Director and cinematographer Michael Wadleigh is best known for his three-hour counterculture epic Woodstock, the iconic document of the 1969 music festival. The Ohio native only made one non-fiction feature and that was 1981's phantasmagorical noir thriller Wolfen.
Steeped in Native American folklore, the film sees a desert dry Albert Finney investigate a series of gruesome and strange murders in downtown Manhattan and the Bronx. With a serious head of hair, Finney's character Dewey Wilson is given some razor sharp one-liners. You'd have loved to see this protagonist in another movie.
Wadleigh uses many thermographic steady cam shots to convey the otherworldly subjective point of view of the killer, a technique that would inspire future movies like Predator. And New York City itself has never looked so ominous, where every shadow might grow a pair of fangs and demonic red eyes.
There's many other impressive elements, from Edward James Olmos' small but key performance as Eddie Holt, Gregory Hines as the coroner-cum-comic-relief, Gerry Fisher's dreamlike cinematography and James Horner's fine score.
In one particularly gasp-inducing scene, Wilson climbs to the top of the Manhattan bridge to interview Holt, who's a construction worker. I've never seen that landmark used on-screen in such a startling, nail-biting fashion.
Wolfen is a forgotten gem. Give it a look.
