Werewolf by Night is a 2022 Marvel Halloween special based on the comic of the same name. It follows Jack, Gael Garcia Bernal, as he infiltrates a secret gathering of monster hunters competing for an all-powerful relic called the Blood Stone. Unbeknownst to us, Jack has no intention of competing for said stone, instead, he wishes to free the Monster all the hunters are fighting to kill, the Man-Thing! With the help of a new companion, Elsa Bloodstone played by Laura Donnelly, he seeks to put an end to this terrible hunt and save his monstrous friend.
When this was announced a few years ago I was very excited to see Marvel break up their usual film and TV content and dive into some of its darker material, and boy did this deliver. From the first frame, Werewolf by Night feels like a love letter to the Universal monster movies of yesteryear and really took me back to the feeling of being a kid watching Frankenstein vs the Wolfman on VHS.
Gael Garcia Bernal really shines in this. As Jack, he's a bit bumbling yet charming and the chemistry between him and Laura Donnelly is just really enjoyable. I felt that we only got a taste of Elsa's story and I'm excited to see where they go from here with future Marvel Halloween specials.
The Sequence where Jack transforms into the Werewolf by Night is just brilliant, it's worth watching the special alone just for this sequence, and the design is absolutely stellar. It feels part Lon Chaney Jr Wolfman mixed with Benicio Del Toro's Wolfman look and personally I LOVED it!
The big draw for me with this was by far the inclusion of one of my favorite Marvel characters, Man-Thing. Seeing this character come to life in a way that wasn't the questionable 2005 movie was just a wonderful treat for me. The cherry on top was that he was created using practical effects with CGI touchups, YES a movie in 2022 uses Practical effects and it looks AWESOME!
I give it 4 out of 5 severed hunter hands.
