Shapeshifters will complicate any crime scene. 1981's Wolfen finds Albert Finney as a New York police detective on the trail of some Native American werewolf serial killers. If you imagine there'll be an awkward political message by the end, you imagined correctly. There's also some really dodgy forensics science thrown in but I like the atmosphere of the film. Finney is really good in his role and Edward James Olmos is good as a leader among the wolf men.
The film begins with a rich couple, wandering drunk in a park, after a party. The woman is really beautiful and it occurred to me she doesn't look dated at all somehow.
After they're savagely murdered, the coroner, played by Gregory Hines, says her death in particular is a damned shame. I have to agree.
Finney's Detective Wilson is pulled out of retirement for this job. He seems a lot like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner except the only person he's killed was an accident. Detective Rebecca Neff is assigned to him basically as his girlfriend, which is how she winds up functioning in the plot. It's so transparent it's kind of cute.
Over the course of the investigation, various trails leading to political activists turn out to be dead ends. But there's definitely something political going on here, or the movie decides there is in the final act. As a motive, it doesn't actually make any sense if you think back to the circumstances of some of the murders that occurred throughout the film.
A lot of the film was shot in the Bronx. And wow, I had no idea just how bad the Bronx was at that time. It looks like something from one of the Fallout games.
It's easily the most striking part of the film but some of the wolf effects are good, too. I like how they're kept to the shadows for most of the film and I'm glad they didn't have guys jumping around in monkey makeup.
Wolfen is available on The Criterion Channel.
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