Based on the book by Whitley Strieber, 1981's Wolfen has a hotdog New York detective, the mumbling Albert Finney, investigate a series of vicious murders which appear to be animal attacks. Then he starts drawing parallels to ancient Native American Indian wolf legends. Prior to seeing this recently, all I knew about Wolfen was the poster....and I thought it was a cheap werewolf movie. Not so, as it's a big budget, stylish crime thriller with supernatural overtones.
While it's a classy piece of film-making (photography, score, locations and cast are all very impressive) what lets Wolfen down is it's ponderous pace and limp characters. The mystery of the killer animal's origin is weak and the characters bland, leaving you with an impressive shell but nothing substantial to enjoy underneath the surface. On a side note, it's interesting to hear composer James Horner's score for the first time. Horner, a musician who tended to rip off his own themes, here introduces music cues that he'll go on to re-use time and time again in Star Trek III, Aliens and Cocoon. The twat.
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