Wolf Girl

It would seem that Tim Curry would welcome the role of a kind-hearted, singing, dancing sideshow entrepreneur, roving through the European woods in a gypsy caravan. He seems to be enjoying himself greatly being able to be the understanding father figure to the physically impaired entertainers who also seem to be enjoying their work. It is also a coming-of-age story. Most teenage girls seem to think of themselves as grotesque until love is in the air. I had a little trouble with the ending. Without giving it away I can say that, with a good character, sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone. I give it 10 points, so there.

Saw the late showing of Wolf Girl recently on USA. It was good fun, but I'm naturally biased towards most movies with Tim Curry as he is one of my faves!

On the whole, the movie was paced nicely with some good performances and some bad ones as well. Tim Curry is good as the eccentric, yet caring freak show owner, Harley. And Victoria Sanchez plays her part well also as the lonely wolf girl who just wants to be a normal teenager. She's very believable.

The other performances were solid as well, with a few exceptions, most notable the group of teenagers who harass Tara. They are horribly stereotypical, egocentric and dull. (Though the running gag with the size of their "manhood" is good for a few giggles).

The movie is filmed with a kind of washed out color feeling, similar to, but nowhere near as effective as Tim Burton's, "Sleepy Hollow" and the music is passable. Tim Curry even gets a chance to show off his singing skill in a wonderful little number about "plucking" that kind of reminds me of Frankenfurter from "Rocky Horror"

***

I can't believe how underrated this movie is. Not only does it work with classic horror themes, but it mingles them with a lot of smartness. It is almost perfect, if you discount the Romanian origins of the lead character (mainly, Romanians have not been stupid enough to leave firearms in the hands of regular idiot people for a long time).

The story is of a hairy girl who wants to be normal. She trades her weird looks for a violent personality, driven by her liaison with a regular freak (not violent and sensible) and the continuous bullying by another freak and his clique. The cast is mixed: Earthsea's Shawn Ashmore, Tim Curry (from a zillion movies) and Grace Jones work together with the Romanian cast that provided most of the secondary and support actors.

It's not that the movie is a masterpiece, but it is quite good with its depiction of freakness in all of its forms. The idea itself was masterful. I've watched the movie thinking it would be a werewolf film, but in actuality it is not, it is a story about human nature and should, by all counts, become a classic.

Do watch it. It may not be high production values or insane special effects, but the story is something to behold.

There's a saying about freak shows and movies featuring Tim Curry: You can't turn away. So it is with this movie, which features both Curry and a freak show. It's not a great movie, by any means, but you can't turn away. The plot involves an oddly attractive extra-hairy teenage girl who has lived her life in a freak show. She meets an odd boy who gives her an experimental treatment, but, as a side effect, the treatment turns her violent. In other words, there are no real surprises in the plot (though it didn't end quite the way I expected it to end), and there are a lot of "what the?" scenes. How did that character know that, why does this character do that, why was this scene in the movie at all, etc. It's an affliction common to made-for-cable movies, of course, and this one actually has less than most. But, beneath all of that, there are some great looking scenes. The scenery, costumes and photography give lots of the movie a neat, old-world sort of feel (even though it appears to take place in the present). Freak shows are an anachronism today, and the movie presents them as such. To watch the scenes around the show, you'd think that the movie took place at least a century ago, and that's to the movie's credit. It's the style that makes this movie worth watching. I've seen plenty of horror movies, made-for-cable and otherwise, that didn't even have that going for them.

What does a Romanian-Canadian made-for-tv movie look like? It's similar to anything you might see on the Hallmark or Disney Channel, slow paced and wholesome, but with slightly more transsexuals and full frontal nudity (male and female).

Note: this film features Tim Curry's swagger.

He plays a freakshow owner, and his main act is The Wolf Girl, an ordinary, uncomfortable teenage girl who happens to be very hairy. Some late-90s bullies give her a hard time, but luckily, and unluckily for her (tragic irony), she's Wolf Girl, and becomes even more so as events unfold.

This film has the tone of an afterschool special or Lifetime original movie, but with wolf girl boobs, mulitple male genitalia, and gruesome, bloody murders. It first struck me as subversive, but then I realized I'm just American.

It also treads that uncomfortable line between celebrating and marginalizing those who are different. As freakshows are wont to do. Take the scene where late-90s nerdy boy with cool hair (me) peeks in on an armless man making love to a woman, only to realize he's been spotted by a woman with no arms or legs, who's in a hammock.

Strange, and strangely wholesome. There's a moral to the story about honoring who you are. Heartwarming characters. There's a great Ani DiFranco song for the credits. And Tim Curry is in it.

I give it a solid 6.75 on the unexpected male nudity meter. Worth watching.