Wolfman – baah, so-so. There’s plenty of spooky mist rolling in over wild and woolly moors, lots of flickering candles at night, lots of swoopy Victorian costumes, there’s even a troop of gor-blimey-guvner Gypseys. Blah blah blah. Reminded me of that other corker: Van Helsing. If anyone gets the kudos for this howler, it’s the editor. The cuts come quick and fast. (Actually, the cuts come in more ways than one; boy, it’s bloody.)
Basically though, I couldn’t get beyond Benicio del Toro as a British aristocrat; although they do try to explain him away, he still comes across as a pug-faced thug from South Central LA, with about as much class as a turned jug of jellied eels. And is he sleepwalking throughout??
The major architectural site is played by Chatsworth House, made suitably crusty with a coating of dead ivy. The unbelievably picturesque village is an actual place too; Lacock in Wilshire. Managed by the National Trust, it’s recently appeared on the small screen in the BBC’s Larkrise to Candleford.