My Review of "Werewolf by Night"

Werewolf by Night is an odd recent entry to Disney Plus in late 2022. I guess it's to coincide with Halloween and all. The only issue I had was trying to figure out how this interacts with the regular Marvel Cinematic Universe. That is quickly remedied because this is a stand-alone feature that is rather unique.

The show starts off in a mysterious mansion. There are oddities all over the place and the atmosphere of the place is quite macabre. We get introduced to some characters that don't quite seem to mesh with one another. They all have absurd personalities that fit with the spooky theme of the show.

Most of the emphasis is based on a mysterious character named Jack and Elsa. What had happened was that there is this Bloodstone character that had passed away. He is the leader of a group of monster hunters. Due to his demise there has to be someone that has to assume his role as leader.

Normally the leadership role would have been passed down to his daughter Elsa who had just arrived to the mansion. Unfortunately Elsa had become estranged from the family for years. Their relationship had tarnished so instead there is now some sort of barbaric monster hunt in order to achieve this leader status. It's not really made aware why Elsa suddenly wants to be retain this leadership status but she's in it anyways.

So the monsters all head off to find this monster in this gigantic maze on their property. It's every person for themselves and well it's quite violent. Little by little we learn more about these characters and the hidden secret of Jack.

All of this is filmed in a very cinematic old monster movie looking method. It's very reminiscent to old horror monster movies of the past. You'll even notice that there's not a tremendous amount of CGI. There's a lot of old school special effects used to fit the theme of the show. I found it pretty cool and very different.

The models and practical effects are done quite well. There's much to appreciate with this one because for a Marvel movie it definitely doesn't feel like one. I can see how they can implement these characters into the Marvel universe but seeing as this is a one shot deal you quickly forget it's Marvel.

Also it's not exactly a movie and not exactly a show. It's a short fifty minute feature. For those of you that can't deal with a full feature length film this is right up your alley. In fact because of the short run time of this show I can see people rewatching it for fun. I for one don't think I could watch this over and over again unless these characters are recurring in the MCU. That'll probably a long time from now.

I have to say the acting was quite different with this one as well. They again followed the old monster movies with the same sort of slight over acting reactions to situations. It's quite fitting for the show so it never really bothered me because I knew what they were going for.

For a horror type of movie there weren't any scares. They hit the atmosphere but there weren't any real scary moments. If anything there are a lot of comical moments in this show. Their interactions are quite odd and in turn causes a lot of hysterical moments.

Overall, I wasn't disappointed with this show. It wasn't what I was expecting but that's okay because it still entertained the heck out of me. I'm not sure where this show is going but as a one off it served its purpose. As long as it gave me some entertainment I have to give it some marks. That's why I have to give this show a 7 out of 10. It kind of sucks for Marvel that we come to expect purpose for each of their shows and movies rather than just enjoying them for what they are.