The Wolfman (2010) - Nice homage to old school horror

The Wolfman is a remake/re-envisaging/whatever they call it these days of those classic Hammer-type horror films of the fifties that were probably in black and white. You may catch them on late at night when you come across a bloke with bushy eyebrows howling at the moon and being chased by Peter Cushine. Anyway, Hollywood have updated that sort of film and thrown in some pretty A-list actors to boot (DelToro, Hopkins, Weaving).

The end result is a movie that looks like it's been filmed in the nineteen fifties, but with a better quality camera and nicer special effects. The story isn't so different - man gets bitten by werewolf, becomes one and goes on a rampage, but it's quite nice to see it getting updated.

However, recently, with the current fascination with vampires and werewolves, we're kind of grown accustomed to Hollywood creating huge beast-like wolves (Twilight, Dog Soldiers and even the `wargs' in Lord of the Rings). The Wolfman stays away from this a bit more by paying homage to the old school werewolf. What you have here is men with too much fur and longer claws. Does it work? If you like that sort of thing and can appreciate it's a homage to a distant genre, then yes. Although, if you're expecting Van Helsing-style wolves ripping each other apart, you may think the `special' effects are a bit on the cheap side.

But don't worry - there's still plenty of decapitations and flying body parts to keep the gore-hounds interested.

What we have in a deliberately old school horror film, designed to pay homage to the werewolf films of old. And, assuming that this is what the film-makers wanted, they have achieved it nicely.
Solid, gory, but probably not to everyone's taste.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that