Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf Blu-ray Movie Review

Let This Be Our Final Battle

Reviewed by Michael Reuben March 15, 2015

The retired soldier who is the hero of Late Phases (the title has been expanded for video to Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf) recalls elements of Michael Caine's Harry Brown from the 2009 film of the same name. Like Harry, he finds what should be a peaceful community menaced by villains and effectively abandoned by the authorities who should be protecting it. Left with no choice, he uses his military training and experience to mount a vigilante crusade against the attackers. The difference is that Harry battled criminals, but the hero of Late Phases must fend off werewolves. He also labors under the disadvantage of being blind.

Late Phases is the first English-language feature by Spanish director Adrián García Bogliano, whose Here Comes the Devil won major awards at 2012's Fantastic Fest. Greg Newman, the prolific producer of Stake Land, Here Comes the Devil and Starry Eyes (among others), recruited Bogliano to direct the script by Eric Stolze (Under the Bed), which Newman thought would be ideal for Nick Damici, the star of Stake Land. Thanks to its eclectic cast, Bogliano's stylish direction and Damici's commanding presence, Late Phases becomes more than just a werewolf movie with a bad-ass hero. It's as if Damici's old soldier, in facing down a supernatural enemy, has finally found the task for which he has been searching his whole life.

Bogliano has described Late Phases as the story of a man who is preparing to die, which isn't so much a statement about the film's plot as about the main character's outlook. The director tried several different beginnings for the film, including a typical horror opening involving a gruesome killing and a prologue in which Damici's Ambrose McKinley demonstrates his physical skills in an urban confrontation. Ultimately, he chose to open with Ambrose shopping for tombstones. (The dealer is played by producer Larry Fessenden.) The message is clear, direct and unambiguous.

Ambrose and his seeing-eye dog, Shadow, are being driven by Ambrose's son, Will (Ethan Embry), to the Crescent Bay Retirement Community in a remote wooded area of upstate New York. Will's mother is dead, and relations between father and son are strained for reasons that gradually emerge as the film unfolds. Ambrose retired from the Army after twenty years as a weapons specialist, including a tour in Vietnam. His sight gradually faded as a result of eye trauma sustained in military service.

On Ambrose's first night at Crescent Bay, his new neighbor, Delores (Karen Lynn Gorney, co-star of Saturday Night Fever), is killed, and Ambrose is attacked, by a huge, fierce animal that smells to Ambrose like some sort of dog. The local cops (Al Sapienza and Bernardo Cubria) dismiss the incident as a regrettable by-product of living so near the woods, but a veterinarian (Frances Sherman) tells Ambrose that such attacks are a monthly occurrence at Crescent Bay. Someone mentions that the moon was full last night. From these and other clues, Ambrose concludes that his attacker was a werewolf. (How he came to believe in such phenomena is an element of the story that, as Bogliano admits in his commentary, the script simply skips over.)

For the next month, Ambrose trains and prepares. He works out in his back yard and on his front lawn. He visits a gunsmith in town to obtain silver bullets. (The gunsmith is played by Twin Peaks' Dana Ashbrook.) He explores his immediate neighborhood in Crescent Bay, starting with visits to the homes of the Stepford-like welcoming committee that appeared on his first day, which included Clarissa (Tina Louise, from the original Stepford Wives), Gloria B. (Rutanya Alda) and Emma (Caitlin O'Heaney). He attends services at the local church, where the priest, Father Roger (Tom Noonan), is a confirmed smoker and the assistant who organizes the shuttle for the elderly, Griffin (Lance Guest, The Last Starfighter), seems anxious to please. Ambrose even returns to the tombstone seller in town and buys a huge monument in the shape of a cross.

During this entire process, relations between Ambrose and his son and daughter-in-law (Erin Cummings) continue to deteriorate. Will seems torn between wanting to reach out to his father and wishing to get as far away from him as possible. He has no inkling that Ambrose is girding himself for battle.

The climactic showdown between Ambrose and the evil afflicting Crescent Bay is effectively realized entirely with prosthetics and practical devices. As good as these effects are, Late Phases cannot displace The Howling (whose director, Joe Dante, Bogliano interviewed during pre-production) or An American Werewolf in London as a tour de force of makeup effects. Late Phases is much more about the commitment and concentration that Nick Damici gives to Ambrose as he confronts an enemy that he can't see but that only he is able to stop, simply because only he understands what is out there. To compensate for his lack of sight, he concentrates on his other senses, uses a hearing aid to amplify sonic clues and sets a variety of snares and traps. In the end, though, Late Phases comes down to a simple matter of courage, of doing what's right—something that Ambrose is finally able to admit to his son he was unable to do in the rest of his life.

Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Late Phases was shot by Bogliano's usual cinematographer, Ernesto Herrera. Specific information about the shooting format was not available, but the team has previously shot on Red, and Late Phases has the look of a Red production. Bogliano says in his commentary that they chose a palette favoring brown with orange highlights (which often creates a yellowish cast), and he specifically acknowledges his digital intermediate colorist for achieving his intended look. MPI Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced by direct digital transfer. The image is sharp and detailed, although the lighting and editing are strategically arranged to help "sell" both the werewolf effects and the aging makeup applied to Nick Damici. Blacks are dark enough to create the requisite mystery, and shadow detail is sufficiently good that we can always make out objects like the pistol that Ambrose is feeling for amidst the debris in his back yard or on his floor. Few scenes are bright in Late Phases; it's an autumnal story set on the edge of a great darkness, and even the full moon casts limited illumination.

MPI has used a BD-25, and with the extras in 1080p, the 96-minute feature achieves an average bitrate of only 16.99 Mbps. Despite this low average, the image remains free from obvious artifacts. The compressionist no doubt took advantage of the digital origination, the letterbox bars and the large number of shots in which the camera rests on Ambrose's stony, determined face.

Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Late Phases has a richly atmospheric 5.1 sound mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1, that comes especially alive during the werewolf attacks. Human and animal sounds blend, along with a non-specific otherworldly roar that seems to emanate from the spiritual dimension. (According to the commentary, layering these sounds with dialogue by Ambrose and others proved to be a challenge for the sound team.) Gunshots from pistol, rifle and shotgun register forcefully, as do breaking glass, smashed-in doors and other sounds of werewolf violence. Ambrose's ride to church in a minibus where he is surrounded by people glaring at, and talking about, him accurately recreates the experience of riding in a large vehicle. The effectively nerve-jangling score is by Polish composer Wojciech Golczewski (Munger Road).

A PCM 2.0 track is also included.

Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Adrián García Bogliano: Bogliano describes how he became involved with the project, his approach to the material and his choices in pacing, editing, color and sound design. He also discusses the various openings he shot and discarded. Although he mentions a few films that served as references, Bogliano is far less concerned here than in his commentary on Here Comes the Devil in specifying his influences, which suggests that he is gaining confidence in his own voice as a director.



• Making Of (1080p; 1.78:1; 14:32): This short but informative featurette includes interviews with producers Fessenden and Brent Kunkle, director Bogliano and star Damici. Along with behind-the-scenes footage, it describes how Damici prepared to play a blind man.



• FX Featurette (1080p; 1.78:1; 30:09): This is an extended tour of Kurtzman Studios as various artists work on werewolf effects for the film.



• Trailer (1080p; 2.44:1; 2:02): "In this idyllic community, a clear night is a blessing, but for one man, it's a curse."



• Additional Trailers: At startup, the disc plays trailers for The House at the End of Time, Starry Eyes and VANish, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bogliano's work continues to be distinguished by its emphasis on character and his insistence on doing more than coloring inside the lines of genre conventions. Fans looking for non-stop effects and copious bloodletting will be disappointed with Late Phases, but those interested in experiencing the pathos of an old soldier confronting both literal demons and the psychological ones he carries around inside him will find an intriguing premise, stylishly executed. With the warning that the usual standards for horror films do not apply, Late Phases is recommended.