FILM · 1981
Wolfen
47 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (47)
- #001
Composer Craig Safan wrote an original score for the film, but at the last minute he was replaced by future Oscar winner James Horner, who had only 12 days to write and record the music.
- #002
The film was the first to use a thermographic visual photographic look to represent a character's point of view, in this case the wolf's. This type of effect shot has been used in a number of films, usually to show the point of view of a malevolent, monster-like character. A notable example of the popularization of this kind of visual effects perspective is its use in the "Predator" films.
- #003
Dustin Hoffman seriously wanted to play the role of Dewey Wilson, but director Michael Wadleigh, who really wanted to work with his favorite actor Albert Finney, turned him down for the part. It was the only time in Hoffman's career that he was rejected for a role.
- #004
The cut of the film that director Michael Wadleigh delivered to the studio in February 1980 ran more than four and a half hours before it was removed from the film during post-production.
- #005
It was the first film adaptation of a Whitley Strieber novel. The others that would follow were "The Hunger (1983)" a few years later and later "Communion (1989)."
- #006
It is director Michael Wadleigh's only film unrelated to Woodstock.
- #007
The film was delayed because Wolfen's effects were unusable and the filmmakers had to hire another effects company to handle them.
- #008
At the beginning of the film, Eddie Holt uses a bullroarer atop the bridge, an ancient instrument found in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australia.
- #009
It was one of several films to be shown in cinemas in the "Megasound" sound system format. Megasound was a cinema sound system created by Warner Bros. in the early 1980s. It was used to enhance the initial screenings of a handful of Warner films. Theaters equipped for Megasound had extra speakers mounted on the left, right and rear walls of the auditorium. Selected soundtrack moments containing a great deal of low-frequency content (rumbles, impacts, explosions, etc.) were routed to these speakers at very high volume levels, creating an instinctive effect intended to excite the audience.
- #010
Rather than turning to a cast of stars supporting a big name, director Michael Wadleigh decided to cast unknowns or actors such as Diane Venora, who had appeared on Broadway and beat out more than 200 actresses for the role, and Gregory Hines.
- #011
Wolfen was the word Dutch farmers who settled in America used to describe Indians and wolves as wild animals. The film's original screenplay opens in the 17th century.
- #012
The DVD's sleeve notes state that the predators' perspectives were simulated using a Louma crane and a Steadicam camera.
- #013
According to director Michael Wadleigh, because wolves were seen as wild and uncontrollable animals, a dozen police snipers were assigned and stationed everywhere. These snipers were ordered to shoot to kill if a wolf emerged from an enclosed space.
- #014
Some film posters carried the following prologue: "They can hear a cloud pass overhead, the rhythm of your blood. They can track you from the shadow of yesterday. They can tear the scream from your throat. Wolfen. No defense".
- #015
"The Wolfen" was Whitley Strieber's first novel.
- #016
Toward the end of the film you can hear the music theme Horner would later use in Aliens.
- #017
Before shooting began, Albert Finney's idea was for him and Gregory Hines to hang out together in order to develop the kind of friendship their characters would show in the film.
- #018
A specific day-for-night shooting process was used to create the night point of view of the "Killers".
- #019
The setting of the wolves' temporary den was shot in the South Bronx (at the intersection of Louis Nine Boulevard and Boston Road). The church seen in the opening panoramic shot was located at the intersection of E 172nd Street and Seabury Place. The view of this neighborhood looks roughly from north to south-southeast. The blighted area of derelict buildings required no special effect. The church was built specifically for the film and burned. In the early 1980s, urban decay in the South Bronx was so widespread that it was an ideal production environment.
- #020
While Wolfen was being filmed, much of New York's boroughs were undergoing a major gentrification process. This was incorporated into the story's premise of whether First Nations NAM protesters and ironworker "skywalkers" could be the shapeshifters or werewolves who worked high construction jobs by day, hid in the ruins of the Bronx, and hunted New York City residents by night, thereby generating a police investigation.
- #021
The trailer contains scenes and dialogue not in the film: when Van der Veer jumps out and startles his wife, the trailer shows a clip, absent from the film, of his bodyguards reaching for their guns; while Executive Security Becky Neff examines the video, someone says "team her up with Wilson," whereas in the film the security chief says "I want her." The trailer includes a scene in Dewey and Becky's car on the way to the South Bronx in which they discuss the mysterious nature of the murders; this scene is not in the film. The overhead shot of the moon and clouds in "Wolfen-vision" that appears in the trailer is not in the film. In the scene where the Wolfen drags Becky to the second floor of the abandoned church, there is a voice from Dewey (though it is NOT Albert Finney's voice) telling her that something is trying to pull her up and separate them.
- #022
James Horner's score for this film, as highlighted in the final street demonstration in front of the courthouse, can partly be heard in his 1982 Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan score as the enemy theme titled "sneaky attack."
- #023
Director Michael Wadleigh was removed from the film after completing the final reshoots in November 1980. Director John D. Hancock was brought in to supervise post-production and, more importantly, to oversee the film's dialogue.
- #024
This film's poster appears in an alleyway during the final minutes of Joker (2019).
- #025
He appears as the Drunk Bar Owner without being listed in the credits.
- #026
The book ends with the world discovering the truth about the Wolfen, meaning they will all eventually be caught and their species will die out.
- #027
The title of the source novel was changed from "The Wolfen" to just "Wolfen" for the film.
- #028
In The Dream Team (1989), Michael Keaton's character, a pathological liar, says they shot Wolfen in New York City because that is where it "actually happened." This is of course not true.
- #029
It was director Michael Wadleigh's first feature film since Woodstock (1970), which he made and released about eleven years earlier.
- #030
It is one of six film scores composed by James Horner among the films first released in 1981. Two of the others that year were also for horror films: The Hand (1981) and Deadly Blessing (1981).
- #031
This was Albert Finney's first film appearance since The Duellists in 1977; it was a bit more than a cameo, since his girlfriend at the time, Diana Quick, was also included in the cast.
- #032
For Die Hard fans: Reginald VelJohnson (Al Powell in Die Hard) plays the morgue attendant who slaps the dead man onto the stretcher.
- #033
This was the only non-documentary film directed by Michael Wadleigh.
- #034
"Canis Lupus," mentioned in the film, is a real zoological term. The species has thirty-nine subspecies. Although Canis is the term used for dog species, "Canis Lupus" is the term used for the Gray Wolf. Another werewolf film would also use real wolves, "Blood and Chocolate." Although Canis Lupus is present there as in this film, they would primarily use "Canis Rufus," the Red Wolves.
- #035
It was actress Diane Venora's first feature film and almost actor Gregory Hines's first film; because History of the World: Part I (1981) was released about a month earlier, this was his second film.
- #036
Production on the film began in October 1979 and was halted in February 1980 over both the budget and the daily newspapers.
- #037
Orion Pictures was working with director Lindsay Anderson on several projects and hoped he would direct "Wolfen."
- #038
"Howie Scream": when Whittington is killed, Dewey Wilson looks up at the ceiling and the Howie Scream sound effect is used.
- #039
The film was released about three years after the first publication of Whitley Strieber's source novel "The Wolfen" in 1978.
- #040
It is one of three films starring Albert Finney that were released in 1981, all of which had one-word titles: "Wolfen (1981)," "Looker (1981)" and "Loophole (1981)."
- #041
The black-and-white sculpture outside the Van der Veer Tower is called the "Group of Four Trees." It was designed by Jean Dubuffet and is located at 28 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10005, United States.
- #042
Dewey Wilson's gun is a Colt Detective Special.
- #043
Diane Venora and Tom Noonan also appeared together in F/X.
- #044
Actor Albert Finney's only "true" horror film to date depends on whether Looker (1981) (science-fiction thriller), Corpse Bride (2005) (animated fantasy) and Night Must Fall (1964) (crime thriller) are counted as horror.
- #045
The black-and-white photograph of a person wearing animal skins in a First Nations bar belongs to Bear's Belly, an Arikara Native American. It was taken by the famous photographer and ethnologist Edward Curtis, whose work focused on the American West and Native American peoples.
- #046
A poster for Joker (2019) was used at the climax of the film's riots in Gotham City, which stem from Arthur Fleck's shocking act of violence. That film's action was set in the early 1980s (1981, if one wanted to be specific; otherwise it was just a general timeframe).
- #047
Wolfen and The Howling share two things in common: they both feature werewolves and both have a character named Eddie.
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