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WILDERNESS
Produced by Tim Vaughan
Directed by Ben Bolt
Written by Andrew Davis & Bernadette DavieAlice White - Amanda Ooms
Dan Somers - Owen Teal
Luther Adams - Michael KitchenI’ve sat through some pretty dismal Fangoria Video release over the past year, enough to turn me off on the line for good. There was the mindbogglingly dull I, ZOMBIE, the pathetic teen-slasher flick SCHOOL’S OUT, and the dismal vampire opus ANGEL OF THE NIGHT. I wasn’t able to get more than 15 minutes through either I, ZOMBIE or ANGEL OF THE NIGHT before I was scouring the medicine cabinets for razor blades. I freely admit to loathing most Euro-horror productions, with the noted exception of a few Fulci films and the German gag-fest NECROMANTIK.
WILDERNESS, an erotic werewolf film from England, is different from the other Fangoria releases in that it has a human side. Unlike ZOMBIE and ANGEL, WILDERNESS spends time revealing each character to the audience. Consequently, we feel their pain and anguish. The movie itself isn’t particularly engaging, but at least there’s more than one dimension to the characters. What makes these people stand out as they do? They are all going crazy.
Ever since she was 13, Alice has turned into a wolf. She’s lived her entire life going from one night stand to one night stand, believing herself incapable of ever being able to have a traditional relationship. She has followed the same routine for years. Before her transformation she notices her senses growing more acute, particularly her senses of small and hearing. When she notices the changes she dolls herself up, heads to a spa or a motel, picks up some poor chap, and shags his brains out. She then returns to her home and locks herself in her basement with 15 pounds of stake.
Amanda Ooms, as Alice, effectively conveys all the rage of a young woman on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. Afraid to tell anyone her secret, she reverts to psychotherapy. As Ooms plays the character, her actions appear to be more out of desperation for companionship rather than a last ditch effort to retain her sanity. She’s lived with the wolf for years and knows there’s little she can do. All she wants is to be understood and excepted. She wants to open up to someone who won’t, or maybe can’t, betray her trust.
You won’t find any great transformation sequences in this picture, just some computerized morphing that looked better when Michael Jackson first did it back in the early 1990’s. Perhaps it might have been better to leave out the special effects altogether. The moments are so awfully done, and arrive at inopportune times in the middle of important key plot points, each time distracting the viewer and reminding them that they are simply watching a movie. Any chance of breaking down the wall between the film and the viewer is lost.
The movie itself pulls its x + y = z plot straight from the algebra books. You don’t need to be Pathagoris to figure out where the equation leads from scene to scene. The film is adapted from a novel by Dennis Danvers, which I’ve never read, but can’t help thinking there had to be better source material to cultivate. The premise and characters are intriguing, but so little happens that the viewer is left wondering why it took 100 minutes to tell a 20-minute story.