Produced and (somewhat desultorily) released in 2007, just before Twilight began the second wave of Hollywood’s 21st century Young Adult boom, Blood and Chocolate would almost seem like it was ahead of its time. Attractive young werewolves, struggling with relationship issues? Alas for this film’s producers, it has less in common with that 2008 giganto-hit and more in common with the embarrassing 1997 An American Werewolf in Paris. Yes I said Paris.
1997 is also the year this movie’s source novel was published, and that story (according to my in-depth, look it up on Wikipedia research) was about a teenaged girl named Vivian who is torn between two love interests. The YA twist? Vivian is a loup-garoux, a kind of Cajun name for werewolf, and one of her potential boyfriends shares her condition and the other is a boring old regular human being. Which one does she end up with? The normie? The loup-garoux? The movie wisely solves this potentially exciting conflict by getting rid of it. In fact, the movie makes a lot of changes (and did so without consulting with the novel’s author, apparently.) For no particular reason, we relocate the action from Anytown, U.S.A. to Bucharest, Romania, a change which I’m sure had nothing to do with Romanian labor costs and tax rebates. [takes a deep breath] Okay, so Vivian was born in Bucharest, and her parents took her with them to America, but then they were murdered in an opening montage, and she emigrated back to Romania, which I guess is supposed to explain her complete lack of a Romanian accent. (Not that I would know a genuine Romanian accent anyway.) Vivian was taken in by her aunt, who runs a chocolate store, which is the only explanation for the title of which I’m aware. Aunt Astrid is the estranged mate of Gabriel, the leader of the werewolves (sorry, loup-garou, or actually loups-garoux which I suppose is how Cajuns pluralize) here in Bucharest. Gabriel had to dump her because every seven years that’s what the leader does, because Pack Law, obviously. But now that his bonding with Astrid has been were-annulled, Gabriel is free to choose a new mate, and he sets his eyes on Vivian, which even though everyone’s supposed to be Romanian comes across as very French to me. (No surprise there since Gabriel’s actor, Olivier Martinez, is the French heartthrob who stole Diane Lane away from Richard Gere in Unfaithful.) But Vivian’s Just Not Into Him, and soon has a weird Meet Cute in an abandoned church at midnight, as one does. Aiden is a vagabond aspiring graphic novelist (that old cliché) wandering Eastern Europe doing research for a new graphic novel (don’t call them comic books). What about, you might ask. The answer: werewolves. Quelle coïncidence!
This movie was made in 2007, so you know without a shadow of a doubt that we’re getting a werewolf rave at some point because that’s just how monsters socialize in the 21st century. In the world of Blood and Chocolate, the festival is mostly an excuse for the wolves, at the behest of their Loup-garou King of the Hoboes Gabriel – seriously, he’s supposed to be their leader but he just seems to hang around abandoned buildings and churches – to slip into the forest and hunt down some human which has transgressed against sacred Pack Law or just pissed them off randomly. Because, the movie solemnly informs us, this is the only time they’re allowed to hunt – as a group. Enter Rafe, Gabriel’s son with Auntie Astrid, and Vivian’s cousin. Rafe doesn’t like Aiden, because Pack Law, but also wolfs out and kills people on his own, because who cares about Pack Law. Rafe acts like a jealous boyfriend around Vivian, but they’re cousins, and also she might become his stepmom, so…it’s weird. Pretty soon Aiden discovers the big secret no one is trying particularly hard to hide, and the third act is set up for a big messy four-sided conflict between Vivian, her cousin Rafe, her maybe love interest Aiden, and her maybe werewolf arranged husband Gabriel.
I feel like this movie could have gotten within spitting distance of B-movie greatness if they had leaned more into the melodrama, but everyone’s acting on their best behavior. Even Rafe, the movie’s designated bad boy and loose cannon, never gets a good, juicy Nicolas Cage-style freakout. It’s all oddly muted and tame. There’s some nice location scenery, but overall Blood and Chocolate fails to live up to its own name – neither salty nor sweet, it’s too bland for its own good.
