'The Wolfman' Slaughters

I Just saw "The Wolfman" and loved it. It has an incredible amount of respect for its history and echos at least as much Hammer as it does the classic Universal horror film. All the hate for it is befuddling to me. It's a gothic horror melodrama. It's not Saw or the Mummy Returns, thank God, but a wonderful return to the golden age of horror and owes almost as much to Hitchcock's telling of 'Rebecca' as it does to it's 1941 original.

The movie is not without it's flaws. The CG while generally good is too obvious sometimes. A Disingenuous and forced moment ( S P O I L E R A L E R T ) when our hero and heroine kiss betrays the tragedy of the story. It also feels inappropriate. There should be no peace or moments of stolen rest for our heroes. Only tragedy. The kiss feels like a Hollywood annoyance.

The Wolf Man switches back and forth between running on two legs and running on all fours. The latter method of transportation doesn't work and is a feeble attempt bringing a new angle to the monster.
While the absence of the above flaws would make the film more seamless they ultimately don't detract from the escape into 'anything's possible' world of the Victorian horror monster.

Where The Howling and An American Werewolf in London brought the werewolf movie to new, modern heights, big film disappointments like An American in Paris, The Curse, the vomit inducing Van Helsing and the 'werewolf as action star' driven Underworld series have reduced the lycanthropic legend to a silly puddle of its former self.

Joe Johnston's, at times gleefully violent, entry is not a modernization but a retelling with the modern tools of filmmaking at his disposal. The script is very faithful to the original version's screenplay by German emigre Curt Siodmak.

Rick Baker is a God for returning the look of the actual wolf man to his former glory. Not in almost 30 years has the creature looked this good. To me, always old school, a wolf man is a just that, a cross between a wolf and a man. not a wolf wolf.
I have pined for the days when a wolf man still has his clothes on after his transformation. My days of pining are over.