In Haste: The Wolfman

 First, load up on this all-star cover of Dylan's "Death is not the End", the song that should have floated us through the end credits of "The Wolfman".  A little mood music goes a long way, wouldn't you agree?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frNI0rMeiF8

Be sweetly serenaded away by the fanciful flight over destruction the lyrics peer down upon.

Ultimately, I find this misshapen fairy tale moderately satisfying.  There is no salvation from death in the woods that the likes of werewolves inhabit.  If the whole of the film excavated that theme, a masterpiece it would have surely been.

The character played by the always spectacular Anthony Hopkins commands his son to search his eyes.  "You see that I am quite dead."  But these dead eyes still have a will.  Death is not the end.  We can go on if we so will.

Scanning the night for wolfmen is a good reminder to me that there are many types of death.  Some more harmful than others.  Perhaps this is worth further examination at a later point.  Or maybe I will just let the thought die here.

My Grandmother has seen her fair share of death.  She has outlasted four husbands.  When she tells me what losing a loved one is like, the only word she describes is, "Gone."  They are wholly gone.  What does gone-ness leave behind?

"The Wolfman makes a meek case to say that a body is more than just a man.  So then it can be true that the man dies, but the moving body remains.  In this case, the remaining body eats people under a full moon.  And he howls.  Mourning, maybe.

"Her death finished me, I was devastated. But I still prowl the house at night, searching for her. But I'm dead all the same. Look into my eyes Lawrence, you see that I am quite dead."