Josh Reviews Werewolf by Night

Following the death of monster-hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, a group of his fellow monster-hunters gather to compete to see who is worthy to inherit the bloodstone that gave Ulysses his name; a powerful weapon against monsters.  But one of the hunters, Jack (Gael García Bernal), has entered the competition with a different goal: to rescue the monster being threatened by these killers…

I quite enjoyed Werewolf by Night!  It’s a fun little horror-movie homage that brings a brand new subgenre of Marvel Comics into the MCU.  Werewolf by Night was written by Heather Quinn & Peter Cameron and directed by Michael Giacchino (who is known for his many wonderful film scores, for films such as The Incredibles, Cloverfield, the 2009 Star Trek film, Rogue One, all three Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and many more).  Mr. Giacchino did a great job in his first major live-action project as a director!

I love that Marvel is continuing to be playful with their approaches to their projects.  After so successfully expanding their film franchises into Disney+ TV series, we now get our first one-off TV special!  Werewolf by Night runs slightly less than an hour.  It’s just like a comic book “one-shot” or “annual”.  I bet there are a lot of fun Marvel stories that might not be worthy of a feature film or a full TV show, but that would be fun to see as a one-off special like this.  I hope we get to see more of these!

The special is presented mostly in black and white, with just a few carefully-chosen moments of color.  The look and style of the special emulates horror films of the 1930’s and 40’s.  This is a fun choice that feels just-right to me in a show that’s designed to bring some of the horror elements from the Marvel Comics into the canon of the MCU.  I love how the MCU is continuing to expand and dig into all these nooks and crannies from the Marvel comics.  There are decades of amazing stories from the comics that are strange and weird and very different from what I think people think of as the more mainstream type of super-hero comics.  In the last year or so of the MCU it’s been a great deal of fun to see magic and monsters and the Eternals and ideas like that brought into the MCU and brought to life with such love and care.

Gael García Bernal (Y tu mamá también, Coco) is great as our main character, Jack Russell.  (That’s a ridiculous name from the comics — he’s a werewolf, get it?? — and I’m glad that I don’t believe Jack’s full name was ever spoken on screen.  Here’s a case where I wouldn’t have minded a slight change from the original comics.)  Mr. Bernal brings a gentleness to his performance that stands out; this isn’t a muscles-bulging punch-’em-up type of heroic lead.  I really like that.  I like that Mr. Bernal’s performance centers on the empathy that Jack has for the types of creatures that others fear and hate.

Speaking of which, I was overjoyed that the monster being hunted, whom Jack set out to protect, was the Man-Thing!!  I cannot believe I have seen the Man-Thing in a live-action MCU story.  He’s brought to life PERFECTLY.  Visually he looks amazing, exactly like he should, and I loved the sweet personality they gave him.

Laura Donnelly is great as Elsa Bloodstone.  I’m not that familiar with this character from the comics.  I did some googling and, wow, she’s appeared in some gonzo outfits.  Comics are weird.  I’m glad they gave her a much more demure — and still very cool-looking!! — outfit here.  It’s great that she can still be sexy and yet covered head-to-toe.  Ms. Donnelly is fun in the role, giving Elsa a bitter intensity and also an unexpected kind of nobility.  I enjoyed seeing Elsa and Jack forced to work together; I’d love to see more adventures for this duo!

Other thoughts:

• Harriet Sansom Harris is a scenery-chewing riot as Ulysses’ widow, Verussa Bloodstone.
• Kirk Thatcher (the “punk on a bus” from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!!!!) is tremendous as the grizzled monster-hunter Jovan.
• I loved the moment in which Ulysses’ corpse started talking and basically turned into the CryptKeeper (from Tales from the Crypt)!
• I thought Jack’s transformation into the werewolf was very well-done; reminiscent of a classic werewolf-movie transformation that at the same time didn’t play as too silly when seen with modern eyes.
• There was a little more blood in this special than I’d expected, but it made sense for this Halloween horror-movie homage, and I’d bet the black-and-white made the blood more acceptable for Marvel.
• I was glad there was also a good dosage of humor as well.  (One of my favorite little bits was when Jack tried and failed to get Elsa’s explosive to adhere to the wall.)

I enjoyed Werewolf by Night; I hope both to see these characters again, and also to see this “Marvel Special Presentation” format used in the future to present other fun and unusual stories.

Please support my website by clicking through one of our Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from any product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!