Horror Movie Review: Blood & Chocolate (2007)

     Blood & Chocolate was the single best werewolf movie of 2007. It was also one of the very best horror movies of 2007 thus far. Blood & Chocolate is a beautifully made film that stood out from the rest of the pack when it was released in January of 2007. Blood & Chocolate was clearly the best movie released during the first month of 2007.

     Blood & Chocolate is also a lesson in how a great movie can be made from a great novel even if significant liberties are taken with the story by the film makers. The original novel, by Annette Curtis Klause, was a Young Adult novel set in America. The movie adaptation is a PG-13 film that is both made and set in the capital city of Romania, Bucharest. The legendary vampire realm of Transylvania is a province of Romania, so the change of setting made sense.

     The movie version of Blood & Chocolate is about an orphan named Vivian (Agnes Bruckner) who is being raised by her aunt.  Vivian was originally from the Rocky Mountains, but after her parents death, her aunt moved her to Bucharest.  There, Vivian learns that she
is part of a werewolf bloodline and that she has been promised in marriage to werewolf leader Gabriel(Olivier Martinez).  Problem is that Vivian's heart has been set on the handsome Aiden (Hugh Dancy).  

     There are many excellent facets of Blood & Chocolate. It has a
tremendously creepy atmosphere of the sort that is so essential to
making a horror movie scary. The cinematography is excellent in this
regard and there are many chill inducing daylight scenes which is
unusual since most horror movies can only scare you in darkness. The
"hunt" scenes in which the young werewolves go after their prey are
wonderful. They exude a certain kind of eerie energy that only adds to the movie. The fact that the werewolves have wolfish movements and traits while they are in human form is very well expressed in this movie and is done in convincing fashion.

     The most important aspect aspect of Blood & Chocolate is the fact that it  has so many likable characters that you the viewer care about.  In so many other horror movies, the characters are poorly drawn cardboard creations that you don't care much about.  When they get killed on screen, it does make much impact on you.  
However, in Blood & Chocolate, you really do care about the characters, so their fate has an emotional impact upon you. 


     And in the end, what are we to make of Blood & Chocolate? It is an attempt to make an artistic masterpiece out of a horror film. It does not quite succeed in all aspects of horror film making, but at least it tried, which is much more than what can be said for the great majority of horror flicks nowadays. As such, Blood & Chocolate is very well recommended.