MauveMouse Review of The Hair of the Beast

The Hair of the Beast (2010)

The big bad wolf, the big bad wolf Who's afraid of the big bad wolf Tra la la la la

[24 February 2015]

Canadian werewolf film with a historical setting, Quebec, New France, 1665, The Hair of the Beast tells the story of young man, the good-hearted petty thief type, caught in the middle of a creature hunt saga led by a specialist in lycanthropy, a priest, Father Brind'amour. When our anti-hero, the thief, gets mistaken as Brind'amour, a series of adventures start to unroll in the wild beautiful countryside of Quebec. The film goes back and forth between comedy and drama, and successfully manages to avoid being too trivial or too serious. There's a decent amount of blood and guts but most of the time the movie focuses on the lighter tones. It's nothing special but I enjoyed it, reminded me of Brotherhood of the Wolf but that one took itself too seriously, instead, The Hair of the Beast never ceases to discretely mock his protagonists, and intended or not, the werewolves themselves are actually looking like extra hairy overgrown pups. They're vicious alright, but the CGI effects fail to capture that aspect in their appearance. But it doesn't make a big difference in the economy of the film because they're actually fully revealed at the end and until then the occasional clawed paw or the mysterious shape quickly sweeping the foreground are enough elements to insert the necessary amount of tension. Though not at high standards, the film delivers a nicely woven creature tale set in a beautiful woodland in a time when horror figures of folk legends were actually feared and believed as real