Scan and Pan
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Blood and Chocolate
Vivian is a young American woman living in Bucharest. Vivian is also a werewolf, a member of a pack who closely guards its existence from the world of humans, and she's been promised to Gabriel, the pack leader. However, she meets a young human artist, Aiden, and falls in love with him.
Director Katja von Garnier (Bandits, Iron Jawed Angels) approaches the material with an eye to naturalism rather than horror excess, creating a solid film that owes as much to the romance genre as it does to horror, but it lacks any real spark and feels like a made for television film most of the time. Screenwriters Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and Christopher Landon make major changes to Annette Curtis Klause's novel, which will disappoint fans of the novel, but even with its shortcomings, the attempt to create a lycanthropic romance thriller is appreciated. Hopefully, another filmmaker will revisit the premise and make a better than average film out of it.
If there's one thing that works well in the film, it's the transformation scenes, which are very graceful and capture the beauty of lycanthropy rather than being gruesome. The transformed werewolves are portrayed by real wolves instead of animatronics or CGI creations, which makes them seem like tangible possibilities that may lurk in the shadows of our world.
There are no great performances here, but Agnes Bruckner as Vivian and Hugh Dancy as Aiden deliver solid ones and have the good looks necessary for what are essentially "Romeo and Juliet" roles. They don't seem to have much chemistry early in the film, but their chemistry increases as the story goes on, mirroring the growing relationship of their characters. However, Olivier Martinez as Gabriel and Bryan Dick as Vivian's cousin Rafe seem to have wandered in off the set of a daytime soap with their unconvincing overacting. Gabriel as written in the script should be a dark, seductive, and menacing presence, but Martinez doesn't manage anything even close to that.
If, like me, you enjoy werewolf films, it's worth a viewing, but wait until it's released on video (which shouldn't be long considering how poorly it's performed at the box office).
I have a soft spot for werewolf films. It's a genre that's produced some classics (The Wolf Man, The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps), but has also produced more than its fair share of bad films. This film has some good moments, but it's ultimately an unsatisfying addition to the genre. Not one of the bad films, mind you, just average.
Vivian is a young American woman living in Bucharest. Vivian is also a werewolf, a member of a pack who closely guards its existence from the world of humans, and she's been promised to Gabriel, the pack leader. However, she meets a young human artist, Aiden, and falls in love with him.
Director Katja von Garnier (Bandits, Iron Jawed Angels) approaches the material with an eye to naturalism rather than horror excess, creating a solid film that owes as much to the romance genre as it does to horror, but it lacks any real spark and feels like a made for television film most of the time. Screenwriters Ehren Kruger (The Ring) and Christopher Landon make major changes to Annette Curtis Klause's novel, which will disappoint fans of the novel, but even with its shortcomings, the attempt to create a lycanthropic romance thriller is appreciated. Hopefully, another filmmaker will revisit the premise and make a better than average film out of it.
If there's one thing that works well in the film, it's the transformation scenes, which are very graceful and capture the beauty of lycanthropy rather than being gruesome. The transformed werewolves are portrayed by real wolves instead of animatronics or CGI creations, which makes them seem like tangible possibilities that may lurk in the shadows of our world.
There are no great performances here, but Agnes Bruckner as Vivian and Hugh Dancy as Aiden deliver solid ones and have the good looks necessary for what are essentially "Romeo and Juliet" roles. They don't seem to have much chemistry early in the film, but their chemistry increases as the story goes on, mirroring the growing relationship of their characters. However, Olivier Martinez as Gabriel and Bryan Dick as Vivian's cousin Rafe seem to have wandered in off the set of a daytime soap with their unconvincing overacting. Gabriel as written in the script should be a dark, seductive, and menacing presence, but Martinez doesn't manage anything even close to that.
If, like me, you enjoy werewolf films, it's worth a viewing, but wait until it's released on video (which shouldn't be long considering how poorly it's performed at the box office).
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