9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dean Stockwell Gets Hairy!, December 18, 2003
Dean Stockwell is an assistant press secretery for the stupidest president in U.S. history. On a trip to Transylvania, Stockwell is attacked and wounded by a werewolf. Upon his return, senators and reporters start dying in grizzly ways. Stockwell tries to tell the president and his staff that he's become a murderous lycanthrope, but they'd rather point the finger at those darned "hippies" or make it a racial thing. After all, how could a werewolf story possibly help them politically? WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON is a political satire disguised as a monster movie. It has it's good moments as well as those moments that make you want to send Dean Stockwell on a REAL quantum leap. Probably best viewed if you're an insomniac and it's 3am...
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Horror, comedy, and 1973 political satire make this one unique, November 21, 2005
America is fighting an unpopular war; the President is trying to shift the balance of the Supreme Court with his judicial nominee; the front line of political debate is an out-of-control press, and there's a wild man running around who looks rather disturbingly like Howard Dean. No, I'm not talking about the state of affairs in 2005; I'm talking about Werewolf of Washington, an undeniably unique 1973 film that combines horror, comedy, and political parody in ways I would never have imagined on my own. I'm going to go ahead and slap a "you've got to see it to believe it" sticker on this one. This is clearly a very weird product of its times - it is, in a word, kooky.
Dean Stockwell plays Jack Whittier, a hotshot young reporter with a close connection to the White House (in the form of the First Daughter); his idea of ending the relationship involved getting a transfer to Hungary, of all places, and making it look like his newspaper sent him there as some kind of punishment. The President (Biff McGuire) thinks he was banished for his favorable articles on the White House, so he snatches Jack up as his new press agent. Before Jack can get out of Budapest, however, he goes and gets himself bitten by a werewolf. After his return to Washington, he starts seeing pentagrams on select people's hands and experiencing blackouts during the times those people are killed. (The writers work in not one but two pentagram-Pentagon confusion jokes, which gives you a pretty good idea of the comedic effectiveness of this whole film.) Eventually, Jack figures out that he has indeed been cursed, but no one really believes his claims that he is a werewolf - certainly not the President, who becomes thicker and thicker in the head as the story progresses. The transformations are interesting - it's just your standard time-lapse photography, but the early phase has Jack scrunching his face all over the place, and I swear he looks exactly like Howard Dean when he pushes his jaw out and gets that "Yeeeoooooow" look in his eyes. Once the transformation is complete, though, Jack just looks like an idiot - this may be the stupidest-looking werewolf in the history of cinema.
Once the whole werewolf setup is complete, the movie gets down to some serious (and seriously bad) political parody work. You've got hippies and other subversives for the Attorney General and FBI to keep their eye on, you've got the Watergate Hotel, you've got the President "cleverly" sidestepping questions he doesn't want to answer, and you've even got a little Agnew humor thrown in for good measure. The President's a dunderhead who gets stranger as his political support erodes, but the Attorney General is the real piece of work on display here. He's too honest for his own good, according to the President, and he's a master at speaking without thinking (just see how quickly he jumps from werewolf to Black Panther when it comes to a murder suspect). Then there's the war room meeting - I can't even begin to describe that scene. Toss in a "you won't have Jack Whittier to kick around anymore" line at the end, wrap it all up, and you've got the most unique werewolf film I've ever seen.
The political satire bit (which you've really got to see for yourself to appreciate - or not) is the only thing that makes this hairy dog of a movie remotely interesting. As horror, it's a total bomb. It basically strikes out when it comes to the comedy thing, too - but at least it's a weird, interesting kind of bomb in that regard.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Satire Reminiscent of "the Wolfman", August 6, 2006
When the movie started I was immediately reminded of the old Wolfman movie, right down to the clubbing of the wolf. As it went on I got some laughs as the political and racial satire came out, and the werewolf's mannerisms became more comically exaggerated as time went on as well. All in all, an enjoyable flick. If you're looking to come out honestly scared, you lose, but if you're looking for a halfway decent werewolf, something tolerable, or something funny, then this is a good watch. Considering the rent prices nowadays, go ahead and buy it.
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