The Man Beneath the Moonlight: How The Wolfman Blurred the Line Between Monster and Man
The announcement of The Wolfman (2010) sparked excitement among horror fans for nostalgia reasons. Universal Pictures was revisiting ‘The Wolf Man’ for the first time since 1941. But this time it wasn’t just a remake since it was a Gothic horror revival. The cast included stars like Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt. Anticipation was vertical. The promotional material was indicative of the werewolf case and promised blood, moonlight, and tragedy. What the audience didn’t know was the battle between the man and the monster was just as dominant behind the camera as it was in front of it.
A Tragic Tale Under the Full Moon
Set in the year 1891, The Wolfman begins with the protagonist, Lawrence Talbot, a Shakespearian actor, who after the loss of his brother, returns to the Blackmoor home of his family. Sir John Talbot, played by Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence’s father, is estranged, isolated, and surrounded by his secrets. When the Lawrence is investigating the attacks on the village, he is savaged by a beast, and has to come to terms with the fact that he is the very creature that he set out to destroy.
The film unfolds as a gothic lament as well as a supernatural thriller. Each full moon, he is dehumanized. He is forced to the duality of the film; he is tormented by the beast, enslaved by the instincts of the beast, and by the guilt and horror of loss, he is made to survive. The sadness of his Lawrence in the film is not of a mere victim of the curse; he is plagued by grief, trauma, and posthumous loneliness. The eyes of Lawrence, the same old sage eyes of Long Chaney Jr, the star of the first Wolfman and the 1941 film, the eyes that haunted and followed every viewer, is a fact that cannot go unnoticed.
The Actor Who Believed in Monsters
In addition to being a lead actor in The Wolfman, Benicio Del Toro was a devoted admirer of classic horror cinema. He was a child who collected various Universal monster memorabilia and fantasized about being in a monster feature. As soon as The Wolfman was pitched, Del Toro seemed to have signed on before the entire script was completed. “It was a dream since I was a kid. To wear the claws, to feel that curse. It wasn’t acting. It was something primal.”
He embraced a primal role, but that dream came with a very serious cost. The shoot was exhausting and the transformations required, with prosthetics and makeup, took hours of application time each day. Del Toro arrived at 4 in the morning and spent 6 hours sitting as each layer of hair, fangs and latex were painstakingly applied to create the monster. Baker, who created legendary effects for An American Werewolf in London, treated The Wolfman for which he designed the effects as homage to his older work and as a reinvention and insisted on practical effects for the transformation sequences.
Del Toro felt the effects as well. He described the prosthetics as ‘claustrophobic’ and ‘trapping’ just like ‘Lawrence’ as ‘In my own skin’ commenting, ‘When the mask was on, I could barely breathe’.
The Director Lost to the Darkness.
The film’s journey was just as turbulent behind the camera. Director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) was attached to helm the project and envisioned the psychological horror as moody art-house. This vision conflicted with the studio and Romanek left the project shortly before filming. Joe Johnston was brought in quickly, being the director on Jumanji and Jurassic Park III.
For Johnston, the situation was a nightmare. He had just three weeks to get ready for a large-scale production within the gothic tradition that was just about to start. The sets had already been constructed, the costumes had been created, and expectations were at a boiling point. “It was like jumping onto a speeding train. There was no time to stop and think — only to make it work.” he recalled.
The change in directorial style branded Johnston’s focus on action story telling. There were critics that described the final cut as “two visions stitched together under the same moon.” Still, that tension between art and spectacle captures the duality of Lawrence – a man stuck between control and chaos.
Blunt’s Heart Among Beasts
Where Del Toro’s performance was purely tortured masculinity, Emily Blunt provided the necessary warmth and sorrow to create equilibrium. Her Gwen Conliffe is not your typical damsel in distress. She is not only brave and intelligent, but deeply empathetic — and the human anchor to the unraveling Lawrence. Blunt was, however, encountering a career turning point. She was just done with The Devil Wears Prada and was for the first time, moving from light drama to darker, more serious roles. “I wanted to feel fear, not just portray it,” she said. “This film gave me that.”
The chemistry Blunt and Del Toro shared came from a real trusting bond. She was able to see the “intense but kind” Del Toro, who in the course of a single take, would go from brooding silence to playful chat. During particularly hard emotional scenes, Blunt would be the one to break the tension, and in doing so, provide the needed relief in the midst of the sombre tone of the shoot.
Between Moonlight and Mayhem: The Production Challenges
The film’s production was as cursed as its protagonist. Bad weather in the English countryside led to repeated delays for filming. The crew’s relentless efforts for the elaborate set designs, particularly the fog-enshrouded forests and the crumbling Talbot Manor, were in vain for they demanded constant upkeep. Mechanical wolves that were meant to assist in the scenes were so poorly constructed that the crew needed to use improv to cover the malfunctioning wolves amidst the action.
Post-production disarray ensued. Several times, the editing team and producers usually disagreed on the overall plot and moved the release date. Was the score by Danny Elfman supposed to be reinstated after the test screenings? He had to revise the score several times. It ended up haunted and almost nostalgically terror infused, a perfect score for a Universal monster picture.
Despite the discord, Rick Baker’s effects remained consistent. Baker’s discord was the reason the film received a Best Make up Oscar. It was belatedly deserved recognition, for the film received a lot of unjust scrutiny for its storytelling as opposed to the praise for the artistry used.
The Beast’s opening came with enormous anticipation, as the Wolfman trailers released met the classic Gothic horror strove. The film had its draw backs but it was praised for its practical effects reintroduction, a stark contrast to the heavily use of CGI.
The Wolfman premiered in February 2010, and expectations were enormous. The film’s trailers promised a return to classic Gothic horror, sustaining tension with violin crescendos and showcasing scenes of snarling monsters lit by the moon. However, what audiences actually received was a woefully flawed version of the masterpiece they had imagined. It was, after all, a monster. It garnered praise for its practical effects and storytelling retained the tragedy so many had lost in a world full of CGI, but critics still claimed it lacked in storytelling and overall structure.
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