Wilczyca (1983)
The story is thematically centered around that familiar chestnut: the male fear of women and especially the expression of their sexuality. They were often, and still are in more cultures and subcultures than is comfortable, considered carnal creatures that could go feral at any moment; they could be hysterical, promiscuous, and conniving, all in equal measure. In prior centuries, this was considered a worthy subject to induce terror in the populace, but nowadays, of the stories even remembered from that time, the ones that are written by men and focus on women going feral are usually appreciated from more of an ironic standpoint, where the giving in of women to their basest desires and throwing aside the expectations of the patriarchy is seen as cathartic and kind of badass (See also Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.) Recently, the film Witchhammer that I covered explored this same topic to much greater success because it was always clear that it was a work of vicious satire. The men were lusty pigs, and despite this, they could never shut up about how oh-so-bloody righteous they were at all times, and they felt themselves great enough judges of characters to put many innocent women to death, either because of their mistaken faith or because of a twisted desire to punish women, which in modern times is only too relevant. This film goes in a slightly different direction, which is to say it plays everything at face value, and presents us with a portrait of women at their worst and most cliched.
The antagonist is a depraved bisexual beast who cuckolds her husband at every turn, and when he confronts her, she simply cries until he leaves. She is every "decent man's" nightmare. And yes, while later developments make things a bit more muddled, (our protagonist, Polish Kurt Russel, is a wife-beater and liked to call his wife 'bitch,' which is actually the precise reason she becomes a female werewolf,) I still can't shake this icky feeling while watching it. The same feeling I get from watching The Scary of Sixty-First: what were they thinking? Genuinely. Is this parody, satire, or bad storytelling? Once the film gets going, you can sort of forget about the subtext, but early on, it really grates. The men of the story don't look great because they're forever being manipulated and tricked by more intelligent women, but it hardly becomes a feminist film simply for that reason.
So where is that surprise turn I mentioned in the beginning? Well, it's no one moment exactly, though the last five minutes or so might qualify for some. Rather, once the plot got underway and we were actually following close behind Polish Kurt Russel, I simply stopped checking my watch. It's slow going, no doubt about that, but eventually, the pace begins to quicken, the film whips up a few genuinely unsettling scenes, and then ends in such a spectacular fashion as to leave me shocked and awed. It's like the gory shootout in Taxi Driver by way of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I found myself laughing out loud and having a blast for a brief few minutes. It almost felt worth it. But then the film ends not one second later and it all reeks a bit of too-little-too-late.
And another thing I've neglected to mention is that this film is presented very well. It looks gorgeous: the costuming, the set design, and the cinematography. For some, that alone might be enough to recommend it (that and its utter manliness,) and it won't hurt that the performances are universally strong as well. It has a look that recalls The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Dracula, The Phantom Carriage, and The Hateful Eight, especially when Polish Kurt Russel is riding through the snow in a horse-drawn carriage wearing, I swear to God, the same hat as Russell wore in that film. I didn't love the music consistently, but it certainly had its moments. My favorite stylistic flourish in the film was the decision to show us every second of a silver bullet being created from scratch and then painstakingly loaded into a flintlock pistol. It's straight-up historical gun porn, but hey: it's a bold, if inexplicable, choice.
So where does that leave us? To reiterate: this film boasts a few genuine spooks, some bizarre kinky shlocky stuff, all before sending us off with an uproarious dose of gore. It really surprised me, which I can't say for every film, and while it took far too long to get there (with the first thirty minutes being the most significant turnoff,) I can't say I was entirely disappointed with The She-Wolf. This is hardly one of All the Haunts Be Ours' strongest selections, but it's not the worst either (that honor would still go to Tilbury.)
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