I love the ol’ horror so The Wolfman first.

I may have mentioned in my earlier feature about the original version of The Wolf Man, this new version is really being billed as a return to the old style of horror. Maybe it’s a reaction to the likes of Paranormal Activity and The Final Destination… or maybe they just felt there was an opportunity to re-establish the Universal name by returning to their roots. Who knows, but I for one am glad. The last film I remember that was along these lines was Sleepy Hollow and that was back in 1999 so this is long overdue.

Initial reports for The Wolfman have been good and the trailer visually looks great and it looks like there’s some strong action scenes in there so I’m really hoping that the story telling is all it promises to be. I’m hoping as well that they’ll get a bit of tension in there. It might be a little bit much to hope, and lordi knows I hate hoping too much about a film but hell why not?

…Did I explain that about my attitude to hope before? I like to expect the least, that way I’m rarely disappointed. This isn’t just for films.

Writing about The Wolfman does remind me though that I’m having a bit of a reaction against remakes. Not this one in particular, as far as I’m concerned 70 years is a long enough gap to leave, but to American remakes of films that are only 2-3 years old. They’re remaking Let The Right One In as Let Me In… it’s just too soon IMO. But the one I really have a problem with is the new Death at A Funeral, whatever about remaking foreign language films, the original Death At A Funeral was in English. Surely people can just watch the original? It’s only 3 years old!

Hmm… Sorry for the diversion…

Anyway, the second film I’m highlighting is A Single Man. Now, like quite a few of the films I’ve been point out recently, this film is only releasing on 5 screens so you might have to search to find it. Initially it’s releasing in the usual suspects – Cineworld, The Screen, the IFI and Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield. It’s also coming out in Dun Laoghaire IMC so that’s a bit different and I guess there is the chance that it will move into other cinemas after the initial release. After all Precious did move into Movies@cinemas on later release weeks. We can hope anyway.

The main reason I want to see this film is Colin Firth. Now I’m not one of those big Colin Firth fans, I’ve never seen Pride and Prejudice so I don’t know what that whole Mr. Darcy thing is about. I just want to see it because I figure that it’s always hard for an actor to get their first Oscar nomination and for a British actor it would appear to be doubly hard… So Colin Firth must really have put on a great peformance here. He must have… and I want to see it. I’ve already seen all the other nominated lead actor performances and at the moment I would say Jeremy Renner’s was the best… but I’m fairly certain Jeff Bridges will be walking away with it on the night. So I really need to see Colin Firth’s for completeness….

Aside from this it’s fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut. I never pegged “fashion designer” as a profession that would lead to “film director” but I’m very interested to see what he does.

Oh I should mention as well. A Single Man is based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Christoper Isherwood. Never read it myself but if you’ve read some of my reviews/articles about adaptations lately then that won’t surprise you at all.

Other films coming out this week include…

Valentine’s Day – with a stellar cast this promises to be everything you imagine… of a Valentine’s targetted romantic comedy. I’ll be shocked if it’s as good as Love Actually.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – Don’t know much about this one but it looks a bit like Harry Potter. I’m told the Percy Jackson books are worth a read so I’m interested to see how the film goes.

Ponyo on the Cliff – last film out this week and only on one screen. This is the latest film from Studio Ghibli, the people who brought us Spirited Away so great pedigree there. I hear it’s aimed a bit younger than some of their previous efforts but I’m sure it will still be beautiful.

The Wolfman is in Irish cinemas from Wednesday 10th Feb 2010. A Single Man and the other films are in cinemas from Friday 12th Feb.

I had never seen it before but those of you who’ve read this blog before will know that I’m quite into horror films. I wouldn’t be up on the classic horror films though so it was great to have the opportunity to see one in a cinema.

As you may or may not know, back in the 1920s – 1940s Universal ruled the roost when it came to horror films. They created a whole series of Universal monsters on film all the way from The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923 to Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931 and The Wolf Man and beyond in the ’40s.

Watching the original Wolf Man in 2010 was an enjoyable experience. The one thing that stood out was how much film and in particular acting for film has changed in the last 70 odd years. Not that I’m saying there was anything wrong with the film or the acting. It was just of a different time. This was a horror story not told through shock or gory violence but through atmosphere. I’d heard of Lon Chaney Jr. before but I’d never seen him in action. He was great. Further research proves that he suffered from typecasting after The Wolf Man which is a pity, he really had great screen presence.

Was it a good film though? I thought so, very entertaining. Obviously it has dated somewhat, it’s been 70 years folks, but I don’t hold that against it at all. Ok, being honest there were some parts that were pretty funny. It’s hard to know now if people were genuinely scared of the film at the time. I’d like to think that people were though, as well as finding some parts funny. I loved all the mad old biddys in it, particularly the gypsy woman. Also it had a pure cool silver topped walking stick in it. I think I could really use a cool walking stick… If you think it sounds like the kind of thing you’d be into then I’d definitely recommend giving it a look.

All of this, of course, is a precursor to Universal’s new version of The Wolfman that’s coming out in Ireland on February 12th 2010. It stars Benicio Del Toro in the titular Lon Chaney role as well as Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving and Emily Blunt. Two Oscar winners and a Golden Globe winner there, so a strong cast.

Having seen the trailer it looks as though they are going back to a more traditional style of horror story telling but with the level of special effects that we have come to expect these days. The look and feel of film reminds me a little of Sleepy Hollow; this is a good thing in my mind. I’m sure there’ll be a bit of gore thrown in and it does look as though they are slightly changing and fleshing out the plot a bit more but that’s cool. I for one am looking forward to seeing what they do with it and I hope you are too.

The Wolfman is releasing in cinemas all over Ireland on February 12th 2010.

The Wolf Man (1941) is available on DVD as part of the Universal Legacy and Universal Studios Classic Monster collections.

Finally I want to say thanks to the folks at Universal Pictures and Simply Zesty for a great night. I hope people will still be watching and enjoying the remake of The Wolf Man in another 70 years.