Blood & Chocolate (Blu-ray + DVD-Video; Widescreen + Full Screen)
Picture:
B/C+/C Sound: B/B- Extras: D Film: D
In a
drive to have any franchise that will mindless sell tickets sooner or later,
the studios are even greenlighting sequels to films that bomb, whether straight
to home video or back to movie theaters.
Matrix wanna be Underworld offered a secret world where
vampires and werewolves are at war and pull out the heavy gun artillery to try
and shoot each other to death, though none of them seem to remember that
bullets do not work on vampires and werewolves!
The same producer “geniuses” who brought us that and equally inept The Covenant (see my Blu-ray review)
are at it again with a new werewolf film.
And its brilliant title? Blood & Chocolate!
Sure,
that title makes sense, right? Well,
that is the title of the book by Annette Curtis Klause that is reportedly much
smarter, thicker, rich and smarter than this film, whose screenplay Ehren
Kruger and Christopher Landon makes any volume of Cliff’s Notes look like War
& Peace. A young lady (Agnes
Bruckner) falls for a mortal man, but since she is part of a line of
werewolves, must choose between her love and some supernatural ethnic
loyalty. Needless to say the zero-suspense
of the situation makes one care less.
If this
sounds familiar, it is because this is essentially the same storyline as Paul
Schrader’s underrated 1982 remake of Cat
People with Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell. That was a bold, mature, daring, dark,
suspenseful, adult and smart remake, or a film with all the qualities Blood & Chocolate lacks. Worst of all, those of the werewolf lineage
do turn into wolves, but never werewolves!
So here you have the first werewolf film in cinema without any actual
werewolves!
If
anything, these producers think they are remaking Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys and somehow making it
hipper, but they make that film look as smart as Carl Theodore Dreyer’s Vampyre! Oliver Martinez shows up as the evil werewolf
guy, but is about as threatening as General Mills’ breakfast serial spokesman
Count Chocula! The film is that
confused.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition version of the film on Blu-ray may look better
than the two versions on the DVD-Video release, but it is yet another film so
plastered with bad digital effects that try to make this mess look like a cross
between Video Games and Music Videos in the worst, most condescending way. The anamorphically enhanced DVD-Video version
is weaker with the digital even getting more in the way of whatever Director of
Photography Brendan Galvin. The pan
& scan 1.33 version on the DVD as compared to both is a laughable blur.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mixes on both versions are all bells, whistles and no character,
with jumpy sounds and a lame score by Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil that is
instantly forgettable. The PCM 16/48 5.1
version on the Blu-ray sounds better than the Dolby mixes, but the improved
fidelity brings improved flaws in sound design and heightened sounds that
should make home theater owners careful with the volume switch.
The only
extras in both versions are an audio commentary by Martinez and director Katja
Von Garnier, plus deleted scenes, but not surprisingly missing is the original
theatrical trailer, which was laughed off the screen when it previewed in
theaters I saw it in. There has not been
a good werewolf film for a long time and there are no signs of another good one
on the way, but the last good one was released by Sony. Mike Nichols’ Wolf (1994) was a smart satire with Jack Nicholson, good make-up
effects, a good look and a great 8-channel sound design. They should have released that on Blu-ray at
the same time.
If you
want to see how not to make a monster film, or any film for that matter, Blood & Chocolate is it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
