Macabre…ish Horror Review: Wolfkin
Wolfkin, 2022/ 1 hr 30 min
A pregnant woman is abandoned, the second the father finds out she’s pregnant. Elaine (Louise Manteau) raises her son, Martin (Victor Dieu), alone and as he grows, she notices he’s different but they grow extremely close. They share the same bed and he soothes himself to sleep by sucking her finger.
But as he changes and becomes more feral, Elaine thinks he’s ill and she knows she won’t be able to control him for much longer. He’s starting to bite other kids and the parents file complaints. Elaine decides it’s time for them to move from Belgium and head to Luxembourg. His grandparents live there. These are very wealthy people and until they turn up at the gate, the Urwald’s do not even know Martin exists and is Patrick’s (Benjamin Ramon) son.
Immediately, the grandparents check for signs of familiarity and accept them both. But Jean (Jules Werner), Patrick’s brother is not amused, in fact, he’s enraged by it. Mrs. Urwald (Marja-Leena Junker) has a heart to heart with Elaine. She wants to know what took her so long to come. And Elaine wants to know what happened to Patrick.
And Mr. Urwald (Marco Lorenzini) spends time with Martin and is excited to hunt and share his traditions with him. But this family is different, even during meals, the men have a different menu than the women. And Jean’s wife, Tatiana (Yulia Chernyshkova) doesn’t really talk to Elaine. There are a lot of secrets in this family.
One day they see Patrick’s old room, it’s a normal room except the chain bolted to the wall. Afterward, church and it’s a weird one. As a matter of fact the entire town is a little off. It’s surrounded by vineyards, many of which are owned my The Urwalds and so everything, including church is winery centered. The pastor even mentions a patron saint of winery and someone being crushed to death like grapes.
Meanwhile, Martin is getting a little more unruly and starting to attack his mother. His grandmother has a remedy for that and she tosses him into a kennel with the dogs and it calms him right down. Martin also has to see the family doctor and Elaine has to be explained a few things about their family traits.
One morning, Martin goes on a secret outing with his grandfather and runs away into the woods on all fours. He is later chained in his father’s old room and muzzled. After being assaulted by Jean, Elaine’s had enough, she grabs her son and leaves. That turns out to be a big mistake though. It’ll take him biting her, her becoming afraid of him, transforming and eating her boyfriend, for them to return to the Urwalds.
And the Urwalds take some pretty extreme measures to make him safe to be around. Like removing some of Martin’s teeth. It would seem that Martin is very much his father’s son and the Urwald’s but especially Jean, does not like it. As for Elaine, she’s been traumatized by it all.
But she’ll find out that she doesn’t know the half of it when she discovers the game this family’s been hunting and eating.
Martin is growing to only respect whoever is stronger than he is and that makes him dangerous. And to Elaine, he’s nearly unrecognizable.
On the night, Elaine and Martin are to be welcomed into the fold, as part of the family, the Urwald’s are instead, destroyed. In a series of events, three generations of Urwalds and what they built, is gone.
This horror drama was directed by Jacques Molitor and it has a very familiar feel, as it went on, I recognized it! It felt a lot like VC Andrews. It was the soundtrack and cinematography but also the relationships between the characters. The odd rich people and their rituals, combined with being a mixed family of humans and werewolves. And everything that needs to happen for their survival. It was good! Heavy and felt like impending doom and it did not disappoint. The audio is in French but there are English subtitles. If you like VC Andrews or Ready or Not, you might like this.