While I didn’t have time to do a horror-themed marathon this year at least the MCU has come along and given me a horror-themed “Special Presentation” to put up on the day itself. I’ve said this a lot lately when it comes to obscure Marvel comic characters weirdly getting live action appearances but the announcement that “Werewolf by Night” was getting a special episode legitimately made me laugh. What a crazy thing the MCU is now… Even weirder is the fact that the special episode was really good! One of the better MCU things in years, really. Let’s take a look!
The premise is simple but fun as a magical item known as the “Bloodstone” is up for grabs for any monster hunter invited to the Bloodstone manor by Verussa Bloodstone (Harriet Sansom Harris) the widow of Ulysses Bloodstone, the Bloodstone’s previous owner (Fed up of reading the word Bloodstone yet?) Five monster hunters arrive for a competition to decide its next owner, among them a man called Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal) who is our titular Werewolf by Night. Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly) Ulysses and Verussa’s estranged daughter who dislikes the practice of hunting monsters, also arrives to claim her inheritance and ends up playing the survival game alongside the hunters instead.
Elsa Bloodstone in the monochrome!
The game is simple: a maze-like environment with a monster in the middle let lose with the Bloodstone imbedded in it, the first hunter to kill the creature and claim the stone gets to keep it. Jack meets the monster and its only the Man-Thing, an even more obscure Marvel character than Werewolf by Night! Anyway, Jack talks to it, finds out its called Ted and reveals he wishes to set it free, something that then puts Elsa and him on the same page. They work together to take out some of the hunters and free Ted but end up captured for it and Jack is turned into a werewolf by an angry Verussa and set on Elsa as revenge…
The whole thing is filmed in atmospheric black and white and generally is steeped in old 30s Universal horror films and it looks great because its still in HD and the effects are really good. The ending sequence is in full colour to signify the horror being over, which was really weird after 50 odd minutes. No idea if/how this is going to connect to the MCU at all but it was a good hour of TV!
Overall Thoughts:
*Gasp!* It’s a Werewolf! …. possibly By Night, it’s hard to tell in black and white.
Werewolf by Night was a really fun hour, full of classic horror homages, effects and some great performances from its lead trio. More experimental things like this in the MCU going forward, please!
Jack is turned into a werewolf via the Bloodstone by Verussa but due to falling for Elsa he manages to resist attacking her and instead tears Verussa’s men apart. Elsa and Jack are about to be shot by Verussa but she is killed by the returning Man-Thing.
Cutting a short paragraph into two sentences so I can squeeze in a picture of Man-Thing!
Elsa takes over not just the Bloodstone but the manor as well while Jack wakes up in his human form to find out that “Ted” has been looking after him, the two bonding. Good fun.
Hogan Reviews 