Sundance 2021: EIGHT FOR SILVER Review – A Gothic Werewolf Tale For The Ages
Directed by Sean Ellis
Written by Sean Ellis
Starring Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie
Even though this story of a community beset by a moonlight curse is set in 19th-century France, Sean Ellis’ period werewolf movie is probably the most commercial film in this year’s horror lineup at the Sundance Film Festival. It has adventure, a model leading man in Boyd Holbrook (Logan, The Predator), an impressive body count and a ton of CGI. In fact, Eight For Silver probably relies a little too much on action instead of embracing the exceptional atmosphere created by art director Paulo Goncalves. Still, any filmmakers brave enough to add an entry that will undoubtedly be compared to the best werewolf movies ever made should feel proud. Especially one with this amount of epic scale and glorious grandeur.
Beginning with scenes of banishment and torture, a brutally effective one-shot shows a group of callous land barons overtaking a small Romanian community and setting their tents on fire, leaving them running for cover. Orchestrator and proud family man Seamus Laurent (Petrie) unknowingly unleashes a curse after the slaughter which begins to threaten his children and his precious land. Once his son disappears into the night after a wild animal attack, an enigmatic traveling pathologist named John McBride (Holbrook) vows to help. As more and more victims pile up, the howls across the moors grow in volume, suggesting there may be more than just one Lycan on the prowl.
If we divide up the werewolf genre into three distinct periods — the classic Larry Talbot era of The Wolf Man, the eighties coming of age era of Lone Wolf (1988), and the action horror era of Underworld — Eight For Silver probably fits best in the latter category. It could also be compared to another period set French hybrid, 2001’s spectacular hunter-killer new classic Brotherhood of the Wolf. All the right boxes are checked including silver bullets, haunting gypsy curses, a terrorized community under attack, and a tested outsider ready to join the fight. Unfortunately, every element doesn’t quite gel.
The final battle highlights the film’s strengths and its weaknesses, namely the execution of the jump scares and the most important piece of all: the creature itself. After a number of unsuccessful nightmare sequences featuring gypsy ghosts haunting the town children, the tension does start to settle in once the actual physical attacks ramp up. The creature design is more human than monster and almost completely CGI rendered, however. That’s a choice that doesn’t always work but each attack builds on the kill before.
In one scene in particular, the revelation of just how the beast operates is highly effective, mostly because it’s almost completely practical and explains that the cursed victims are trapped instead of transformed. Visually, this scene reaches a dramatic height that unveils the tragic fate of the sons and daughters that go missing. In your head, recall the image of Paul’s death in 1988’s The Blob and you’ll have an idea of what to expect.
-
Eight For Silver
Summary
Eight For Silver should go down as one of the more ambitious werewolf movies in recent memory, even when it doesn’t manage to find its footing.
