Wolfen was taken from a 1978 novel by Whitley Strieber, the horror author also of the book that became The Hunger (1983) and who a few years later would make bizarre claims to have been abducted and probed by aliens. (See Communion (1989), the film adapted from Strieber’s non-fiction book about his experiences). The director on board was Michael Wadleigh who a decade before had directed Woodstock (1970), a film that perpetuated the legend of Woodstock – in fact created more of the legend than the actual event itself did. Michael Wadleigh had done nothing in the ensuing twelve years and Wolfen was a rather odd choice for him to make a return to screen with – a work as far removed from Woodstock once is probably less likely to find. Michael Wadleigh has made nothing since and Woodstock and Wolfen make for a rather odd cinematic legacy.

Whitley Strieber’s book was a well-written, clear-cut horror story. But Michael Wadleigh seems unable to make a straight monster movie and seems to feel the need to place a whole host of social concerns on top of Whitley Strieber’s story. Now Wolfen is no longer just a monster movie, it is a film that also seeks to address homeless displacement, the plight of the American Indian – making clear parallels between they and endangered species – and issues of urban gentrification and redevelopment. By comparison there is nothing at all about American Indians in Whitley Strieber’s book. It is as though Wadleigh seems to consider making a pure genre monster movie beneath him. Certainly the additions are occasionally interesting, particularly in that the injection of Indian mysticism allows the wolves to be played more ambiguously and Wolfen brought closer to a classical werewolf story. But unfortunately the metaphors are worn thin when the story has to suggest at the end that the wolves are conducting a campaign of assassination against executives to protect their turf. It’s a case of a director’s pretensions toward making a big message overbearing an idea to the point of ludicrousness. Certainly Michael Wadleigh creates an often quite haunted atmosphere, suggesting animals constantly lurking and creeping through the shadows. The solarized and Steadicam shots supposedly from the wolves’ point-of-view were certainly novel at the time. And the climax hits an exceedingly eerie note.

The lead characters are given so little identity that they are complete ciphers. A great actor like Albert Finney projects surprisingly little. Finney and Diane Venora never seem to connect on screen and the romantic element is just throwaway. Gregory Hines, in his second screen performance, comes across, as he always seems to on screen, as dopey. The cutaways away to the Van Der Veer corporation’s constant monitoring seems to be an attempt to add an element of paranoia, but is so unfocused that we are not really sure what is going on there at all.