The 2022 Halloween Marvel one-shot brought Jack Russell (Gael García Bernal, Vamps), AKA Werewolf by Night, and Man-Thing (Carey Jones) to the screen and, one hopes, to the wider MCU. This, in turn, kindles a hope that this will lead to a more monster-centric strand to the MCU (despite its market saturation). We are due a Blade reboot within it (with filming, as I type, delayed but with Mahershala Ali’s voice, as Blade, appearing in an Eternals’ post-credit scene) and with Werewolf by Night and Blade in the mix (not to mention Deadpool) there is hope for an appearance of both Dracula and the Howling Commandos.
Dracula, alas, is not in this nor, indeed, is a functioning vampire. What we get is an amusing, black and white one-shot that, at under 60 minutes, does not outstay its welcome and summons a feel of monster films of yore.
The reason for the mention is due to a narrated opening in which we see a picture that is clearly a vampire and, later, a vampire’s head mounted on the wall of Bloodstone Curios/Manor (I am using the comic book names for the manor but it is clear that the building has not been repurposed as a curio shop at this point). Both the head and the picture are in bat form. In film Jack, posing as a monster hunter, is asked whether he killed any of the beasties on display and he says not but does point to the vampire’s head saying, “Him, I fought a few times. He's never looked so alive.” It is a fleeting visitation, at best, but the episode is of genre interest if only for the threads it could later connect to.
The imdb page is here.
Dracula, alas, is not in this nor, indeed, is a functioning vampire. What we get is an amusing, black and white one-shot that, at under 60 minutes, does not outstay its welcome and summons a feel of monster films of yore.
 |
| He's never looked so alive |
The reason for the mention is due to a narrated opening in which we see a picture that is clearly a vampire and, later, a vampire’s head mounted on the wall of Bloodstone Curios/Manor (I am using the comic book names for the manor but it is clear that the building has not been repurposed as a curio shop at this point). Both the head and the picture are in bat form. In film Jack, posing as a monster hunter, is asked whether he killed any of the beasties on display and he says not but does point to the vampire’s head saying, “Him, I fought a few times. He's never looked so alive.” It is a fleeting visitation, at best, but the episode is of genre interest if only for the threads it could later connect to.
The imdb page is here.
2 comments:
Patrick Willens has talked about how the MCU has bene suffering from it's lack of interest in oridinary people. And I think this is really apparant when dipping into horror. Everyone in this has expereince delaing with mosnters, so there is no one to actually be scared of them.
That's a fair point. My understanding was that the next phase was going to have what they called a street level aspect (for instance making Spider-Man the friendly neighbourhood version of himself) rather than all of it aimed at a global/universal/multidimensional level... which might lend itself to opening up that ordinary viewpoint and whilst it perhaps worked ok in a 50 minute one-shot, I suspect you are right and we need to see more of it if they go down a horror route.
Post a Comment