Some amiable inanity and enjoyable daftness is served up here by James Fleet in this British comedy horror romp: he plays Oliver Lawrence, a stage and screen actor of a certain age who was once very big playing a vampire in a string of sub-Hammer shockers. Now that these films have become very big in east Asia, our refined thespian has been prevailed upon to reprise his cheesy fanged demon in a new low-budget film, something undertaken in an uncompromisingly cynical spirit of money-grubbing.
But the old manor house the producer has rented for the shoot turns out to be menaced by a genuine werewolf – which is generically confusing as well as everything else – and two journalists arriving for a set visit have an awful experience. Oliver loves to regale various baffled crew members with his anecdotes of performing Shakespeare, having a particular fondness for having played Macbeth in a groundbreaking open-air production. He muses: “The critics loved it of course … but then there’s always the threat of rain.” The director confides in him that these films “bought me a new boiler”. “They paid for my hip,” replies Oliver thoughtfully. But later, when Oliver actually confronts the fearsome werewolf in the misty forest, he declaims Macaulay: “How can man die better/Than facing fearful odds?”
Wolf Manor is no American Werewolf in London, and I would have liked to see more for John Henshaw to do, as the stricken innkeeper who tries to warn people of the terrible creature roaming the dark forest. But it’s cheerfully silly. Fleet should play a comedy lead more often.
• Wolf Manor is released on 9 January on digital platforms.
