Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Blood and Chocolate

Blood and Chocolate (Katja Von Garnier, 2007) - C

Von Garnier's werewolves don't transform with screams of pain and grotesque morphs; nor do they become gangly, ugly human-canine hybrids; nor are they hampered by such niceties as the lunar cycle. They leap into the air gracefully in the heat of the hunt, and transform into real, gorgeous wolves in a flash of light that may have been used to reduce the effects budget, but ends up being perfectly appropriate to illustrate something that need not really be all that technically impressive. They're hardly monsters at all, really, and the point is that irrational fear "of what we're not" is what turns them into objects of horror. Could have been tragic, except Von Garnier insists on turning the movie into a rejected WB-pilot, with weirdly dull-eyed Agnes Bruckner running off with plucky, unsuspecting Hugh Dancy, their love proscribed as bad for the werewolf community. The film is so invested in this that it forgets about the damn werewolves, who wind up pretty much incoherent: it's suggested that they have some level of superhuman strength and prowess, but all we see is Bruckner skipping off walls Little-Red-Riding-Hood-style, and later Dancy starts dispatching the creatures with a butter knife (albeit a silver one). Also goes on several climaxes too long, mistaking itself for a competent action film. The kind of movie that seems interesting for a while, before you realize it's totally clueless.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here's how to make delicious chocolate covered strawberries. First of all ensure that the strawberries you are intending to use are dry, then allow them to be room temperature warm prior to making them. After the strawberries have been covered in chocolate, put them in your refrigerator to cool, but do not store them in the fridge. Consume within 1-2 days.