when you find out there's a legit werewolf in your town? Population of Blackmoor ought to be zero right now.

70 min: What the hell, you can't just add a new character this late in the-- oh, false alarm, it's just Emily Blunt. They kiss, which is weird, but I guess everybody has their thing. The police show up and he flees.

72 min: Hahah, she's reading a book just called, "Ancient Gypsy Lore." Who's blunt now? (Get it, get it? Eh? See, because her name has a meaning)

86 min: Benicio Del Taco (sorry, it's like 3am and I'm hungry) and Anthony Hopkins turn into wolfmen and fight. Anthony Hopkins looks like a goddamn ewok, so it's a little hard to take this seriously, but it does bring my life full circle as the first movie creature that freaked me out as a kid was the wolf in The Ewok Adventure.

88 min: Wait, why the hell are they able to restrain themselves and fight each other consciously now, but normally they just kill everyone they see? Benicio eventually chucks Anthony into a fire, momentarily creating a terrifying Fire Werewolf, but then wallops his head off...creating just a terrifying house fire. Only YOU can prevent Fire Werewolves!

91 min: Before this thing wraps up, I just want to make sure that nobody saw "Wolf" with Jack Nicholson, right? Like, I shouldn't make a reference? Ok, good.

93 min: Emily Blunt is trapped by The Wolfman. She gets him to hesitate and while he's distracted, she grabs the gun with a silver bullet in it and shoots him. He dies, and as he does so, his hair disappears and he turns back into a man. You're telling me if I shoot my dad, he's gonna start shedding body hair? And whatever happened to, "The curse can only be lifted by love," or that bullshit? Seems to me a silver bullet tidied things up pretty nicely.

94 min: What has two thumbs and can take a silver bullet? THIS GUY!

(That joke was way less awkward before I learned about the vibrator...)

95 min: Agent Smith was bitten and survived, so now HE'S gonna be a werewolf...TWIST!...ugh. The Final Voiceover: "They say there's no sin in killing a beast...only in killing a man. But where does one begin and the other end?" Did they really just try and make this deep? Shit, movie, I guess, like, when the man becomes a fucking werewolf, how about that? Applied metaphorically, let's just take it on a case by case basis, but yeah, feel free to shoot Rod Blagojevich.

Pretty Sure This Movie Was Just A Long Interpretation of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf,"
Witz


In Unrelated Conversation Earlier Today:
HER: What can you kill with a golden bullet?
ME: ...Anything that you can kill with a regular bullet...

Fact: I just looked at a list of movies with werewolves in them and there's a movie called Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. Well...don't go to Dr. Terror's house!

Runner Up Awesome Quote From Teen Wolf:
SCOTT: Styles, I got something to tell you. It's kind of hard, but...
STYLES: Look, are you gonna tell me you're a fag because if you're gonna tell me you're a fag, I don't think I can handle it.
SCOTT: I'm not a fag. I'm...a werewolf.