On Friday, Marvel released their Halloween special: “Werewolf By Night” and was an instant success. Directed by Michael Giacchino and starring Gael García Bernal and Laura Donnelly, the special was a little under an hour long and was straight to the point. It told its story in a great way and the pacing was phenomenal. As someone who doesn’t like horror that much, this was a surprise success as I loved this. The vintage black and white really worked in favor of mirroring old iconic horror films. It was also surprisingly violent as much bloodshed was shown. Marvel definitely got away with the TV-14 rating because it was in black and white and the blood was entirely visible. The special reminded me of the DC series, “Swamp Thing” which was also fantastic with its horror and supernatural tone. Speaking of identical characters, Man-Thing/Ted was a hilarious standout of the special. His personality was clearly based on a quieter version of Groot in the first “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Bernal’s scenes in Werewolf form were astounding and really made you fear for his opponents and hope he doesn’t deal with these same primal instincts towards his friends. Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone was great and I hope we get to see her character on screen again. The symbolic reveal of why the special was in black and white was brilliant as the Bloodstone was in the wrong hands but as soon as it came back to Elsa, color returned to the world. Giacchino’s directing was amazing and after seeing this, I hope they choose him to direct “Blade”. If Marvel decides to use the characters of this special in more upcoming projects it would be a treat to say the least. One of my least anticipated projects of Phase 4 ended up becoming one of my favorites to date. This is one of the few times I have felt truly satisfied with a recent project in the MCU. I hope Marvel continues to put out more projects like this that are fresh and feel like an experiment.
“Werewolf By Night” is a 9/10.
