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Genre
Urban Fantasy
Length
106 minutes
Director
Len Wiseman
Major Stars
Kate Beckinsale
Scott Speedman
Tony Curran
MPAA Rating
R
Year Released
2006
Review Posted on
1/25/2008
Rating
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Review by Mark Deniz
Wondering what has happened to genres we were once so aware of seems to be the order of the day when watching films and reading books. Never more apparent than in Les Wiseman's desire to turn horror into some kind of bitch-slapping, arse-kicking, action film with the obligatory overlong love scenes thrown in.
"Underworld" was weak, there is no denying that, yet not as weak as many critics described it, for it brought together two of horror's most loved icons, the vampire and the werewolf and gave them characteristics which (I felt) worked within the stereotypes built around them. The newest dish on the vampire/werewolf double menu Underworld: Evolution, leaves no doubt as to what the new horror viewers crave.
Yet I am not sure of what I mean when regards what has been lost here for surely most of the horror films on show these days would seem more in keeping with Wiseman's films than this idealistic view I have of horror, stemming from Poe and Stoker. Has there ever been clever, well thought out horror films or is their general appeal that of action or gore or both?
I have to look back and admit that the best of the horror films over the last thirty years that have had me checking under the bed and in the wardrobe have not actually been vampire or werewolf related. Lost Highway (David Lynch) was merely (?) the journey within a deranged mind, The Devil's Backbone (del Toro) was a wonderfully creepy ghost story and The Omen (Donner) featured none other than our number one villain of all time, the devil himself.
Thinking back to vampire and werewolf flicks, I am battered by "Silver Bullet" (Attias) more a coming of age film than any real attempt at dealing with the werewolf, "Salem's Lot" (Hooper) one of the weakest films of recent years and "Blade" (Norrington) -- need I say more here?
But there is something that can be done with the werewolf and the vampire and I crave for a director or screenwriter to attempt one. Instead we are greeted here by a badly thought out story, with plot holes aplenty, stupidity on a grand scale and technology in the 13th Century that would make a craftsman proud today.
Yet what angered me the most in this feature was that Wiseman decided that the essential ingredient in any great vampire and werewolf flick is... yes, you've guessed it, bullets and lots of them. Of course you want a variety of guns, firing different bullets from different angles and at different speeds as that is why you wanted to watch a film involving two of cinema and literature's giants isn't it, well isn't it?
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