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When the moon is full the legend comes to life
The film starts off with the original rhyme as told by Maleva (Chaplin). It
then cuts to Ben Talbot, in the Blackmoor woods armed with a pistol. He is confronted
by a werewolf which severely injures
him. He flees towards a nearby mausoleum, with the creature in pursuit.
Traveling Shakespearean theatre actor Lawrence Talbot (del Toro) returns to his
ancestral home to investigate the whereabouts of his recently missing brother
upon request from Ben's fiancée Gwen Conliffe (Blunt). His distant and eccentric
father Sir
John Talbot (Hopkins) greets him and reveals that his brother Ben's body was
already found in a ditch and surmises he will attend the funeral. Lawrence
inquires about the body and goes to see it, where it is stored at the local
mortuary: Ben's remains are thoroughly mangled and torn apart. While investigating his brother's death, Lawrence heads to the nearby gypsy
camp, to which Ben was the town's liaison. While there, an unnamed werewolf
suddenly rampages through the camp, killing and maiming most of the gypsies.
Lawrence gives chase, and is subsequently attacked by the werewolf and bitten on
the neck, though the pursuing gypsies manage to scare it off. Lawrence is tended
to and taken to his father.
Soon after, Inspector Francis Aberline (Weaving) of Scotland Yard arrives and questions Lawrence:
both are suspicious of each other, and Aberline quickly departs. Lawrence
wanders to a nearby lake and finds Gwen there, where they converse and seem to
establish a flirtatious relationship. Soon after priests and the local village
men arrive to take Lawrence away claiming he "bears the mark of the beast", but
his father saves him, threatening to shoot them if they trespass at Talbot Hall
again.
Many nights after on the full moon, the villagers arm themselves with guns
packed with silver bullets and set a trap for the werewolf
at the ruins of an old church, using a stag as bait. That night, Lawrence sees his father walking
out to the crypt. He follows and finds a
cell containing his father and a shrine to his deceased mother. Sir John then
locks himself inside with Lawrence outside the door just as his son begins to
transform into the Wolfman for the first time. Elsewhere, Aberline plans to
spend the evening at the local tavern to wait for the suspect's attack.
Lawrence, now fully changed alerts everyone to his presence by howling for the first
time. He attacks and kills all of the villagers that set the trap, and Aberline
stumbles upon the aftermath.
When he changes back the next day he is greeted by his father. He is arrested
by the police and Aberline, and is taken to the mental institution his father
sent him to as a child. He is relentlessly tortured by his sadistic doctors from
his childhood, who claim his lycanthropy is simply a delusion: he also begins to
suffer severe hallucinations involving the Wolfman and Gwen. He awakens in his
cell sometime later, his father now with him. He explains that the institution
had convinced him that his mother killed herself, but what he really saw was his
father as a werewolf, who had killed his mother. Sir John then explains how he
was bitten by a wolf-boy in
a cave when he was hunting in the mountains of India, and how for the past 25
years, Singh, his Indian man-servant has locked him in the crypt, but one night
in a jealous, drunken rage (as Sir John confessed that he had become attracted
to and obsessed with Gwen) he incapacitated Singh and was therefore unable to
lock himself in, resulting in Ben's death at his hands. It is also confirmed
that it was Sir John who bit Lawrence. Lawrence vows to kill his father to
avenge his mother's and brother's deaths and for cursing him, a threat Sir John
dismisses.
Lawrence is taken into a court of scholars to dis-prove the idea of
werewolves. As the full moon
rises, he transforms and kills a number of the men in attendance (including the
doctors who had tortured him), then rampages across London until dawn. He flees to Gwen's shop for safety:
she takes him in and they admit their feelings to each other. Aberline orders
his men to capture Lawrence, who is traveling back to Blackmoor to kill Sir
John. Meanwhile, Gwen meets with Maleva where she tries to find a way to lift
the curse.
Upon arriving home, Lawrence arms himself with silver bullets Singh kept
(finding Singh's eviscerated and rotting corpse in the process) and confronts
his father. He is unable to shoot, however; Sir John reveals that he removed the
gunpowder from the bullets long ago. Both he and Lawrence transform and fight,
setting the mansion on fire in the process. Sir John has the upper hand on
Lawrence until he is kicked into the fireplace and subsequently beheaded.
Aberline and Gwen then arrive on the scene; Aberline tries to shoot the
still-standing Lawrence, but Gwen grabs his gun arm, allowing Lawrence to bite
him and throw him aside. Gwen flees into the forest, only to be chased down by
the Wolfman. Gwen is forced to shoot Lawrence with a silver bullet in reluctant
self-defense. Before he dies he turns back into a human and spends his last
moments with Gwen. The mob arrives with Aberline, who appears clutching the
silver cane. Gwen's parting words are heard as Talbot Manor appears in flames
and a wolf's howl is heard, presumably from Aberline.
 Copyright(C) 2007
- 2020. All rights reserved
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