Edddie Holt: It's not wolves, it's Wolfen. For 20,000 years Wilson - ten times your fucking Christian era - the 'skins and wolves, the great hunting nations, lived together, nature in balance. Then the slaughter came.
Wolfen (1981)
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Directed by: Michael Wadleigh
Starring: Albert Finney, Edward James Olmos, Gregory Hines, Diane Venora
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New York City's urban jungle has become the blood-soaked hunting ground for some kind of supernatural predators with a taste for outcasts that appear to be intelligent and deadly wolves but may be spirits or shape-shifters from Native American folklore in this early 1980s horror film. A NYPD detective and a criminal psychologist are assigned to investigate the murders when the beasts kill some high-profile city residents, and the film follows their efforts to identify and stop the creatures. Clever use of a video filter to portray the beasts' visual senses, some gory moments and nighttime shots are effectively applied, and some of the backstory about what the Wolfen seem to be and why they're preying on their chosen victims is interesting enough to distract from the dated dialog, unfortunate stereotyping, settings, etc. but don't expect too much from this old, if earnest, film.
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Trivia: There are a few major differences between the movie and the book that it is based upon. For instance, the film suggests that the Wolfen may have Native American mythological roots-that they are wolf-like spirits that have taken physical form to hunt people; in the book, they are a separate, intelligent species from humans that preys upon weak, abandoned and likely "unmissed" people. Furthermore, the film suggests that the Wolfen will continue to predate on the forgotten with impunity; per the novel, they have been discovered with their corpses as evidence and open conflict is likely.
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