Werewolf by Night (2022) October 6th, 2023

Werewolf by Night successfully homages the James Whale and Tod Browning universal monster films from the 1930s. Unfortunately, Werewolf by Night is ruined by Marvel Studio’s cowardly refusal to embrace an actual horror motif, offering instead a black-and-white version of every other cookie-cutter-every-character-is-identically-acerbic-made-for-streaming tripe they’re already comfortable mass-producing. Jack Russell deserved better.

Werewolf by Night‘s premise is strong (monster hunters gather to hold a monster hunt where the winner will be crowned the monster hunter leader and is awarded the Bloodstone MacGuffin), and the production design is a solid B+ (special recognition goes to the monster trophy busts sculptor who neither skimped on effort nor enthusiasm) but the moody gothic tone I had hoped for was spoiled by snarky characters and a propensity for Daredevil-style martial arts sequences. These aren’t the ingredients for a frightening gothic horror homage, they’re the ingredients for a bad Buffy the Vampire Slayer knockoff. Why must every Marvel Studio project have the same voice?

In the mid-1990s, the comic book industry suffered a nearly fatal boom in popularity and record profits. A speculator bubble had formed after news stories about rare and classic issues selling for record prices made everyone with $2 in their pockets think they were going to hit it rich by reselling new comic books. Their inability to recognize it wasn’t the shape of the product that made those old books valuable, it was their scarcity.

In 1942 the US Government initiated the “Salvage for Victory” campaign, encouraging all Americans to reduce, reuse, and recycle for the war effort. Aluminum, rope, and (most importantly) paper were collected and repurposed for the war effort. Suddenly every young comic book enthusiast could feel like a hero by scrapping their funny books. Maybe sacrificing your copy of Captain America #1 will help put a round in the last nazi and end the war.

This wartime patriotism made these books scarce and much more valuable fifty years later. The market boomed, and many upstart companies joined the comic book publishing game to compete with the big two, Marvel and DC. Valiant Comics was one such company. Having purchased the rights to classic Gold Key comic book characters like Magnus the Robot Fighter, Turok, and Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom, Valiant Comics pushed forward a shared universe publication model to challenge their leading competitors. Valiant made waves but as you can tell by their current non-existance, it didn’t work out.

I maintain that part of their failure is to blame for a bold and foolhardy design choice made by the Valiant editorial staff. Someone, at some point, made the decision to create a style guide that every title, across the board, would follow. The goal seemed to be a visually distinct but uniform aesthetic that made their books recognizable at a glance. The myriad of pros and cons of this choice are the subject of a different even more boring (and less to do with Werewolf by Night) analysis but I am of the opinion that this visual consistency removed all the diversity from Valiant’s product line. You could have the best stories (they didn’t), the best characters (Turok is cool but… they didn’t), but if you don’t have outstanding, envelope-pushing, edgy art in your comic books… then you’re going to fail.

THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG WITH Werewolf by Night! It doesn’t feel like a divergent shift into spookier territory for Marvel Studios! Instead, it feels like someone put a Carl Laemmle Instagram filter over The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special! That’s like making birthday cake-flavored Oreo cookies, it’s neither Oreo nor birthday cake! It’s a horribly disappointing mockery of two independently great things, like an inedible confectionary platypus!

But I can’t will Werewolf by Night into being the singularly exquisite actualization of its potential. There’s no lightning-based science to employ nor magic amulet to destroy that will transform Werewolf by Night into a masterpiece. As a society we must move on, and accept Werewolf by Night not for what we want it to be, but for what it is… fine.

PS: I mentioned this earlier but glossed over it for the sake of the larger criticism, but as an appreciator of creature design and practical makeup effects, Werewolf by Night gets kudos for sticking to Jack Russell’s Wolf-Man design from the comic books. Making him look like any generic Underworld werewolf would’ve been an unforgivable mistake.