Michael Wadleigh’s “Wolfen” was one of three major werewolf films of 1981 (the others are the far more celebrated “The Howling” and “An American Werewolf in London”) and certainly the most unusual.
The first shot is of the New York City skyline, with the World Trade Center front and center. We also see urban decay and trash on the street, as well as characters indulging in cocaine.
Welcome to New York of the ’80s.
A murder in Battery Park is startling to authority figures for its vicious nature (body parts strewn everywhere) and because the victim is a member of high society. New York Police Department Captain Dewy Wilson (Albert Finney) investigates the bizarre case, which takes him on a tour of the city’s most diminished structures...