''Blood & Chocolate'' is a 2007

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

- horror film directed by

Katja von Garnier Katja von Garnier (born 15 December 1966, in Wiesbaden) is a German film director. Biography From 1989 to 1994, she studied at the University of Television and Film Munich. Her 1993 practice film '' Making Up!'' was shown in theatres all over Ger ...

. It was written by

Ehren Kruger Ehren Kruger (born October 5, 1972) is an American film screenwriter and producer. He is best known for writing three of the five installments in the original ''Transformers'' film series: '' Revenge of the Fallen'', '' Dark of the Moon'', and ' ...

and Christopher B. Landon and is loosely inspired by

Annette Curtis Klause Annette Curtis Klause (born June 20, 1953) 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 ...

's 1997

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

novel of the same name. An

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companie ...

between the United States, Germany, Romania, and the United Kingdom, ''Blood & Chocolate'' was both a commercial and critical failure.

Plot

19-year-old

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

Vivian was born in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

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.

Cast

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 Leslie Libman is an American television director. She also directed commercials and music videos. Television work Since 1995 she works primarily as a TV director on a number of television series, most notably directing multiple episodes of '' Ho ...

Po-Chih Leong Leong Po-Chih (born 31 December 1939) is a British-born Chinese film director from Hong Kong and United States. Early life On December 31, 1939, Leong was born in England. He has two siblings. Leong attended the London Film School, before em ...

, Sanji Senaka, and

Rupert Wainwright Rupert Wainwright is an English film and television director, with credits including ''Blank Check'' (1994), ''The Sadness of Sex'' (1995) and ''Stigmata'' (1999). He is also a music video producer and multiple award-winner. British-born, Wain ...

were all considered. Throughout these talks, ''Blood and Chocolate'' author,

, was not kept up-to-date by the film's producers. Rather, she obtained information about film's progression from online sources. 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 ''I Was a Teenage Werewolf'' is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager, Yvonne Lime and Whit Bissell. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen and was one of the most successful films release ...

'' (1957).

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

was set in the historic section of Bucharest and at

MediaPro Studios Bucharest Film Studios (Media Pro Studios) in Romania is Eastern Europe's largest and longest established film studios with a tradition in cinema spanning almost 70 years. The complex is located in the town of Buftea, 20 kilometers north-west o ...

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 Curtea Veche (the Old Princely Court) was built as a palace or residence during the rule of Vlad III Dracula in 1459. Archaeological excavations started in 1953, and now the site is operated by the ''Muzeul Municipiului București'' in the histor ...

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.

Music

The film's score was composed by

Reinhold Heil Reinhold Heil (born May 18, 1954) is a German-born musician and film and television composer based in Los Angeles. He initially achieved success in Germany as a member of the post-punk and Neue Deutsche Welle bands Nina Hagen Band and Spliff ...

and

Johnny Klimek Johnny Klimek (born 18 August 1962) is an Australian musician, music producer, and composer, best known for his innovative work in the underground electronica music scene and for his film scores. Life and career Klimek was born in Melbourn ...

. The soundtrack consists of 15 songs, none of which are featured in the film. ;Songs featured in the film # "Garab" -

Rachid Taha Rachid Taha ( ar, رشيد طه, Latn, ar, Rashīd Ṭāhā, ; 18 September 1958 – 12 September 2018) was an Algerian singer and activist based in France described as "sonically adventurous". His music was influenced by many different styles ...

# "Let Yourself Go Wild" -

Jasmin Tabatabai Jasmin Tabatabai ( fa, یاسمین طباطبائی ; born 8 June 1967 in Tehran, Iran, is a German actress and singer. Biography Jasmin Tabatabai's mother is German, and her father is Iranian. She was born and raised in Tehran until the 1979 ...

# "Velvet Hills" -

Katja Riemann Katja Hannchen Leni Riemann (, born 1 November 1963) is a German actress. The daughter of two teachers, Riemann grew up in Weyhe, near Bremen. After high school she went to Hamburg to study music and theater. She is the mother of actress Pau ...

# "You Know the Truth" - Aurah # "Cash Machine" -

Hard-Fi Hard-Fi are an English indie rock band, formed in 2003 in Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey. The band's most recent lineup before going on hiatus consisted of Richard Archer ( lead vocals and guitar), Kai Stephens (bass guitar and backing vocals) an ...

# "Amor Fati" - Aurah # "Silence Summons You" - The Sofa Club # "Eu Te Iubesc Prea Mult" - Nicolae Guta # " Stand My Ground" -

Within Temptation Within Temptation is a Dutch symphonic metal band founded in April 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt. They have been classified by critics as gothic metal and symphonic metal, although each album contains other inf ...

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. 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.

Critical reception

''Blood & Chocolate'' was panned by critics. On review-aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an 11% rating based on 74 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

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". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it has a 33 out of 100 rating from 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' 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 Joel T. Schumacher (; August 29, 1939June 22, 2020) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designer. H ...

's 1987 vampire classic, ''

The Lost Boys ''The Lost Boys'' is a 1987 American supernatural black comedy horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, from a story by Fischer and Jerem ...

'', 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."

Footnotes

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blood And Chocolate 2007 films 2007 drama films 2007 horror films 2000s monster movies 2000s romantic fantasy films 2000s teen horror films 2000s teen romance films American supernatural horror films American romantic fantasy films American werewolf films American drama films American teen horror films American teen romance films British romantic fantasy films British werewolf films British teen horror films British teen romance films English-language German films English-language Romanian films Films based on British novels Films based on fantasy novels Films based on romance novels Films based on young adult literature Films produced by Gary Lucchesi Films produced by Tom Rosenberg Films set in Bucharest Films shot in Bucharest German romantic fantasy films German horror films German teen films Lakeshore Entertainment films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Romanian fantasy films Romanian horror films Romanian romance films Romanian-language films Romantic horror films Films with screenplays by Christopher B. Landon Films with screenplays by Ehren Kruger 2000s teen fantasy films Films directed by Katja von Garnier Films scored by Reinhold Heil Films scored by Johnny Klimek 2000s American films 2000s British films 2000s German films