Everything is right about this film apart from the direction. Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer are suitably stellar - he as the middle-aged book editor, she as his boss's daughter, but their burgeoning romance is cursed by the fangs of a werewolf. Giuseppe Rotunno's glossy photography lends a sinister sophistication, Ennio Morricone's eerie score plays on our unease and make-up maestro Rick Baker's transformations combine ingenuity with a real sense of agony. But director Mike Nichols is so interested in the romantic entanglements that he forgets to make the horror horrific. While this is more a study in pain than a shocker, it could still do with a tad more menace and a lot less refinement.

An aging publisher becomes a demon wolf and, with this newfound youthful vigor, fights to keep his job.