I was never that big a fan of the film and
didn’t love the screenplay. It’s written with Sayles’ customary intelligence
and skill but for some reason it didn’t come alive. I couldn’t put my finger on
it. The story is about a woman reporter who puts herself in a great deal of
risk confronting a rapist killer – he attacks her but get shot, so she heads to
a Colony run by her doctor to get better. She finds out the colony is full of
werewolves. This is meant to be tongue in cheek but I
didn’t get that impression reading it. It felt fairly serious; the death toll
isn’t that high but it has a heavy mood because of the opening sequence, and
the fact that the lead is so traumatised. Also her marriage is suffering, her
husband and good friend die (the friend quite bloodily), and she has herself
killed on national television (a terrific ending). I think people were distracted by the
satire of therapy groups and the fact that so many characters are named after
the director of werewolf films: Lew Landers, Roy William Neill, George Waggner,
John Brahm, Erle Kenyon, Charlie Barton. There are some good bits – like the white
trash nympho (her love scene is the bit I remember most from the movie), the
ending, the imagination. Like all successful werewolf films it’s essentially a
tragedy. But I can’t help it, I enjoyed Piranha more (maybe
escaped-animals-going-down-river simply had more built-in pace.
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