Film #1 — 1/1 Silent Film; 1/9 Decades
By C. Ramsay
One of the earliest werewolf films, and possibly the oldest still surviving, Wolf Blood opens on rival logging companies, the physical harm one is committing against the employees of the other in order to slow their work and profits, and a young boss who comes to inspect the camp, becoming torn between her commitment to her surgeon fiancé who accompanied her there and her newfound love for the manager of her company. The details of this opening, however, take approximately two thirds of the film’s runtime to establish, leaving next to no time for any events to play out before a swift climax instantly ushers in the final shots.
The shooting locations offer some beautiful scenery, but feel underexplored. While there are a couple of impressive set pieces, the editing is choppy and the sets are used more for brief establishing shots than to extensively contextualize the setting of the story and convey atmosphere through visual immersion. The best lighting and shot composition appear in the interior cabin scene immediately after the injury of the logging manager, Bannister, that leads to him requiring a blood transfusion that under the circumstances can only be completed using wolf blood. The sequence at first seems like it might go the route of early body horror, but cuts away before anything more than the unattached transfusion tubes can be shown. The pacing of the film—bogged down by its pervasive opening—suffers from its slowness, especially when factoring in the intertitles constantly breaking up any tension before it can begin to build. Wolf Blood is more interested in framing its humour and sense of adventure than it is any of its horror elements, so much so that the latter are practically non-existent.
There are building blocks present for some deeper meaning the film could represent, with lycanthropy at times seeming to act as a stand-in for class divisions and racial hierarchies. When fleshing out the shadows of these ideas can only be done through 100 years of retrospective projecting, though, and the film itself seems to have no interest in exploring them aside from the inclusion of the odd hinting throwaway line, then perhaps their presence is more coincidence than planned.
Star rating (/5): ★★
Recommend?: No