a5c7b9f00b A defense attorney begins to suspect that there might be more to her client, who is charged with the murders of a vacationing family, than meets the eye. In France, the Porter family is slaughtered while camping in the woods and only Claire Porter survives seriously wounded. She reports that her husband Henry and her son Peter have been eaten alive by a strong man. The eremite Talan Gwynek that lives in the woods with his mother is arrested by the police accused of being the killer. The defense attorney Kate Moore is assigned to defend Talan and she comes to the police station with her investigator Eric Sarin and the animal expert Gavin Flemyng to interview Talan. The unwilling police inspector Klaus Pistor is sure that Talan is the murderer but has to let Kate and her team work. There is turmoil in the precinct and Gavin is scratched by Talan. Then they visit Talan&#39;s mother Mrs. Gwynek and they learn that Talan has a rare disease. Further, the government wants her lands to dispose nuclear waste and her husband has recently died in car accident. Soon Eric discloses that the death of Mr. Gwynek was suspicious and Pistor was in charge of the investigation. When Kate succeeds in sending Talan to a hospital for examination, she discovers the effects of Talan&#39;s disease and is the responsible for the next events. &quot;There are also some signs of bite marks, that seems to belong to a great beast. Broken kneesa whole. Well, the whole jaw was broken. Again, no signs of the use of weapons of any kind …&quot;<br/><br/>There is a horror genre of which really very few films are made, and that&#39;s the werewolf genre.We are inundated with films about zombies, all sorts of demonic forces and paranormal phenomena.But we don&#39;t see our profusely hairy friend that often. There are only a limited number of successful werewolf movies like &quot;The Wolfman&quot;,&quot;Silver Bullet&quot; and &quot;The Howling&quot;.&quot;An American Werewolf in London&quot; is for me a classic and a jewel in this genre.It&#39;s no surprise that this film won an Oscar and a Saturn award for best make-up. Of course there are also some misfires in terms of make-up,special effects and content such&quot;Night Wolf&quot; for example.<br/><br/>In &quot;Wer&quot; (ridiculous movie title by the way) it&#39;s not a werewolf we get to see, but rather a &quot;Wolfman&quot;.This means you won&#39;t see a real transformation into a wolf and the corresponding creature has excessive hair growth, an impressive stature and probably strong jaws with disproportionate grown teeth.It&#39;s not really the appearance and movement of a wolf (although we do get a glimpse of this at the end).<br/><br/>Just&quot;Afflicted&quot; managed to revive an old horror genre (in this case about vampires),of which films are made into infinity with all necessary and related clichés,by approaching the subject from a different angle,&quot;Wer&quot; tried it with the werewolves genre.It&#39;s also starting with a found-footage part where we witness how an American family, on holiday in France,becomes the victim of an unknown creature that tears them into shreds. After a while the obscure,strange individual Gwynek Talan (Brian Scott O&#39;Connor) is arrested. He&#39;s suspect number one and accused of being the person who committed this terrible crime. An imposing person with hands like coal shovels and who looks like a walking hairy carpet. Talan is entitled to a lawyer and that&#39;s when Kate Moore (AJ Cook) comes up with two assistants Eric Sarin (Vic Sahay) and Gavin Flemyng (Sebastian Roche).<br/><br/>You can divide the movie into two parts. The first part is the least interesting part (to be honest it&#39;s fairly boring). A.J.Cook wasn&#39;t really convincinga lawyer and came acrossa timid lightweight advocate. It&#39;s only until Talan is subjected to a medical examination to determine whether he suffers from Porphyria, a disorder which affects the hair grow and the body length of a person, the situation starts to escalate. This disease is also important evidence because if someone suffers from this condition he can&#39;t move that fast anyway. So it could be the ultimate proof that Talan might not be the culprit. The principle of a werewolf is approached in a scientific way. Kind of original.<br/><br/>The second part is flashy and brutal with quite a few skulls being crushed and a whole bunch French policemen being dismembered. A rapidly moving violent werewolf who, despite its almost human form, goes on a killing spree in a monstrous way, leaving behind an unreal bloody trace. Despite the limited budget, the used SE&#39;s are realistic and there&#39;s never a feeling that too much CGI was used. We get a ferocious werewolf that causes a true massacre. Also Gavin will provide an extra surprise which will lead to a fairly grotesque and absurd ending. Need I say that Sebastian Roche treats us to a wonderful acting performance.<br/><br/>Despite the slow start, where really nothing interesting happens, and the absurd ending, it still resulted in an eerie, terrifying and intense monster movie which is still worth to give it a try. Even the found-footage (of which I&#39;m not really such a big fan) didn&#39;t really bother me. It&#39;s self-evident this isn&#39;t really a family film. There are some explicit images of mutilated bodies and a blood-stained looming figure, that turns this into an ominous film. It surely isn&#39;t exactly intended for little kids. It won&#39;t go down in historythe most successful werewolf movie of all time, but it certainly is way better than all the pitiful efforts which have been undertaken over the last 10 years. <br/><br/>More reviews at http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be There&#39;s a lot going on in this horror mystery. It effectively grabs you by the hand, but then loses you half-way throughits focus shifts about towards a traumatic climax. As the title suggests there is an element of lycanthropy afoot, but to what extent isn&#39;t fully understood. The film isequally vague on the subjectits title. <br/><br/>Regardless, while the mystery surrounding the enigmatic Talan Gwynek catches your attention, the film&#39;s earnest attempt to provide scares in its second half fall flat. Those green to the horror genre might feel some tension, but for the rest of us, one is likely to feel a strong sense of familiarity. <br/><br/>The acting is quite decent, the atmosphere brooding, and yet things just don&#39;t seem to connect. While I understand there may have been a certain theme at play, the almost non-existent special-effects/makeup seemed to be more of a hindrance to the overall experience rather than a punctuation of any themes that the director was trying to convey.
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