The Marvel Cinematic Universe has experimented with so many genres and now with Werewolf By Night, it has entered the supernatural monster horror genre. It is no secret that the first-ever Marvel Studio Special Presentation harkeds back to the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930s.
Michael Giacchino, the director, has openly admitted to this, and it is evident throughout the one-hour runtime. Fans of the classic monster movies will be able to detect and appreciate the callbacks to the Golden Age of horror movies while getting something quite different for the MCU.
Classic Style Of Presentation
From beginning to almost the end, Werewolf By Night is all in black and white to resemble most of the classic Universal monster movies that used the limitation of monochrome to their advantage. Director Michael Giacchino purposefully inserted film grain and Q-marks to give the special an old-school feel.
Werewolf By Night opens and closes with title cards similar to old monster films, even featuring the Roman numeral year 2022 below the title. Giacchino even delivers an old-school film score that would easily be featured in films such as Dracula or The Wolfman.
Use Of Shadows
This technically falls into a similar category as the presentation but part of what made classic Universal movies so effective was the use of shadows. Seeing the dark silhouette of Boris Karloff's version of the Mummy leaving the tomb after killing a man or the Wolfman's shadow appearing from the moonlight.
Many scenes in Werewolf By Night use shadows in similar ways: a lumbering shadow that could be a monster turns out to be one of the hunters, Man-Thing's shadow can be seen subtly from afar wandering the maze, and most of the werewolf transformation was done with shadows.
True Gothic Horror
There is a certain aesthetic to Universal monster movies that nearly all of them share: gothic scenery and atmosphere. From the foggy streets and alleys of London to the dark castles in Transylvania, it's easy to tell a Universal monster movie with one glance.
For the most part, gothic monster horror is palpable throughout Werewolf By Night, managing to replicate that style despite it taking place in the modern day. The whole special taking place in a mansion and its grounds are not that dissimilar to Dracula and Frankenstein.
Estranged Family Member Returns Home
Elsa Bloodstone is introduced in Werewolf By Night, and she has a similar introduction to Lawrence Talbot in The Wolfman. Both are from wealthy families but clearly have less-than-perfect relationships with their families.
In the case of Elsa, she seems to have a disdain for her father Ulysses Bloodstone, and her stepmother, similar to the 2010 reboot of The Wolfman. Elsa and Lawrence return home after many years to their family estate and deal with a werewolf situation.
Very Little CGI
There is no denying that CGI was going to be used for certain things, it's a modern tool that really helps filmmakers. However, most of the CGI seen in the special was saved for Ted AKA the Man-Thing. Even then, behind-the-scenes photos show that he was portrayed in a practical suit with CGI enhancements.
Michael Giacchino honors the classic styles of filmmaking by having most of what is shown done with practical effects and camera tricks. In fact, the transformation of Jack Russell into Werewolf was all done on camera with no cuts, using perfect timing of body doubles and light flashes.
Misunderstood Monster
Physically, monsters may look like just that, but they are often creatures that are merely lost souls forever stigmatized by society. Many comic book characters reflect this concept such as the Hulk as well as the MCU's take on Man-Thing.
Rather than a constantly-lurking monster with a thirst for blood, Man-Thing is actually kind to those that mean him no harm including Jack Russell. This is very similar to Frankenstein's monster who was actually kind but the blind views and attacks of the villagers made him lash out.
Bloody Good Time
What helped Werewolf By Night fully become like the monster movies of old was its use of violence and gore. When Werewolf attacked, there was no typical censoring of what he does to the hunters and the guards of Bloodstone Manor.
Limbs are dismembered and blood sprays the camera which could have earned it an R-rating but thanks to the black-and-white nature of the film, it was able to get away with a TV-14 rating. Universal may not have had as much blood, but those movies were ahead of their time when it came to showing monsters kill.
Humans Are The True Monster
What is often the case in a lot of monster movies, in general, is that the human antagonist is worse than the monster. The prime example would be Victor Frankenstein who let ambition, ego, and fear turn him into the pop-cultural definition of a mad scientist.
Werewolf By Night definitely delves into this idea by having the monster hunters be just as dark and despicable as the monsters they hunt. Elsa Bloodstone's stepmother Verussa is the worst of them all, blindly trying to kill two monsters that she considers evil as well as Elsa, whom she belittled throughout.
Beauty Taming The Beast
The original King Kong and even The Wolfman played with the idea of the monsters having hearts. King Kong did nearly everything in his films to save or be with the woman that he cared for which led to his death, humanizing him.
Elsa Bloodstone is the beauty that tames the beast that is Werewolf. At first, the animalistic anti-hero attacks Elsa, but she manages to at least pierce through the wolf and find the man that clearly cared about her. This is essentially a happier ending of The Wolfman, whereas those movies always featured Talbot dying.
Werewolf Is A Love Letter To Lon Chaney Jr.
On one hand, the overall design for Werewolf is technically comic book accurate. However, most will agree that Gael García Bernal's Werewolf is a tribute to Lon Chaney Jr. and his portrayal of the Wolfman, or to an extent, Werewolf Of London.
The fur, teeth, and claws are all practical and worn by the actor which Lon Chaney Jr. would be proud of. Instead of transforming into a giant bipedal wolf, Werewolf is more of a flat-faced lycanthrope with Bernal's face visible behind all the makeup. It not only is a nice throwback, but it is refreshing after so many Marvel characters and suits being made with CGI.