trailer mix

The Wolfman Trailer: Rick Baker’s Back!

We have been worried about The Wolfman ever since our just-about-favorite music-video director Mark Romanek quit the production and was replaced by Joe “Jumanji” Johnston. (We’ll take Johnny Cash in “Hurt” over Matthew McConaughey in Hidalgo any day.) The menacing Benicio Del Toro seemed perfectly cast, but we were also nervous about creature-feature legend Rick Baker. Nobody has done werewolves (and many other monsters) better: Just see American Werewolf in London and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (technically a were-cat), for starters. But Baker’s last werewolf — the unintentionally funny one in Cursed — was so lousy that the film was nearly shelved due to reported (and later, justified) concerns over the “look of the film’s lead lupine.” We’re not worried anymore. In this trailer (even if we’re uncertain about the way the Disneyfied Johnston seems to be aping Romanek’s aggressive, bass-heavy style), the slimmed-down, sleek, and mean Del Toro doesn’t just look like a man with a wolf head, but like some creature that is truly caught halfway between and is altogether unholy.

The Wolfman Trailer: Rick Baker’s Back!