'Bin Special: Werewolf by Night

 

Directed by Michael Giacchino, 2022, 53 minutes, TV-14
“And woe to the monster who finds itself among them.”

 

What is this? Anything out of the Industrial MCU Complex is clearly not Bargain Bin material, it’s too new for a Modern Cult Classic, it’s not even a feature film. But damn, that trailer!

With this Halloween special, the MCU officially dips its toes into the horror realm of its comics line. Yes, that is a thing. A long-running thing, which includes such characters as:

• Ghost Rider
• Blade
• Morbius the Living Vampire (meme and all)
• Frankenstein’s Monster (God bless public domain)
• Man-Thing, who should not be mixed up with
• Manphilbian
• N’Kantu the Living Mummy (yes, seriously)
• And the headliner of this feature, Werewolf by Night

 

So what’s Werewolf by Night’s deal? He’s… uh… (checks notes) yeah, he’s a werewolf.

Werewolf by Night kicks off with the news that Ulysses Bloodstone, famed monster hunter, has died. His widow, Verussa, summons a collection of fellow monster hunters – including Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Verussa’s estranged stepdaughter, Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly) – to Bloodstone Manor. The group is not so much there to pay their respects to the late Ulysses as they are to compete for ownership of the coveted Bloodstone, a powerful gem that’s essentially a Junior Varsity Infinity Stone. To do that, they need to search the manor’s large maze (a standard fixture in these kind of old timey manors) to hunt down a dangerous monster trapped within its walls. To say more would be to ruin the story, but needless to say twists and turns ensue.

The story is solid, but what really makes this worth a watch is the overall feel of the feature. While the era of the story’s setting is left (purposefully, I imagine) vague, the aesthetics of Werewolf by Night leans heavily on the classic Universal monster movies. It’s all shadows and mood and crackling audio track – gorgeous. None of this to say that Werewolf by Night is toothless. Far from it, for this might be the MCU’s goriest entry to date – it’s just that the nastier bits of gore and violence are blunted in black and white (hence the TV-14 rating, which was a surprise to director Michael Giacchino).  

Werewolf by Night does move to color during its final minutes, which was actually a bit disappointing because I would have happily stayed in that classic horror aesthetic for a whole series of Marvel horror installments. Obviously, I have no idea what plans (if any) Marvel has for its horror properties. But hopefully they’ll do something, because it definitely feels like Marvel unlocked a fresh new wing of storytelling in the same way Guardians of the Galaxy unlocked cosmic stories – only  with a completely self-contained tale. I can’t help but feel this is exactly the kind of thing the MCU should do more often.