Big Bad Wolves

Released by: Magnet Releasing
Released on: April 22, 2014
Director: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Rotem Keinan, Tzahi Grad
Year: 2013
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The Movie

Big Bad Wolves is the sophomore feature from Israeli filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, who both wrote and directed this film, and have the distinction of making the first Hebrew horror film, Kalevet, in 2010. When a certain Oscar-winning filmmaker and renowned foot-fetishist declared Big Bad Wolves the “Best Film of the Year” in late 2013, Big Bad Wolves got a lot international attention, but you probably know that already. Setting aside that massive, attention-getting claim from a director who also thought The Lone Ranger was one of 2013's best films, Big Bad Wolves is an intriguing and often darkly funny picture from a part of the world that isn't known for horror or suspense thrillers.

The movie opens with a haunting opening credits sequence in which three young children play hide and go seek in an abandoned house, and one of the children, a young girl, is kidnapped during the game. The action then shifts to a warehouse where a man suspected of raping and murdering the missing girl is being dragged by police officers and forced into a chair. The officers attempt to beat a confession out of the man while a teenager secretly films them with his phone. Micki (Lior Ashkenazi), the vigilante cop in charge of the interrogation, is told by his superior to let the suspect go free due because of a lack of evidence. The cops pay the suspect, a schoolteacher named Dror (Rotem Kienan), for his silence and are forced to let him go, despite Micki's conviction that Dror is guility. As soon as Dror is released from custody, the police get a phone call from the killer, who gives them the location of his latest victim's body. Micki and his partner head to the location, and follow a trail of Gummi Worms to the body of a young girl who has been raped, decapitated, and tied to a chair with barbed wire.

Soon after, Dror is fired from his teaching position due to the allegations that he is a child-rapist and murderer, and Micki is let go from the police department after the video of Dror's violent interrogation is uploaded to YouTube. Convinced that Dror is guilty, Micki decides to try to kidnap Dror and force a confession out of him. His attempt to do so is foiled by the father of the murdered girl, Gidi (Tzahi Grad), who was planning on kidnapping and torturing Dror himself in a remote cottage he purchased on the edge of the Israeli-Palestinian border (“surrounded by Arabs,” the film reminds us more than once). Gidi wants a confession too, and he also wants to know where the killer buried his daughter's severed head. After kidnapping Micki and Dror, Gidi convinces the cop to help him torture and interrogate Dror in the basement of his cottage.

Big Bad Wolves spends the first forty-five minutes or so setting up what is essentially a locked-room murder mystery for the rest of its 110 minute running time. Once Micki and Gidi reach an agreement to help each other, the film takes place almost entirely within the basement of the cottage. While the rest of the film seems like its going to be focused on the slow torture of Dror, Big Bad Wolves is smart enough to layer new complicating incidents upon each other every fifteen minutes or so to keep the film from dragging or becoming a subtitled Saw film. There are several scenes of torture, but they never feel gratuitous or cringe-inducing. Rather than actual violence, it's the threat of torture that's used to increase the tension throughout the film, counter-balanced with darkly funny comic relief to release the tension before too many toenails get pulled and things get really messy.

Big Bad Wolves was released at a time when child abuse and child abduction were themes in several high-profile, Academy Award nominated releases. Most notably the Academy Award-nominated films The Hunt and Prisoners. It's unfair to compare Big Bad Wolves to either of those films, or to declare it Film of the Year, or make some similar claim. Whereas both The Hunt and Prisoners are serious dramas, Big Bad Wolves is an exploitation film made by genre filmmakers, not a prestige picture made by Oscar-hopefuls. The movie is way more interested in getting scares and laughter out of its audience than putting them through an emotional ringer or sending them on a thought-provoking journey into the dark heart of man. As an entertaining comedy horror film, its a big success.

Though it does offer some commentary on Arab-Israeli relations, and it's not very subtle at suggesting that Arabs are the Big Bad Wolves in the imaginations of Israelis, this isn't a film about big ideas or socially relevant themes. Big Bad Wolves is a murder mystery with a very dark sense of humor. It's also a kind of modern fairy tale. The film makes several references to the fairy tales of Charles Perrault and The Brothers Grimm, and its violent themes and use of torture is very reminiscent of the original French and German fairy tales. And like some of those older, gorier versions of today's classic fairy tales, Big Bad Wolves is one story that doesn't end happily ever after.

Audio/Video/Extras

Big Bad Wolves bares its teeth on DVD in its original 2.40:1 aspect ratio with an MPEG-2 encode. There isn't a whole lot of fine detail on this DVD, the picture looks somewhat soft and compression is noticeable, but not enough to be a disappointment, just a clear step-down from what is likely a superior, more detailed encode on the Blu-ray. The production values in the film are quite good, and this keeps the lack of fine detail from being a distraction. Colors in the film appear natural, and blacks levels are solid. Big Bad Wolves is a fairly minimal film in terms of its aesthetic and its not visually spectacular in any regard, so in spite of its minor flaws, this is a good looking DVD transfer that should satisfy anyone who doesn't prefer to own the film on Blu-ray.

Audio options include English and Hebrew language 5.1 Dolby Digital, with subtitles available in English, English SDH, Spanish and French. The Hebrew Dolby Digital 5.1 track sounds great. Dialogue is very clear, primarily coming in from the center channel, and overall the film makes good use of the full surrounding audio channels. There's a lot of nice usage of sounds of objects in the foreground, and the score is nicely mixed with the dialogue and sound effects. The English-language 5.1 by contrast, sounds artificial and unnatural. The dubbing is completely unsuited to the characters, with the actors sounding like they're reading directly from the script with little to no emotion. It's a terrible dub that robs the film of its cultural identity and any tension that the actors performances generate.

On this disc is a brief, sixteen-minute Making Of Big Bad Wolves feature, an AXS TV look at the film, a theatrical trailer, and more trailers from Magnolia Entertainment. The DVD is light on extras but fans of the film will want to check out the Making Of featurette. It gives nice overview into the background of the making of the film, and a nice explanation of its themes and inspirations by the filmmakers. There are also interviews with the key cast members, who give their take on their characters, the film, and share some fun stories from on set. It's a brief feature, but if you enjoyed Big Bad Wolves and want to know more about the people behind it, give it a watch.

The Final Word

Big Bad Wolves might not be the Best Film of 2013, but it's a suspenseful, pitch black comedy-thriller that will keep you guessing until the end, and its Israeli origin gives the film a unique identity that sets it apart from other movies about torture, interrogation and child murder.