Plot
19-year-old werewolf Vivian was born in Bucharest to Romanian parents who emigrated to America. Her parents and two siblings were murdered when she was nine.
Orphaned, she lives in Bucharest with her aunt Astrid who owns a chocolate store. Astrid is the former mate of the werewolf pack leader Gabriel who, in accordance with pack law, leaves her after seven years for a new mate. Once in a while he returns to sleep with Astrid, who remains painfully in love with him. Vivian is disgusted but Gabriel wants her as his mate, believing her to be the prophesied woman to bring about a "new age of hope" for the pack.
Vivian begins a romantic relationship with graphic novelist Aiden who is researching werewolves. Aiden has fled America where he is wanted for assaulting his father. Vivian does not reveal that she is a werewolf.
Their romance is monitored by Gabriel's son Rafe and his friends Ulf, Gregor, Finn, and Willem, together known as the "Five". Rafe is angry with Gabriel for leaving his mother, Astrid, and with Vivian due to Gabriel's intentions towards her. Seeing a drawing Aiden has done of Vivian calling her "Wolf Girl", he tells Rafe she may be a danger to the pack. Gabriel tells Rafe to make Aiden leave the city or he will die.
In an abandoned church Rafe fails to scare Aiden away and attacks him. He changes into a wolf and, attempting to bite Aiden, he bites into Aiden's silver pendant and quickly backs off. Aiden, realizing the werewolf myths are real, charges at Rafe holding the silver pendant and both fall from the balcony to the church floor. Regaining consciousness, Aiden sees Rafe dying in human form, with the silver pendant stuck in his neck. Grabbing his pendant, Aiden leaves the church.
Aiden confronts Vivian, daring her to hold the silver pendant. He tells her he killed Rafe and berates her for not confiding the truth and exposing him to danger. The Five discover Rafe's body in the church and take him to Gabriel, who breaks the news to Astrid while Vivian watches. Aiden is captured trying to leave the city.
In the forest Gabriel presents Aiden to the pack as their prey, telling Aiden he will be free if he makes it to the river at the edge of the forest. Vivian escapes her confinement and runs into the forest as a wolf to save Aiden. Aiden makes it to the river. Gabriel attempts to follow to kill him anyway but Vivian fights Gabriel, who falls into the river. Not recognizing Vivian in wolf form, Aiden stabs her with a silver knife. Vivian starts to bleed, slowly morphing back to human form. She needs an antidote to silver poisoning quickly or she will die.
Vivian takes Aiden to an abandoned film company building, telling Aiden the residual silver from the film guarantees no one will look for them there. She tells him of her guilt that her family was killed by hunters who followed her wolf tracks to their cabin. Aiden says she can control the wolf. Astrid arrives with a gun to kill Aiden; Vivian pleads with her, saying she should understand what it's like to lose a soulmate. Astrid relents and gives Vivian the gun. Vivian tells Astrid they will get the antidote from the pharmacist and then leave the city.
The pharmacist gives Vivian the antidote but also alerts Gabriel. Vivian tells Aiden to save himself and is captured by the pack. Aiden forces the pharmacist at gun point to give him all of his antidotes, silver dust, and silver bullets. He rescues Vivian, who kills Gabriel and helps the Five escape the now burning building, telling them "may you know the new age of hope when you see it".
They take Gabriel's car out of the city towards Paris, passing other werewolves who stop along the side of the road and bare their necks in respect, which identifies Vivian (and Aiden) as the new Alpha pair for the pack.
Production
Beginning in 1997, a series of five directors entered into talks to direct Blood & Chocolate before Katja von Garnier finally decided to work on the film in January 2005. Larry Williams and his wife, Leslie Libman, Po-Chih Leong, Sanji Senaka, and Rupert Wainwright were all considered. Throughout these talks, Blood and Chocolate author, Annette Curtis Klause, was not kept up-to-date by the film's producers. Rather, she obtained information about film's progression from online sources. [5]
The book was originally adapted into a script by Christopher Landon, whose father, Michael Landon, had a leading role in the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). [6]
Principal photography was set in the historic section of Bucharest and at MediaPro Studios in Buftea. However, the film failed to accurately represent the city of Bucharest. For example, the film's Piata Romana (Romana Square) is actually the Curtea Veche yard (Old Court), and the film's Biserica Silvestru (Silvestru Church, located in downtown Bucharest) is actually a church in Stirbey Palace, Buftea, which is located tens of kilometers west of Bucharest.
Release
Box office
Blood & Chocolate opened on January 26, 2007 in 1,200 theaters. The film earned $2,074,300 during its opening weekend, ranking sixteenth at the domestic box office. [7] By the end of its run, a little over two months later, the film had grossed $3,526,847 domestically and $2,784,270 overseas for a worldwide total of $6,311,117. [1]
Critical reception
Blood & Chocolate was panned by critics. On review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 11% rating based on 74 reviews, with a weighted average of 3.6/10. The site's Critics Consensus reads: "Cheap CG effects and laughable dialogue make Blood and Chocolate worse than the usual werewolf flick". [8] On Metacritic, it has a 33 out of 100 rating from 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [9]
The New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis gave a negative review, saying the film is "uninvolving and cliché-ridden (even shape-shifters, it seems, deserve a falling-in-love montage), Blood & Chocolate is Romeo and Juliet with fewer manners and more exotic dentition. Cribbing shamelessly from Joel Schumacher's 1987 vampire classic, The Lost Boys , the director, Katja von Garnier, perches her pack on roofs and in rafters—an aerial lifestyle that works for bats but seems a bit of a stretch for wolves." [10]
In folklore, a werewolf, or occasionally lycanthrope is an individual who can shape-shift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction, with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon. Early sources for belief in this ability or affliction, called lycanthropy, are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228).
Werewolf fiction denotes the portrayal of werewolves and other shapeshifting therianthropes, in the media of literature, drama, film, games and music. Werewolf literature includes folklore, legend, saga, fairy tales, Gothic and horror fiction, fantasy fiction and poetry. Such stories may be supernatural, symbolic or allegorical. A classic cinematic example of the theme is The Wolf Man (1941) which in later films joins with the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula as one of the three famous icons of modern day horror. However, werewolf fiction is an exceptionally diverse genre, with ancient folkloric roots and manifold modern re-interpretations.
Annette Curtis Klause is an English-American writer and librarian, specializing in young adult fiction. She is currently a children's materials selector for Montgomery County Public Libraries in Montgomery County, Maryland. Born in Bristol, England, she now lives in Hyattsville, Maryland with her husband Mark and their cats. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Blood and Chocolate is a 1997 paranormal romance novel for young adult readers by Annette Curtis Klause. It is set in the contemporary United States.
Underworld: Evolution is a 2006 American action horror film directed by Len Wiseman from a screenplay by Danny McBride, based on a story by Wiseman and McBride. It is the sequel to Underworld (2003) and the second installment in the Underworld film series. The film stars Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Tony Curran, Shane Brolly, Steven Mackintosh, Derek Jacobi, and Bill Nighy. The plot follows Selene and Michael, again played by Beckinsale and Speedman, respectively, as they fight to protect the Corvinus bloodline from its hidden past.
Bitten is a fantasy novel by Canadian writer Kelley Armstrong, published in 2001. It is the first book in the Women of the Otherworld series, and her first novel.
Katja Hannchen Leni Riemann is a German actress.
Katja von Garnier is a German film director.
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Jacob Black is a character in the Twilight book series by Stephenie Meyer. He is described as an attractive Native American of the Quileute tribe in La Push, near Forks, Washington. In the second book of the series, New Moon, he discovers that he is a therianthrope who can shapeshift into a wolf. For the majority of the series, Jacob competes with Edward Cullen for Bella Swan's love. In The Twilight Saga film series, Jacob is played by Taylor Lautner.
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Thomas L. Harper is a British actor.
Shawn Roberts is a Canadian actor best known for his roles in zombie films such as Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and the Resident Evil franchise.
Blood & Chocolate: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack for the film Blood & Chocolate, released on January 26, 2007 over Lakeshore Records.
The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is a 2010 Nickelodeon made-for-television comedy horror film starring Victoria Justice, Chase Ellison, Matt Winston, Brooke D'Orsay, Steven Grayhm, and Brooke Shields. The screenplay was written by Art Edler Brown and Josh Nick. It was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Red: Werewolf Hunter is a 2010 Canadian television horror film directed by Sheldon Wilson, loosely based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It is a Syfy television film, produced by Toronto-based Chesler/Perlmutter Productions. It premiered on Syfy on October 30, 2010, and released on DVD on January 3, 2012.
Wolves is a 2014 Canadian action horror werewolf film written and directed by David Hayter, and starring Lucas Till, Stephen McHattie, John Pyper-Ferguson, Merritt Patterson and Jason Momoa. The film received a negative critical response.
