Oh warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for werewolf movies across from many decades.
And as the moon grows high above you.
You have been warred.
Hello. My name is Jason Concepcion and.
I'm Rosey Night and I'm Germany, where the podcast we Dine in your favorite movies copp Culture Coming to you from our podcast where we're bringing you three huge, full Whoa episodes a week, dripping with blood.
In today's episode, it's a were wolf bonanze in the omnibus, recovering the classics, the cult classics, and the foreign films that have come to define the genre of were wolf movies. In the time capsule, we're looking at some deep cuts that you might have missed. And in the back man Joe El saw the New wolf Man movie, so you don't have to, and she will give us a spoiler free review.
Okay, let's get into the genre of the werewolf movie, A wonderful genre. Kind of it's an interesting space because it's kind of your it's really your third tier monster. It's your third pick in the draft of monsters. You go vampire probably, yeah, right, then you're gonna go zombie.
Yeah, zombie slash Frankenstein.
Slash Frankenstein, and then yeah, after you've put out a bunch of vampire and zombie movies, you're gonna go to the Wolfman. And in that sense it lives as a kind of and what else monster. But there have been some true classics, and we have to start with nineteen forty one's Wolfman, directed by George Wagner, screenplay by Kurt Siautomack, featuring what is by now the iconic transformation scene of mister laun Cheney.
Joelle tell us about The Wolfman.
So Rosie has been talking to me about universal monster movies for a long time. She's like, you have to get into them. This is one of the few I haven't seen of the main character arts. I saw the Franklinstein one long time. I soa always saw the Dracula all good, So coming into this I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I actually this is not my favorite of the universal Wolfman films, and we'll talk about
those a little bit later. But what I really enjoyed about this movie is like it really establishes the father son angle that I think is really essential to Wolfman movies. Like Larry that Larry Talbot is your main character. He comes back, he's like three times larger than his father. Because it's a Hammer film there about the same age. Hammer was like, we don't really care location.
Everyone has everyone's kind of accent.
Listen, we said that's the dad, that's the dad. Just lean into it. And so you get this like really great, Like, oh, here's a guy who hasn't been home for eighteen years and he's trying to reassert himself as like a full adult man and have this relationship with his father. And I thought that was really beautiful. I also like that this man has zero swagger, which is the thing I don't think we see in Hollywood films anymore. He tries to hit on this girl. She's like, yeah, I'm engaged
to thinking. He's like, oh, let me just like take you out. I saw you got some cool earrings on your nightstand. She's like, how you know? I was just peeping on you with a telescope. It's totally fine. Zero zero game. He's like you very much hear every man, And you're kind of annoyed with him until he gets bit and then you you switch. You sort of start to feel for him, like Oh no, that's just like a regular dude trying to get through his life. And
I think this movie holds up pretty well. It's pretty good. What do you guys think about this one?
I think this is definitely a classic.
I think it's gone one of the best wolf man wear wolf designs.
I think we all still see that as.
Iconic, iconic were wolf.
Long Cheney's always great at being a monster.
I also think that something that me and Joel were talking about about these Universal Monster movies is like they laid the groundwork for a lot of what the MCU is doing now, where you basically have a stable of actors, you have a stable of characters, but you can kind of mix them up, like Claude Rains is in this movie, he played the Invisible Man. Best movie, he played Dracula.
And he plays Layla. In this movie he plays He plays a fortune teller named Bayla. I went back to try to find the story to be like with coincidence, this story was written in like eighteen thirty one. It's a short story from like a middling writer, and no, no Bayla in that that I could find. Yeah, they were just crazy.
He's just so great. He's the famous, and so I love that.
Also, as we will get into it a bit, they would then start doing these kind of crossover movies where they would bring all the characters together and it's very original shared universe vibes, which I think are really interesting. Also, we did solve a mystery while talking about this movie before we were recording, which is I had always thought as a little kid that the end of teen Wolf.
Was that Michael J.
Fox's character got killed by being bludgeoned to death by like his dad's walking stick with a silver wolf head on it. No, that's actually the end of wolf Man, which I must have seen or read about when I was a little kid, and that was always really funny because I always thought Teen Wolf was a lot gloria and more brutal. And then when I watched Tea Wolf too, I was like, wait, he's still alive. How did this happen?
So yeah, I think this is a great classic. I also will just say, guys, Universal Monsters, there's a full Universal Wants this channel that you can just watch on Roku or Pluto and they just play these movies like NonStop.
It has been a true education.
Ender to me, really really fun there they're wonderful movies. You mentioned it up. Next, let's talk about a more modern classic, teen Wolf nineteen eighty five. Teen Wolf direct by Rod Daniel, screenlay by Jeff Lobe and matthe Slobe.
What are you doing?
Yes?
Yes?
Uh, the debut film for TV's Michael J.
Fox.
Wow and a wonderful teen werewolf movie, in which Michael J.
Fox plays Scott, who, in.
What is a trench at puberty metaphor, goes through a change one night, wakes up, looks in the mirror, discovers that he's a werewolf. Here's a knock on his door, and opens his door to find his dad, also werewolf.
He is from a family of werewolves.
Guys. I feel like he I feel like he stat should have told him not before.
I'm not gonna He's very Yeah, they weren't sure, and he was saying so he wanted to see how it played out. But to be fair, he was right there at once the moon had risen high in the sky and the transurrasion taking place.
He was right there.
Johnny on the spot to talk to him about the changes that poor Scott is undergoing. Scott tries to keep this hidden from people. But of course transformation happens in a very public way at at a high school basketball game that he then goes on to dominate and he becomes like the star basketball player in the one of the best scenes.
In cinematic history, that long walk downwards to then a slam dunk. Fabulous, guys.
I have to say the fact that Jeff lo broke this makes a lot of sense because this does follow one of the classic racist tropes in movies, which is if somebody is turning into a monster or slash evil, then they get good at stuff that white people think black people are good at. So like he gets good at basketball, he gets good at dancing.
Wait a minute, because I thought him going for the white blonde girl was also felt che toned because she is.
Like because think about this guy's Spider Man three.
When he's got the black seat, Suddenly he becomes really good at dancing.
And he's really true and swap. It's like a.
Really weird Hollywood trope. And Jeff Lobe, I know, I feel like that makes sense.
Now, I know you wrote I think that you know, to be fair to Jeff and all of us, I think he might have been so deep in the matrix that he didn't see the ones in the zeros on.
This particular trope. No, that's but you're one hundred percent correct about about what this is.
Where did we This is a movie I remember seeing as a kid and seeing a like I've seen.
This movie probably five hundred times.
It's later taken on some easter egg like significance in that famously a guy like has his nuts out in the last scene of the movie.
Yes, yes, what yeah, And oh you've not heard this, Joel, Yeah, this is I.
Was not aware Wolf Gurley growing up, and so actually this is my first time watching ton of these movies, including teen Wolf, which, like my initial thought was like, is this the funniest movie ever made? Made? It's so when Dad opens the door, I was dying.
I was like that, I thought, honestly, no, bullshit. One of the great twists and reveals, like in a in the genre rearly is because you are not expecting that.
You think he's gonna open the door and be like, horres, oh no, my son was going on there, and then he's like, hey, guess what, guys, I'm aware Wolf also Hereditary, which is very interesting because that definitely is something I think that the new Wolfman like leans into is this idea of like a hereditary were wolf type situation. So I'm I did think that's an interesting trope that establishes. Also, Joel, you pointed out one of the things I think is the most important about this movie.
How good are the jackets in this movie?
The incredible Letterman jacket.
I was prepared to go shopping watching this film. Unbelievable. The style is really on point in this movie in a great way. It's lovely.
They really make you want to go out for a varsity team. And funnily Funnily enough, I was watching the Traders Program reality television program, allan International Legend, International legend, human peacock, allen Coming, eating up every fucking scene. Wes from the MTVS the challenge shows up in a Letterman jacket and it sent me down a rabbit hole looking up the history of Letterman jackets and wondering to myself, could I pull awful?
Could I could?
Yet? By the way Letterman jackets they started as Letterman sweaters as a way to denote in the eighteen sixties which Harvard baseball players were the best they got.
The Letterman sweater anyway baseball.
That's exactly exactly. We also say this film has some of the best secondary characters, just very quickly, like that the best friend who has a crush on the lead guy, and then Styles is my favorite chaos agent maybe of all times because Styles. What makes sounds so interesting is like, there's nothing that bothers this kid, and the only thing you know about him is he has zero impulse control, you know about Like he's just like he's a brother that smokes. I guess that's it.
I love that this guy is a wolf. He's like this, we could do a lot of Yeah, this is like, this is great.
This is like I just surfed on top of this moving van like Styles, Oh my god.
Please like suh.
I definitely do think that this is very unique in that it's not a horror comedy.
It's just a comedy.
Like it's just like what would happen if a guy was a were wolf and everyone was cool with it?
Everybody and everybody is immediately cool with it. Yeah, everybody's like, seems good. He's averaging thirty in the league.
We might as well, yeah, school everybody.
I feel like if that was a were wolf in the NBA who is just like never missing like and never missing A three. They'd be like, yeah, cool, I guess guess.
He's that Hi number three.
I think my favorite werewolf film of all time an American War Wolf in London, directed by the infamous John Landis, I guess we should say, screenplay also by John Landis, starring David Naughton Jenny I get a Griffin Dunn in a wonderful role, both dead and alive. And I think the thing to me that sets this movie apart head and shoulders apart one is the hyper violence and the incredible like yeah, the cinematography that puts you in the in the pov of the wolf, and the incredible and
truly like troubling transformation scenes. But also this movie is hilarious, Like it's it's so funny, funny.
Very very funny.
The balance of scares and laughs has maybe never been more well done than in this movie. I don't know if there's any other horror comedy that can reach the heights of how compleatly funny it is, but also the kind of horror of the first time you see Griffin done come back.
And worn up, make up quick quick synopsis. David played by David Naughton and Gryffin Done his buddy Jack are like backpacking through what appears to be like whales or.
Something like that.
It's like the Midlands. It's like up north call it. So it's kind of you're in England, but you're in like a rural area where everybody's like a farmer and they don't want to see you.
They don't want you to be there.
The Celtic like culture here is very strong apparently, and they wander into like a pub.
Where the entire slaughter lamb.
The slaughter lamb, entire town is like hold up in this pub and it's like that classic thing of like it goes silent when these guys walk in. They're not feeling the vibes. They decide to like, you know what, let's leave here. It's it's weird here. Let's leave. Everybody's like, don't do that, and they're like, yeah, we're gonna go.
They're attacked by a werewolf that kills Jack. David is merely wounded, and then of course his nightmare truly begins because he begins transforming into werewolf at regular intervals and also seeing visions of all the people who he has killed. They will come and like sit with him and his friend Jack Griffin Dunn, in what are the funniest scenes in the movie, just roasts him throughout.
He's like, you saw your howf is gonna kill people?
Just fucking kill yourself? Like yeah, survive, like don't.
Keep pushing through this, please, And you get some really fantastic shots of like early eighties, late seventies London in this this kind of it's.
Really really cool. I love the slaughtered lamb is like a legendary space.
Now there are slaughtered lamp pubs out there inspired by this really notable Rick Baker winning the inaugural Academy Award for Best Makeup, no question, because this is like has what I would say is the most iconic and terrifying where we'll transformation set, Like.
The slide us from like human to wolf is so terrifying and like really really holds up. I think I saw this really is very young and it's in a long time. Yeah, it gives really creepy. But what I
had forgotten about this film is Jack's deterioration. Like every time Jack pops back up, he's a little more rotted, a little more dead, to the point where the last part I think they're using a puppet for him his face because it's like mostly skeleton, like you're releasing teeth and stuff, and it's so good and so creepy, and you really I buy these guys, Like, I think this is one of those rare films you could show children today, not tell them what time period it was, and while
they would recognize it as being older, they probably wouldn't be able to pinpoint it. It's very timeless.
Yeah, it's a really it is truly just a brilliant movie, Like you just can't question it. So I'd say, if you are listening to this and you are not immersed in the werewolf genre and you like horror, because this one is scary, Like I wouldn't put an Aaron through watching this. No, yeah, this this one, I would really say, like start here because it's really the peak's remarkable.
It's a remarkable film again by the infamous John Landis, who caused the deaths of three people while directing The Twilight Zone. R R.
Okay, so those are really the kind of those are our photlastics.
So let's talk.
Now about what are the ones that we love that are not one of these three.
We'll be right back after a quick break, and we're back.
Let's just go.
We have our list put together by Joel. Thank you so much, Thank you, the list of cult classics and foreign were wolf films and deep cut films. But maybe let's just talk about the ones that we really like. Joel, did we even start at you? What's what's a weird? What's your favorite non podium werewoll film?
Okay, surprising probably everyone, including myself, I had never seen Ginger Snaps. I don't know how you've been blast. I can think of is that? Okay, nineteen ninety It comes out in two thousand, so I turn eleven that year. But it's coming off of Columbine, and there is a huge effort by the government to suppress violent films aimed at teenagers specifically, which this absolutely is. So I think I got caught up in that. And then I also wasn't a werewolf girly, and so.
It's also film like I remember, like I'm I was plugged into it for TV. I was plugged, you know. I love movies and horror movies. I didn't see this or hear about it until maybe three or four or five years later.
It was definitely.
A film that made it to England when I was like fourteen or fifteen, so a couple of years after this, and then I was like, you know, every girl I knew, especially because I was like an emo, like go little kid, sure were like obsessed with it.
You know.
I was like, did someone watch my adolescence and make a movie out of it? Like there's weird suicide packs, there's like we're experimenting with weed for the first time of like the outfits, Like everything about this movie felt very much like it was designed for me at a very like thirteen year old me.
It was just a crazy question.
Okay, all right, So you have two sisters, Ginger and Bridget, and they are inseparable. They make a pack to die together. By sixteen, Ginger is your stereotypical beautiful girl shell red hair and blue eyes, but she loves her sister, Bridget, who's like awkward and doesn't really want to be talking to people. When Ginger starts to demonstrate, she also gets fitten by a wolf, so she starts to turn into a were wolf, and as she does, she has like
a sexual awakening. This is classic were wolf fodder. You get a sexual awakening, you get weird townies that are scared of her, and she starts being mean to her sister, separating herself, and it's very difficult. They have this mother who is iconic, this mother who's like very close to
being like I wanted to divorce your father. He's completely useless and I hate him and I love my daughters, but I want my youngest Bridget to really stand up for herself, like you're a person too, don't always follow in Ginger shadow, And between the three of them they start to try to like figure out like how to help Ginger, who's suddenly like I love being a wolf, I like eating people. I love powerful and sexy, and I don't want to change. And she becomes so much
a wolf that she forgets about her sister. Her sister starts up a friendly relationship with a drug dealing sexual dv and who sometimes leads with high school girls gross, but together they find a cure. Unfortunately, she's not able to deliver the current time drug dealer dies, lots of other people die, and in the end, it feels like there are sequels to this movie, so I know that more happens, but it feels like.
Which it has to kill little cottage industry.
Yeah, yeah, but it's a delightful film. Like I feel so much for Bridget I love her. This movie is funny. It's so funny. And even their bully, who at first you hate because she's just kind of jealous and starky and hitting them with their play a lot of field hockey. By the end, she's like, hey, this drug do had sex with me? He does doesn't care about me, and I hate that. And you girls on top of that are mein back to me and at the end you're
just like I feel for this girl too. I love all the women in this but we could tell a woman wrote it. It's brilliant.
Yeah. I this was such a huge movie for me, and I think it really stands up and the test, like the Zeros was actually like an incredible time for like subversive female teen movies. Absolutely obviously Jennifer's Body May That's another one that I've seen a lot of people revisiting. That's like a golf classic about a woman who can't make a friend, so she starts to like make friends out of dead bodies. Like just some really cool weird stuff coming out of that era, and yeah, I love
this movie. I think this is so in line with what our discord would enjoy.
So I will just say, feel.
Like, Lisa Frankenstein, you're like this movie if you yes.
If you're a Jennifer's body truth that you will enjoy this movie.
It does a great teen movie drama thing, which is is like what happens when two friends grow apart?
Like, yeah, exactly, like what happens when one of you outgrows the other one.
Yeah, And it's just like it's.
A really good movie, very heartbreaking every time I watch it.
Oh yeah, yeah, just see what about you, Rosie, what's yeah your favorite?
Okay, I'm gonna go for Wolf Walkers because I actually, yes, I actually like hadn't seen this movie, and I wasn't sure I was gonna love it.
This was like a couple.
This was maybe like I watched it for the first time maybe like two years ago. I had an Apple TV Plus subscription to watch like Severance or something.
And I was like, oh, you know what I do like?
Uh this studio's movies, Yeah, Cartoon Salon, But I always I I like the way the movies looked. But I often met hot like found it harder to like emotionally connect with the movies. But I was like, I want to watch something that's really beautiful, and I love like a two D animated movie. But this movie just blew me away, Like I was crying. I was like really moved by it. I thought it was absolutely stunningly directed.
So basically it is an Englishman Bill Goodfellow. He's summoned to kill Kenny in Ireland in sixteen oh five to deal with like a pack of ravaging wolves that are terrorizing the town. His kind of wild daughter, who loves to be in the forest and loves to be outside and wants to be a wolf hunter, ends up running into a wolf and basically becoming connected with the wolf, and suddenly they start a friendship, and Robin ends up getting bitten, and Robin ends up turning into what they
call a wolf walker. She's a human by night by day, and by night she's a wolf. And it is so unbelievable to watch this movie and to see the way that they they essentially make it a movie about the witch hunts, but through the lens of wolf hunting, which I think is really interesting. There is a scary kind of evil proctor who's called the Lord Protector, very very similar vibes, and it ends up where you get like the village kind of turning on the Proctor and people
deciding they want to help the wolves. And I just thought this was such an incredible movie. I've rewatched it so many times. It is directed by Tom Moore and Russ Stewart, screenplay by Will Collins.
It has Sean bean.
Our obviously got favorite Bill Goodfellow, Eva Whitaker as Mave, and Maria Doyle as mal I want to Neep Say as Robin Goodfellow. This movie is so unbelievable. And I remember when it came out the whole critic class, like everyone I knew or my colleagues, they were like, this is the movie. Like this movie needs to win an OSCAR, Like this movie needs to be recognized and talked about, and this movie shows that you can still make an incredible two de animated movie. And it's true, and the
music in this movie is incredible. Like I discovered this and, in my opinion, the very underrated Pixar movie Luca around the same time. They both came out in the COVID times and were not necessarily given the huge push that they would have been given otherwise, and both of them I think are such fantastic entries into the monster genre. And Luca is also like you know, however much Pixar and the creator's sale, it's it's not necessarily about like being gay, it's definitely about being gay.
They need.
There is an extremely.
Great monster movie in the vein of like a Creature from the Black Lagoon, but about coming out and about your first love and finding friendship, and.
It's so beautiful.
So both of those movies hit me at like a very good time and I would definitely this one's still on Apple tv Plus if you've got that subscription, go and watch it.
It's so so good.
Gorgeous, wow, great wreck.
As we mentioned on this pod before, Apple TV Plus subscription very easy to get.
They'll give it to you.
You can get that. You can get it for free on best Buy. Just go to best Buy and write Apple TV Plus. They'll just have a code for you. Target if you've ever bought anything from there, they're offering it to you card to buy anything and there.
The back of trucks in the street.
Just go get give it, take it please. We don't need the money.
Where Apple.
Just make it a free service silo. Also, like the Tetris movie is so good making it's Joel, you would love it. It's like a Cold War thriller about Tetris and creator rights and about this friendship between the American an American guy who's trying to get the Tetris rights for England and the Russian guy who actually made Tetris. And it is unbelievable. Like that is such a fantastic movie.
This is an aside, but one of these days we need to study Taron Edgerton's IMDb because this he is.
That I have.
I have a tremendous respect for mister Tarren Edgerton, who has who selects roles in a very strange in Munich fashion.
And it's going great for him.
He's really like he was a guy who would like they were clearly like setting up in The Kingsman to be like this the young action movie guy. And he's like, no, I'm not doing that shit. I'm gonna get weird.
He's like, yeah, I'm gonna play else in John.
Yeah, I'm gonna be very I'm gonna just do crazy things. My pick, Yeah, I'm gonna pick. There's so many uh that I really enjoy. I love the nineties Jack Nicholson Vehicle Wolf, which is one of the thought so I don't understand how it got made, what the pitch was. It's badly why crazy movie about Jack Nicholson discovering, as a middle aged man, his virility after he's bitten by a wolf and he starts like becoming like a like a bully at work and pissing on guys shoes and just.
Being he's like, he's just a really horny guy.
It just becomes extremely horny, very very weird movie. But the one I'm gonna pick is nineteen eighty one's The Howling because I think it's really scary, like legend Joe Dante. I think this is the movie he made after Pirana. I think maybe and love that movie. It is super creepy. It's about a Karen, a reporter in la who's working on this story about a serial killer who's like kind of like the night Stalker, you know, the film version
of the night Stalker. And she goes to meet him and and he transforms into a werewolf moments before he is shot and killed by police. So she begins digging into it. And turns out like he's the evidence leads her to this weird commune up in the Pacific northwest of like sex hippies, and it turns out the sex hippies are like a or like a werewolf cult, and she gets embroiled in this thing and it's got some
really good transformations that are super super creepy. There's this whole kind of undercurrent of like the dark side of the hippie phenomenon of this, like is nineteen eighty one, so we're like on the.
Other side of hippies.
The hippies are like in their thirties now, and it's got so it's got this undercurrent of like what was it all for?
Like what were we really doing? That is really really.
Fun and it's just got it a phenomenally dark, weird vibe and it ends on a downer, which I always like, you know, in a horror movie in particular.
Very classic were wolf traditions down they almost always die. You know. Something else that I was thinking that the howling is also there's a cottage industry of sequels, right.
I got all filmed like in Romania and Czechoslovaka, various tax shelters across the Globe and they're all really bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but no no, some of the Howling ones are like crazy though, so you gotta watch.
They're like be martial.
Yes, let me just say the Howling Marsupials, which I think is the one they did in Australia. Chey that one out for just being absolletely because.
But the thing is, I think that and there is also a really famously hated sequel to American Wealth in London, which is American Wealth in Paris, which is actually again totally bonked.
Watching and fucking awful.
There's really crazy stuff.
So the thing I find is really interesting is like there is obviously a you know, pun intended hunger for werewolf movies, so it's kind of funny that we don't actually get more mainstream werewolf movies, but the B movie element of just making loads of sequels keeps happening because there aren't a lot of high profile ones, like the rest of ours are mostly kind of deep cut.
Though.
I will say the one that we haven't talked about that I do think is an interesting inclusion that was a huge h is Underworld.
Again Cohage industry of sequels.
Well, you mentioned Before we get into that, you mentioned something I think is right, which is that because you're in the this is your third tier monster.
Essentially, there is a strong.
B movie element, even when they try to do something you know, triple.
A like Wolf.
Yeah, exactly. That's such a good point. It is like a movie.
But let's talk about Underworld, which I think are underrated films to it. I agree Wiseman directed films, of course, starring the knockout action star Kate's Sales.
Who I believe was Len Wiseman's wife at this point, so as a limit on did they maybe on the set, but then then she became his wife Because this is a movie that has I don't even know how many Underworld sequels there are, It's like at least four or five at least. And also I just want to say, the screenplay in this case is like a murderer's more of interesting people.
Lem Wise Man, good for you still doing it.
But Kevin Gravau, who is a comic book guy and also a movie guy, and also Danny McBride, who I feel like pops up doing punch ups on the funniest funniest things.
The cast is.
An iconic mix of like CW actors jumping up a level, yeah, and like Shakespeare trained actors jumping down five levels, like Michael.
She As having the White Friends Lucien fucking loving it.
Also trapping himself to be in Twilight as one of the Vulturia.
Very legendary Michael Sheen performance.
Also, I think Michael Sheen and Kate Beckhensale were married for a while and had a kid, so maybe there's some kind of romantic love triangle going on here. But yeah, Underworld is basically hilarious because somebody was like, what if the Matrix were but you just took the aesthetics of the Matrix, not the politics of the Matrixx, just.
The aesthetics of the Matrix.
But it's about a world where vampires and were wolfs are in like an unholy battle for survival.
In this like weird gothic Underworld.
I love it because it's legitimately a movie that when you're eight, hanging out with your friends, you would write, if you had the capability of right, yes, war between the werewolves of the vampires.
And the only person who can stop them is this really sexy vampire looks like she's from like a nineties comic book and she's wearing these tiny pants and for some reason falls.
She falls in love with the world.
She must fall, and then they have to have a werewolf Dracula, which is really important.
Yeah, this is the kind of.
Movie that I will like always watch if they're replaying it on top.
It's fun.
They're fun, they're corny, they're stylish.
They actually do have a very very recognizable esthetic.
They really do across the whole Underworld.
Franchise, which, honestly, I have to say, I think.
The Underworld franchise might be the one I think it's underrated. I do think it's underrated.
I also think it might be the one that's longest running, Like I think the Newest Underworld most might be the most recent movie. Okay, so yeah, they did one in twenty sixteen, so this trip was running for like thirteen years, and there was a video game in two thousand and four. They have had I mean, I think that they made a short film that was animated. There have been comic books and novels, and on the Wikipedia they say present
this is still going on. So I'm sure that Sony's probably trying to find a way to make it.
This is where your be money should be living, Sony, I'm saying, like, right back to Underworld and be like, you know what, this is where we live. This is our house.
Okay, this is actually very interesting as well. I did not know this, but Kevin I didn't know that Kevin Grivau he creates, so he co created Underworld and he also wrote that I and he was the creer of the I Frankenstein graphic novel that famously turned into the I Frankenstein movie with none other than Gotham.
Uh you know da Aaron Oh, he played two Face, Yeah.
Two Face, and he was in and that movie I Frankenstein was meant to be in the same world. And then they ended up being like, no, we're not doing the crossover, which I also thought was interesting also Aaron Eckart.
Yeah.
Also interestingly, in twenty sixteen, Kate Beckenceale had said that they'd been trying to do an Underworld and Blade crossover. Shut mar That was before that was before Marvel got the right Okay, so then when Marvel got the Blade, they were like absolutely not getting Yeah, this is definitely.
Would do it, is all I'm saying. MCU Marvel Comics would be like yes, exactly.
Also, apparently they were going to do a Resident Evil crossover to so no, Underworld.
Is the better Resident Evil because they both have they both have very similar runs, the esthetic is quite similar, and of course they kind of overlapped for much of the run. But Underworld to me, is vastly superior in every way. Like, watch any of those Resident Evil movies and tell me you understand what's happening at any given time. At least the Underworld movies like there's a story in everything, easy to follow.
These movies have made over five hundred million years.
Actually, they're huge hit.
Even though they were negatively reviewed, it doesn't matter that almost Teflon like fans love it because people want to see it. And recently Kate Beckinsale, who I do love. She has a great Instagram presence. She is just a truly fantastic Hollywood eccentric and she's a very kind person. She recently said in the last few years, well, I would potentially come back as Selene, and you know what, she's still got banging bod. She would be Selene. I
could see how doing it. She should have been Laura Croft. Why they never cast her as Lara Croft is a scandal. But yeah, I think the wolf Man movies need they need a shout out.
Should we do a best of the rest? Whatever?
Okay, so let's go quickly through our best of the rest. Just what you know, what weird? Either a true werewolf movie or werewolf adjacent movie is has your Heart?
Joelle? You are okay? So it is called The Wolf of snow Hollow. It is drifted and starring and written by Jim Cummings, not the voice actor, different guy. It starts Ricky lynd Holm, who if you watched another period It's one of my favorite Comedy Central shows. She gets to do like a semi comedic but mostly serious role as detective Julia Robson and Robert Forrester is here a Sheriff Hadley. This film was so compelling. You never see
the wolf, which I found really interesting. So the whole time you're left trying to figure out is this a horror fantasy film or just a horror film? You're not sure. You follow this police officer who is a recovering alcoholic. His father is the sheriff who's ailing and should no longer be in the position. He's divorced from his wife. That's a very toxic relationship. They haven't figured out how to co parent yet. His daughter's about to go to college.
He is falling apart at the scenes, like most wearble films. I thing we haven't gotten into. But the thing I noticed is watching all these movies A cap no good cops in anywhere, well movie, they're all idiots, No one suspect body.
Like, no one knows what they're doing.
They can't get foolish, they can't do anything.
Absolutely, So he's falling apart. His team is making fun of him. Everyone's like, just give it to the feds. He's like, no one trusts us as cops. Maybe we should try to be cops. But as he's saying that, he's also returned back to drinking alcohol, and it's having fits of rage at anybody who's on the heat to like cross him. And he's falling apart, And so the whole time you're like, man, this guy should not be
doing this job. He's not good. He's not listening. A woman is like, I'm pretty sure I ran into the guy. They don't believe her. It's a hot mess right up to the end, which I do not want to spoil, but is so freaking satisfying. Guys. This movie really hit me, like, I can't wait to tell more of my like true centophile friends, Like if this is something you haven't popped in, it's absolutely worth the watch. It's super fun, It's very funny. If you come from a small town like I do,
you absolutely connect to it. So noirri very, like police detective work, but in a way that feels very grounded and real. We're not going to labs, we're not calling in specialists. It's just a bunch of regular townsfolk trying to figure out who's killing these women. It's so so, so so good. I really enjoyed it, so yeah, definitely. It came out in twenty twenty, so a lot of people missed it, so the loof of snow hollow. I think I rented it for like three bucks, so not not difficult to find though.
Yeah, I love it.
What about You Real?
What about you?
Okay, I'm gonna go for English classic.
In the early zeros that and late nineties, there was like a big boom and British filmmaking, led by movies like Sexy Beast and Football Factory, and they kind of focused on this Hitherfore unseen like working class experience in England.
Right.
So director called Neil Marshall, who you may know from the Descent. This was three years before he made The Descents. It was called Dog Soldiers and it is about like British soldiers.
Who are sent into a they have to go on a.
Mission and then they end up getting hunted by werewolves and they're kind of trapped in like the shack, being hunted by were wolves.
It's very English. Sean pertwe is in it.
Legend there is the now sadly embattled rapper was in it to who is his his life?
Noel Clark.
He is like a very famous British rapper and like he made these movies called Kidulthood. But he is now he's at it. He's at it. We don't know's he's been. He's been beleagued. H And yeah, this was This was a very important movie when I was a kid, Like.
We would watch it a lot. It was.
It's in I think it's set in like North Wales, and it's basically just a bunch of sas guys getting like absolutely fucked up by wolf wolf. It's just really good, really scary, really atmospheric. You can definitely see that Neil Marshall is someone who's gonna make a masterpiece, and obviously The Descent is that masterpiece.
Yeah, I love this movie.
Also another movie with a ton like a whole cottage industry of sequels.
They're still making sequels to dogs als.
Okay, people have never even heard of it, Jason, what's your what's your deep cup pick?
So you're best not technically a were wolf movement, it's a movie that plays with werewolf tropes. It is the two thousand and one French action film Brotherhood of the Wolf, starring Vincent Cassell I believe is soon to be wife Monica Blucci, directed by Christophe Gons What to say about this? So, the plot of the movie is during the reign of Louis the fifteenth, a potential werewolf is in the countryside, just like tearing people apart. It's some mysterious beasts. Nobode
can stop it. It's killing everybody. Nobody knows what's going on. The king has his royal naturalist, fran Sac and his Iroquois companion because they had spent a bunch of years, you know, traveling in the order in the French and Indian wars and in North America come and investigate, and there is a lot of like matrix inspired martial arts action in this film in congress, a lot of incongruous
shit that happens in this movie. And they discover after a while that the beast is being uncontrolled is part of this secret society called the Brotherhood of the Wolf that is working to like undermine the king by killing his subjects and making people feel like, oh, maybe kings, maybe the king doesn't know what he's.
Doing and he can't be Kings are bad.
Maybe kings are bad. Towns people are also essential to a wolf story. They kind of dumb townspeople who are just panicked at all times.
Yes, And when I tell you that this French film set in the in the mid eighteenth century has some of the best like martial arts inspired action of the two thousands, what I'm telling you the truth, Like they're just if you're not going to see this movie, and I get it. It's a weird film, but good and really entertaining. Just go Google right now, or go to YouTube and google like Brotherhood of the Wolf fights and the fight scenes.
Are They're fucking awesome. They're awesome.
And truly truly weird movie with a twist that's kind of dumb, but I'm not gonna spoil it for you. I'm not gonna spoil it for you, but a great twist that is also very dumb. Brotherhood of the Wolf. Well, folks, this has been the Wolf our Wolf conversation and this has all been to set up. Yeah, Joel's frightening reaction to Lee Wannad's latest film, a re imagining of Wolfman that you have recently seen and you were going to tell us about after.
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Back Lee Wynol's Wolfman. You've seen it, Joel, Watch.
Under Duress, Okay, under in the Fires.
You you were smoky laic la to see the seek Air, not sure if you're gonna be able to return home after the screening.
Oh my god, I agree to see.
It wasn't worth it to see Lee Wento's latest masterpiece, wolf Man.
It was worth it to go on. If you aren't talk to some good friends about this movie, because I had many. This is one of those films where in the middle of it, I was like, why do we make this and who is it for? And at the end there's a twist which I saw I called in like the first two minutes, I was like, okay, well that's that's the conclusion. The gas were so loud and so severe that I was like, oh, maybe this is for people who like see horror, who are just like
A don't really care. I like a monster. A monster is here and that's what and I like that and that's fine. But I just want to start off there. This is below a B movie because it seeks zero comedy. There's not a whiff of comedy, and I don't think where old movies work without a sense of comedy. I don't think they need to be.
Because a sud situation.
It is absolutely absurd and you cannot wrap your mind around it unless you're sort of laughing into it, I believe, And so listen. This film starts off with a twenty minute flashback, which, just like Drayman, annoyingly, where your main character is a kid. He's got a dad who's very angry. Why is he angry? You're not sure, but he's like, literally to his like twelve year old boy is like, dying is the easiest thing you could do, could happen at any time, and you be a lot to It's
like hype your masculine. Like he's got like an army bunker under their house, and he talks to a guy. He's like, I saw this creature in the woods. He's either we got to go hunt. Then you flash forward thirty years. You're in New York City. Your lead character
is now with his child, his daughter. She's about his age when he went through this thirteen and she's got like the TWU two and the fairy wings, and he's carrying a giant stuffed animal for her, and she hops up on like a plant box and runs into an unhoused person who sort of yells at her, and her father freaks out, like his father freaked out. And so, okay, now you get the premise. We're looking back. Father relationships
is all very within the cannon. I wish I could tell you anything that happens at well, I'll tell you one thing. His father's declared dead. They haven't seen him for a long time. He hasn't seen his dad in a long time. He's declared dead. They have to go back to Oklahoma, Iowa, somewhere way out west in the middle of nowhere to get his father's stuff. So the family. His wife is like, she doesn't want to go. I
guess she's a journalist and she's kind of busy. Okay, so she's, well, let's go be a family.
Leah Ghana of Ozong fame is not particular well used in the movie, does not have a law.
This is this is tremendously This is disappointing because, as we've been talking about on this program, we were, you know, The Invisible Man was.
Maybe the best horror film I've seen in the past decade, and that's not even close like The Invisible Man shook me.
What I'm getting from your reaction is it feels to me like The Invisible Man the kind of more updated context of what it would mean to be an Invisible Man, and you know, man is the important is really one of the most important parts of that title, and what
it would mean to use those powers. I think there was kind of like a social context to root that reimagining to It feels like with Wolfman, they tried to find something equally as smart and cutting and just kind of overcooked it without leaning in too.
Here's what I've heard happened from the grape vine. Now, a friend who went to the junk and therefore got The film's production notes said that initially the creators were inspired by degenerative diseases and that was what they were going to lean into. The main character's mom was supposed to have about with als. That's not in the film at all, So it seems like they had this really they felt they had a strong idea, and people either reacted poorly or the studio wanted to walk it back,
and then the film never quite found its footing. Nothing happens once they get bat Yeah.
Culta called it half a movie. They said that what it feels like you there's something missing.
Now, I'm not gonna lie.
I I love and trust Lee Vinyl, especially after Invisible Man, but I have to say, any kind of you know, equating a devastating kind of disability, your illness with monstrosity, has to be done very very carefully. So I probably understand why that was not necessarily that they went, especially when we've had quite a few incredible Alzheimer's horror movies of the last few years about like how scary it can be to kind of lose a connection with your loved one.
But yeah, that that's a shame.
I think you know, will it still make money. We'll find out after this weekend.
It'll be interesting to see. I think the Wolfman design was not great. Rosie had mentioned the other day that they premiered that at the Warner Brothers Fripe that's out here in La It lasted a day. People were clowning it so hard. It definitely does not It feels like they were trying to go for an extreme realism, which again doesn't work. This is a fantasy. Lean into it
and make him a freaking wolf. Also say from a horror perspective, which I thought that Invisible Man got so right, like the creepiness, the moment that was built so well, and they're completely gone here. There's just no They try to set up for jump scares, but you're not terrified at all.
Too dark to really see what the jump scared.
I think they need to make it dark to cover up that.
The design.
Yeah, my friend Ayah, who's just such a she's a really fantastic artist, Aya Francisco. You can follow her on Instagram, and uh, she went to see it and with big horror fans, and she said she literally gave it one star. She was like, it was so dark once they got to the forest, she was like, I could not tell what was going on.
I didn't know if I was meant to be getting jump scared. I couldn't.
She was like, I literally missed a jump scare because it was so dark.
Once they got I will see you missed nothing because literally, character story wise, nothing happens. They're literally just running around from this wolf back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until the end, which is anti clomatic and silly. Uh, this film struggles.
There is a character in this that the daughter she is called Ginger played by Matilda Firth, which I love a good Ginger Snap's reference, Like, come on.
Yes, that's great.
Also, I did hear there's a sore reference in there that the Saw fans were loving, So I will probably end up watching it for that. But yeah, yeah, shout out to Bumhouse Veroly, I must see.
I would not. I would rather rewatch Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, which I found incredibly delightful. Yes, and see this again. I would rather watch the twenty ten Wolfman over this, which is saying something that that movie really irks me. But I.
Movie, it's so bad, it's just what are we?
Emily blink again, like our girl from Julia. Julia. In this film, You're like, oh, this is an actress. She is doing everything she can to build an arc out of nothing. She's selling me what. I don't want to be interested in this movie. She's great. Emily does the
same thing in the old one. But I do think that I would rather see people try and swing for the fences like this and miss than to do a redundant thing like they really tried to modernize this like Epic War, and I think that their approach was it was just a miss. So I don't know Shade till I think great. Looking forward to your next film, uh Universal, I still believe in these monsters. I know you can kind of revive them minutes.
You can do it, you you we believe in It's gonna be something totally random and unexpected, like there was when the After the Invisible Man, there were all these cool movies that got picked up that kind of died during pandemic times, including The Kring Casama.
I believe it was going to be like a Western Dracula movie set in the future, and I'm like, please make that movie, guys, like that's what we need.
Well in the next episode of x ray Vision. This Thursday, We're concluding our look at Doing Prophecy with the Master of the Prophecy himself, Aboo, to take you through all the lore and all the ins and outs of the of the unique Season one of Doing Prophecy on Maxiden. On Saturday, we'll take a look at the week's biggest headlines. That's it for this episode, as.
Sing Bye Bye.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
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