Werewolf By Night Review

Werewolf By Night was a delightful genre surprise showing the MCU attempt to really dip its feet into horror more than any of its previous titles. Well, at least one corner of the horror genre. What surprised me the most is the fact that, despite being a short runtime for a movie, I found myself enjoying just about every single character presented and was engaged by the simplistic storytelling from beginning to end. All of these characters that were present by association to the center piece ceremonial hunt were either individually interesting or just simply fun to watch no matter how short of a screen time they were given. And as far as visual direction goes, I appreciated the mostly white and black color palette and film grain aesthetic to imbue elements of classic horror cinema. This is accompanied by a creative choice to use color sparingly to invoke the likes of Wizard of Oz (another artistic choice that I enjoyed).

However, despite the clear inspiration of classic films being present, I do wish that more attention was given to the visual details and FX work of certain creatures perhaps leaning on a more practical style as opposed to shoddy CGI. It almost feels like a film that wants to look and feel like a monster movie from the classic Universal Monsters golden age and yet still wants to utilize glaringly modern filmmaking components. I personally would’ve liked for them to lean more heavily on the retro aesthetics (a practical costume or animatronics for all creature scenes), but perhaps that’s just the film nerd in me speaking. That being said, like I stated, I really enjoyed the cast overall with the spotlight being on our two main leads. Laura Donnelly and Gael García Bernal really do drive things forward with their wit driven chemistry and unique personalities.

I also admired the character roster and mythology expansion for the MCU with various legendary creatures being introduced (Man-Thing?!!). And with some of these creatures comes the violent action-horror segments which were enjoyably brutal enough to appreciate the TV-14 rating not being severely watered down. Now that I think about it, I would absolutely love to see some of these teased monsters being shown off in other MCU horror shorts in the future. Perhaps do an annual Horror Holiday Special where we see the story of how these creatures were captured or taken out. Hmmm.

Another thing that I quite enjoyed was the main narrative surrounding a well intentioned “monster” (our werewolf) hiding amongst monster hunters in order to rescue another creature. Only, once he succeeds, he himself gets trapped and forcefully transformed leading to the inventible carnage. This was a great story hook twist considering I genuinely didn't see the character agenda shift coming. But really what sold me here was the well directed and structured character building happening with our leads in the midst of all the violence taking place. As I emphasized, these really are likable characters overall whether they’re given time to develop or just being thrown in as canon fodder for the action. And though I did have some nitpicks with the character design choice on the titular werewolf itself (was kinda hoping for something more frightening or beastly), I did quite enjoy the ending’s charming exchange between him and the revealed monster that he aimed to rescue . Overall, this was a nice, short, and sweet Halloween special that played with genre and style for the MCU while giving us some nice character introductions and world expansion. 

I’ll continue to say here what I've been saying since the beginnings of the Disney+ Marvel content era. Phase 4 of the MCU is the “Experimental Phase” and I’m loving every bit of the ambitious ideas that are being attempted. Whether or not everything sticks the landing, I’m just delighted to see a long running franchise reach a point of success where it gets to really stretch its legs and “get weird” while still keeping a strong sense of quality intact. I look forward to seeing whatever other specials are in store for us. I’d be curious to see where this universe decides to place these new characters in the future. Perhaps a Midnight Sons movie or series? We already have Moon Knight, who else is next? Ghost Rider with an Agents of Shield multiverse connection? Hmmm. 

Rating: 8/10