Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Wilczyca Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 27, 2022

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror.

All the Haunts Be Ours advertises itself as "the most comprehensive collection of its kind", which may initially beg the question as to "kind of what?". But the release also comes with a front cover sobriquet proclaiming it "a compendium of folk horror", which may then beg the next obvious question as to what exactly "folk horror" is. In that regard, this set begins with a fascinating and diverse documentary which has its own subtitle referencing folk horror, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, which provides a veritable glut of clips from international films which director (and this entire set's guiding light) Kier-La Janisse has assembled to help define the genre, but perhaps the best answer is to simply echo a certain Supreme Court Justice named Potter Stewart who was trying to decide a case involving supposed pornography, and who famously opined, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . ."

There's a significant amount of disagreement about where exactly myths and legends involving so-called were-creatures (as in werewolves) began, with some citing Greek stories of yore, and others going back to even older tales like The Epic of Gilgamesh. Even that discrepancy may help to point out how prevalent this kind of story has been across countless generations and, similarly, widely disparate cultures. For a "Polish" take on this general kind of material, the eighth disc of All the Haunts Be Ours offers two films (the other being Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach) with some "were" content, though each features a different beast that a human transforms into.

Of the two, Wilczyca is probably the more deliberate, with a slow, methodical march toward a denouement which will not be especially surprising, but which still may hold some shock value. Both the opening and the closing images of this film seem to almost delight in the harsher side of nature, with the first image seen being a crow pecking at the carcass of a dead horse, and the final image being the skeleton of a wolf in a coffin which was assumed to hold the corpse of a woman. In between is a somewhat slow moving story of a 19th century Polish soldier named Kacper Wosinski (Krzysztof Jasinski), who is seen early in the film madly riding his galloping horse home after an evidently long time away, to find out his wife has attempted to abort a baby, and will die as a result. Kacper mentions in passing to his brother Mateusz (Jerzy Prazmowski) that he (Kacper) had been away too long for him to be the baby's father, but that turns out to be least of Kacper's troubles when his mortally wounded wife Maryna (Iwona Bielska) curses him on his deathbed.

Mateusz is convinced Maryna had been a witch (that curse part might have been a major clue, as was a magical totem of sorts she was clinging on to), and in true demon slaying tradition he drives a stake through the corpse's heart in order to prevent any attempt at a "comeback". In the meantime Kacper journeys on and meets with Count Ludwik (Stanislaw Brejdygant), whose wife Countess Julia reminds Kacper more than a little bit of Maryna, something that is understandable on a meta level since this character is also portrayed by Iwona Bielska. Suffice it to say that Kacper slowly becomes convinced that Julia has become possessed by the spirit of Maryna, and Kacper's resulting descent into paranoia leads to some unabashedly goofy carnage as the film wends its way to a kind of curious anti-climactic coda involving that skeleton in a coffin.

Wilczyca Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wilczyca is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Severin's insert booklet states this was "restored in HD from the original negative by WFDIF in Warsaw". The results here are very appealing, with a solid accounting of the film's perhaps surprisingly luxe production accoutrements like fairly opulent costumes. The palette can look just a tad cool and slightly skewed toward blue at times, but that actually helps with a setting that is often overtly wintry in the outdoor scenes. Detail levels are generally excellent throughout the presentation, to the point that some of the patently gonzo gore effects in a positively Grand Guignol climax may provoke laughter instead of chills. There are a few deficits in shadow detail and some very minor age related wear and tear. Grain is on the light side, but clearly visible, and resolves naturally.

Wilczyca Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wilczyca features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track in the original Polish. The film actually has a rather nicely layered sound design with a lot of ambient environmental effects, but things are mixed very well, and as such the mono track delivers more than capable support for what is often a pretty talky feature. When violence does erupt, it carries sufficient force to reverberate relatively well. I will say that I didn't find Jerzy Matula's score to always be helpful, but it sounds fine from a fidelity standpoint. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Wilczyca Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Unleashing the She-Wolf (HD; 10:37) is an interview with director Marek Piestrak. Subtitled in English.

Wilczyca Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Of the two "were-creatures" films aggregated on this disc in All the Haunts Be Ours, Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach is probably the more "traditional" monster movie, with a kind of Roger Corman-esque feel, while Wilczyca might be better thought of as a kind of quasi-Art House approach to some of the same material. Technical merits are solid and the interview with the director very interesting. Recommended.