AJ Annila To Transform a Werewolf in Reverse in ‘Human’
by Marc Patterson
Okay, so it seems a few sites have reported on this news item based on a particular news bit from Screen Daily, and they don’t seem too excited over the idea of a wolf turning human. Even as I type this out I have to initially agree. An artsy farty horror film about a wolf turning human isn’t exactly something that has me chomping at the bit to go run out and see it. I mean, what happens? Can the dog think like a human? Or does it run around looking for Kibbles & Bits to eat? Does it see in color? Will it play fetch? (Probably not).
BUT… before I turn total douche on the film I figured I might as well do some deeper digging. After all, that is what we do around here. Turns out Todd Brown over at TwitchFilm has a different opinion. And I’m going to officially go on the record to state that I trust Todd’s opinion well over any of those other guys. No slam to our other fine news sources, but Todd has a pretty stellar reputation when it comes to this sort of stuff. He’s even managed to get a hold of and read an early script and promises “It’s going to be gooooood”.
Adding to the argument to why this could be good is AJ Annila in the directors seat. I really enjoyed his film Sauna (which if you haven’t seen it you should do so). He’s got a real ability to take a conceptually simple story and turn it into something with depth, complexity, and beauty. Does that mean this project will be the same? Hard to say at this point. But I will say this… The one added piece of information we have that others haven’t seem to have spoken to is that when you utter the word werewolf, you automatically think man. After all, most werewolves as portrayed in film are men, and with the recent Wolfman remake in theaters it’s not a stretch of the imagination to be led this way. However, if you look at that flyer above you’ll see the tagline says “It takes an animal to make her human”. I emphasize… HER. That in itself adds a unique twist to this story that I find to be intriguing as (godforbid I say this outloud as slam my own gender), but I think there could be far more depth of story with a female in the lead. In my mind casting a male equals animal into animal, but with a woman we could revisit that complexity and depth of character that would not be so easy to attain with a male lead.
In any case – we’ll be keep an eye on this project as it continues. You keep checking back. Oh… and check out an excerpt below from a press release Twitch got their hands on:
Tero Kaukomaa, of Helsinki prod co Blind Spot Pictures today announced that AJ Annila’s latest project, a werewolf inversion picture called Human, has added several Canadian partners to the project.
Dean English and Karen Powell of Vancouver’s Perfect Circle will co-produce, Doug Taylor (Splice) will co-write the screenplay, and Andrew Simpsons (I, Robot) will be the wolf wrangler.
Kaukomaa said, “It’s really exciting to get all this international talent to work alongside with AJ and our Finnish team. Their participation will definitely broaden the international appeal for the film”
When describing what audiences should expect, director AJ Annila, best known for his genre defying horror film Sauna, said, “I want to take this style of film and turn it on its head. What would happen if a human bit a wolf, and human blood entered a wolf? With Human I expect to do totally different kind of werewolf film, so don’t expect anything familiar to this sub-genre.”
