BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE

Vivian is a werewolf, who fled the United States when she was just a child, now lives in Bucharest, Romania, where she has found refuge in a clan of her kind, led by the pack leader Gabriel. Vivian spends her days jogging and working in a chocolate shop, while she spends the night in the city's "in" clubs and hunting expeditions organized by Gabriel. The leader of the werewolves has a plan for her, wanting to make her his next companion, but when Vivian meets and falls in love with Aiden, a comic book artist on the run from his family, the girl's relationship with her people begins to become conflictual. Let the fanatic viewer of werewolf films be warned: "Blood and Chocolate" is probably not the movie you are looking for! The blood mixed with the chocolate of the title is only an unfulfilled promise and the famous representatives of the little-exploited werewolf genre have little or nothing to do with this fashionable and faux arty operetta. In fact, talking about horror for "Blood and Chocolate" is perhaps incorrect because it deals with a love story for teens in which blood, violence, horror, and in a certain sense werewolves are completely excluded. "Blood and Chocolate" is the typical fake horror that could be calmly broadcast by national TVs within the afternoon slot for kids, it is a film thought addressing with great probability a young and especially female audience, given the predominant importance given to the romantic aspects of the story. The core of the film is the overused assumption of impossible love, presented in all its forms and all literary and cinematic genres (even in werewolf cinema in the previous "Underworld" with which "Blood and Chocolate" shares the producers), here shown as love between human and supernatural creature. Beyond the absolute lack of originality, the situation was not even set up with sufficient care, due to the total lack of the right depth for any character and the absolute flatness of the narration. The dividing line that separates good from evil is clear: the good are good and the bad are bad. Strange! In a film where the protagonist is a creature that turns into a beast, one would have expected at least some psychological and moral struggles, even the most obvious ones, about the nature of her condition... and instead nothing: Vivian is good, she constantly scolds her mischievous cousin who feels the "Call of the Wild", she abstains from hunting humans and rejects her lover to not put him in danger. On the other hand, we have a bad clan leader who promises a way of salvation to his victims but in reality does not grant it and who, although respecting the human race, indulges in feasts of flesh, even of criminals. What bothers the most about this film is the lack of respect for a figure like the werewolf. In addition to the usual and useless ramblings that would rewrite the myth of the werewolf (here it turns out that werewolves can be killed even with fire, if injured they show their true nature and do not need the full moon to transform), we have one of the most sordid transformations ever shown in a film of this kind. The creatures transform into wolves (canines, not monstrous humanoids) always while making incredible leaps, then are enveloped by a blinding light and when they touch the ground again they are animals; a transformation that greatly resembles those of the girls who become superheroes in manga! On the technical side, the film is saved. The direction of German Katja von Garnier ("Donne senza trucco") is careful and often allows for beautiful framing games, as is the adequate gloomy photography of Brendan Galvin. Among the performers, we find Agnes Bruckner ("Il mistero del bosco"; "Venom"), quite suitable for the role of Vivian, but the rest of the cast does not leave a positive impression. In short, "Blood and Chocolate" is a film that with great probability will arouse some interest outside the circle of horror viewers, especially if they are female and if they are aged between 14 and 19. All others can calmly go back to watching "L'ululato" once more.