Some satire tends to be quite subtle, while others veer towards presenting their intentions and themes so aggressively, we have to admire the gall. In the case of The Werewolf of Washington, we find that the latter is the preferred modus operandi of director Milton Moses Ginsberg (a little-known editor whose only other endeavour into writing and directing was the underseen Coming Apart in the late 1960s), who tells the deliriously odd story of a political aide who is positioning himself to steadily rise the ladder of power through his close relationship with several notable political figures (including the President of the United States himself), but finds himself secretly battling his own challenges after being bitten by what he thinks is just a wild animal, but turns out to be a werewolf – and as per the warning he is given by some nomads he encounters, anyone who is bitten and survives is set to turn into one of these beasts themselves. An exceptionally strange film that doesn’t always know how to navigate some of the trickier narrative territory that we encounter throughout, but still one that earns a lot of our respect through being willing to leap into the unknown with the knowledge that its ideas are undeniably very impressive, even if the execution is slightly lacklustre, The Werewolf of Washington is quite charming, even when we may not necessarily understand some of its intentions. Bold in a way that will surprise many viewers, and driven by a genuine affection for its subject matter, the film handles itself exceptionally well, and produces impressive results in the process.

There is some value in a film like The Werewolf of Washington being quite upfront and direct about its aims – even based on the title, we can make some solid judgements as to the nature of the narrative and the themes that are set to be explored in the process, which means that we rarely have to scramble to understand what it is attempting to convey. Satire and politics have been bedfellows for about as long as either concept has existed, and they’ve walked hand-in-hand for centuries, providing each other with an interminable stream of material on which they can take advantage in some way or another. The setting of this film in particular adds a lot of potential to reflect on certain real-life events, and they’re certainly not lost on Ginsberg, who takes advantage of the milieu to create quite an unnerving work that challenges and provokes while still being blisteringly funny. The fact that the events take place in 1973, squarely in between the election of Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, and his resignation a year later, makes for a bitingly funny satire since the filmmakers had an abundance of opportunities to develop the underlying ideas in a way that was fresh, current and almost dangerously provocative. Ginsberg certainly does not shy away from certain references throughout, taking the opportunity to do something quite different with the material and creating a truly exceptional piece of satire that pushes boundaries by engaging directly with the material, rather than relying on allusion and implication to tell the story, which is one of the core principles against which this film is dedicated in terms of both narrative nuance and the underlying satirical intentions that drive it forward.

In both of his directorial endeavours, Ginsberg managed to cobble together unexpectedly strong casts, blending notable stars with working character actors to create memorable, character-based tapestries. The Werewolf of Washington features Dean Stockwell in one of his most delightfully absurd performances and formed part of his steady journey towards being taken seriously as an adult actor, after emerging as quite a notable child performer in his younger years. This is an exceptionally physical role that relies on an actor to be fully committed to his craft in the way they moves and handle the more demanding aspects of the performance. Stockwell commits wholeheartedly and creates such a poignant, poetic depiction of a man slowly losing his grasp on reality. One of the great techniques when working in comedy is to play it completely straight and without any sign of awareness that you are in a comedy, allowing the humour to occur around the performance and as a result bolster it and make it far funnier. It’s not an outrageously hilarious performance in itself, but rather one that leans into the inherent humour of this absurd situation, and builds a solid set of character-based choices as a result. Credit must also go to Biff McGuire (a great character actor with a name that was always going to be alluring during this era), who fits in perfectly in the role of a Richard Nixon surrogate, a greedy, self-obsessed man who has ascended to the highest office in the free world, but whose own arrogance ultimately leads to his downfall in ways no one could have expected. It may not be entirely accurate to view The Werewolf of Washington as a completely straightforward actor-based film, but Ginsberg does extract the best work from his cast and creates a truly fascinating character study in the process.

The elements that ultimately do make The Werewolf of Washington so much more effective extend further than the performances, which are great but don’t have the precise nuance the film needed to succeed, being only one aspect of an overall very effective satire. One of the reasons the film does succeed is that it adheres very closely to both components of the term “satirical horror”, being as outrageously funny as it is genuinely terrifying. There is a tendency to remove the scares from films that handle themes associated with horror, almost as if a film cannot be both unsettling and hilarious, which Ginsberg singularly disproves by creating a film that is as unnerving and daunting as it is entertaining, the blend of the two being exceptionally effective and one of the fundamental reasons the film works as well as it does, even from a slight distance. There’s something truly captivating about a film that is willing to have such immensely challenging discussions about political machinations and the unsettling nature of the national elite, while also oscillating between irreverent comedy and offbeat horror, which neither contradict one another nor the core set of themes that are steeped much more heavily in strong, political knowledge. The aspects that allow this film to be so effective are all found in its wholehearted commitment to its premise and its underlying themes, which it is not afraid to fashion into a peculiar and offbeat dark comedy, playing against the rules at every available opportunity and allowing the thematic material to flourish into its own deeply unconventional satire that genuinely feels quite revolutionary on its terms.

Satire is the rare artform in which the effectiveness of a work cannot be assessed accurately by any metric – some age exceptionally well, whereas others are restricted to the era in which they were made, and we usually find that they’re bound to the era in which they were made, so even attempting to determine which of them will stand the test of time is a fool’s errand. The Werewolf of Washington is not one of the examples of a film establishing itself as an immediate classic, and there are certain arguments to be made that it requires some in-depth knowledge of the political atmosphere at the time to fully appreciate. Yet, this specificity is mostly very superficial – there are very rarely moments that are entirely bewildering or confusing to those who don’t have the expertise or firsthand experience, primarily because it builds itself on a solid foundation of horror, which works oddly well in collaboration with the underlying thematic content. It’s very funny and equally as terrifying, the two tones working exceptionally well together, and creating such a poetic, captivating dark comedy that is as daring as it is intriguing, becoming a truly exceptional work of socially charged political satire, and a gem that deserves rediscovery, mainly since it tackles timeless themes such as political corruption, populism and identity, all compacted into a deliriously entertaining and sharply-written satire.