The original The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. was a favorite monster film of mine as a kid growing up in the 1950s (a perennial late night TV staple). The new film retains the originals’ character names of John and Larry Talbot (still father and son), as well as the character of the old gypsy fortune teller Maleeva. Otherwise, this film is set in a different era and has a different storyline.

Similar to the original, the atmosphere is well set and maintains a foreboding mood. Del Toro is low keyed as Larry, tormented but less demonstrative so as was the overtly sympathetic Chaney performance.

As befitting contemporary expectations, the new Wolfman is occasionally very gory. Its fright factor is in the currency of the times as well, resorting to sudden loud noises and quick, graphic violence.

The creature itself is a bit disappointing to me.

Since the original The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, the werewolf is portrayed in most movies as more wolf like, with wolf snout and long ears, bipedal or on all fours, and hence different from old B-movie, more human-like representations. In this new film, the werewolf is similar to the original The Wolfman, with a tad I Was a Teenage Werewolf thrown in. (I prefer Chaney’s creature to del Toro’s. Curiously, it seems more real).

Interestingly, the new movie has in its storyline events and images (the wolf head cane, for instance) that reminded me of both the original film and the even earlier The Werewolf of London. And unless I imagined it, the Danny Elfman music composition has the faintest recall of the first Wolfman’s score.

(I won’t speak to the quality of the movie itself–I’ll leave that up to viewers. Just wanted to clarify the ‘sitting on the shelf’ notion.)