A Film Canon

The Wolf Man elaborates most of the hallmarks of the werewolf subgenre, albeit at the expense of a compelling script. Despite occasional moments of respite, it feels as if screenwriter Curt Siodmak is simply providing a primer on werewolfdom, as the same comments, speculations and interpretations are circulated from one mouthpiece to another, as monotonous as the gypsy chant with which the monster is laid to rest. As with earlier Universal horror films, this counter-productive discursion serves to invoke psychoanalysis as a possibility, or atmosphere, while neglecting its specific conclusions, such that the clear resonances with Freud's casebook are reduced to a series of banal attempts to metaphorise the werewolf; or, more accurately, to metaphorise the schizophrenia which which it is laboriously identified: "It's a technical expression for something very simple - the good and evil in every man's soul." That said, Oedipal conflict is inevitably evoked at a basic narrative level, as well as in the inspired casting of Lon Chaney Jr., whose uncanny resemblance to his father ("There's something very tragic about that man") is deflected into the muted presence of his older (but identical) brother, who died in mysterious, unexplained circumstances. Similarly, although Jack P. Pierce's werewolf costume is impressive, the moments of transition are fairly anticlimactic, while the fog laden forest and graveyard sets quickly become repetitive, if less conspicuously stagy than their precursors.