There are bad movies, and then there are movies so misguided that they feel like a social experiment. Blood & Chocolate(2007) is one of those. Directed by Katja von Garnier, written by Ehren Kruger and Christopher Landon, and very loosely inspired by Annette Curtis Klause’s YA novel, this transatlantic “fantasy-horror-romance” tries to blend Gothic werewolf lore with swoony romance and ends up tasting like a melted Hershey bar licked off the floor of a Romanian subway station.
This is a werewolf movie with barely any werewolves. It’s a love story with zero chemistry. It’s a thriller with the tension of an after-school special. And to top it off, it’s called Blood & Chocolate—a title that sounds less like a supernatural epic and more like a goth candy bar your weird uncle sells on Etsy.
So let’s unwrap this mess, shall we?
The Plot: Twilight With Less Bite
The movie introduces us to Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), a 19-year-old werewolf in Bucharest who works at her aunt Astrid’s artisanal chocolate shop. Already, the premise begs the question: who thought “wolves and truffles” was a natural pairing? Did the studio executives sit around a table, sniffing Ferrero Rocher, and say, “Yes, THIS is what the kids want: chocolatiers who turn into dogs under the moon”?
Vivian’s family was murdered years ago, which is tragic, but the movie mostly skips over that to focus on her “romance” with Aiden (Hugh Dancy), a graphic novelist who looks less like a romantic lead and more like a man who shops exclusively in scarves and unpaid parking tickets. He’s in Bucharest researching werewolves—which is awfully convenient since his girlfriend just happens to be one.
Gabriel (Olivier Martinez), the pack leader, decides Vivian should be his next mate, because apparently this werewolf pack runs on medieval Tinder rules. Gabriel is less a terrifying alpha wolf and more a sleazy Eurotrash nightclub owner with a leather jacket budget bigger than the film’s CGI fund. His son Rafe, meanwhile, is an angsty edgelord who dies by choking on a silver pendant. This is not symbolism—it’s just stupid.
The climax involves a wolf hunt in the forest, a knife stabbing, and Vivian somehow becoming the new pack Alpha alongside Aiden, a man who can’t even properly hold a silver knife without looking like he’s about to cut into a birthday cake. And then, as the cherry on top of this melted sundae, all the Romanian werewolves bare their necks in respect on the side of the road like extras in a bad Coldplay music video.
The Werewolves: Or, Lack Thereof
For a movie about werewolves, there’s a shocking lack of actual transformation. The big “wolf-outs” are handled mostly by quick edits and bright flashes of light. One moment you’re looking at a brooding European actor, and the next—bam!—generic wolf stock footage. The wolves themselves are just… wolves. Regular wolves. Not grotesque half-human beasts, not terrifying supernatural predators. Just National Geographic-level animals that you’d half expect to see chewing on kibble.
The film’s logic seems to be: why bother with costly special effects when the Bucharest Zoo will rent you a few furry extras for peanuts and a sausage? It’s like making a vampire movie and only showing people with mild anemia.
The Romance: About as Hot as a Cold Shower
Vivian and Aiden’s romance is supposed to be the emotional core of the film, but it has all the spark of two mannequins nodding at each other in a department store window. Agnes Bruckner is trying her best, but she spends most of the runtime looking like she’s deciding whether to dump this scarf-obsessed tourist and go back to the wolves. Hugh Dancy, meanwhile, gives a performance so bland you could spread it on toast.
Their chemistry is non-existent. When they kiss, it feels less like passion and more like an awkward HR violation in progress. You’re left rooting for literally anyone else—maybe Gabriel’s leather jacket, maybe Astrid’s chocolate business, maybe even the wolves themselves—to save the movie from these two charisma black holes.
The Acting: A European Grab Bag
Olivier Martinez as Gabriel chews scenery like it’s covered in peanut butter. He’s clearly here to cash a paycheck and maybe buy another leather trench coat. Katja Riemann as Astrid gets saddled with the role of the scorned ex-lover, spending most of the film sighing dramatically and acting like her chocolate shop is somehow more tragic than being left for dead by your pack leader.
Bryan Dick as Rafe gives us a villain so comically petulant he might as well be auditioning for the Romanian reboot of Degrassi. And then there’s Hugh Dancy, whose American accent comes and goes like a confused tourist trying to ask for directions in a language he doesn’t speak.
The wolves, honestly, give the most believable performances.
The Tone: Gothic Soap Opera with Hershey’s Kisses
The film tries desperately to be brooding and romantic, but its tone swings wildly between melodramatic romance, after-school special, and travelogue ad for Romanian tourism. You can practically hear the crew whispering, “Quick, pan over the old buildings! Make it moody! Pretend it’s a real movie!”
Instead of tension, you get endless scenes of Vivian brooding, Aiden doodling wolf-girl comics like a 13-year-old on DeviantArt, and Gabriel sulking around in leather jackets. The werewolf pack politics are explained with all the gravitas of a middle school debate club, and the actual “horror” is so toothless it couldn’t even scare a chihuahua.
The Chocolate: Because Why Not?
The movie keeps returning to Vivian’s chocolate shop, as if the filmmakers were convinced audiences would forgive bad acting, bad CGI, and bad romance if only they saw enough truffles and cocoa powder. Maybe they thought it would be a metaphor: blood and chocolate, violence and sweetness. Instead, it just feels like a cheap product placement for a dessert that nobody gets to eat.
By the halfway point, you start wishing someone would just throw a wolf into the vat of chocolate and end it all with a sweet, grisly death scene. At least that would be memorable.
Final Thoughts: Rotten Chocolate, Sour Blood
Blood & Chocolate is a film that fails on every conceivable level: as a horror movie, as a romance, as an adaptation, and even as a travel brochure for Romania. It’s dull, it’s toothless, and it has less bite than a defanged poodle.
The title promises something decadent, dangerous, and maybe even sexy. Instead, what you get is a bargain-bin soap opera starring wolves who look like they wandered in from a petting zoo and humans who couldn’t generate chemistry if you doused them in gasoline and handed them a match.
If you want chocolate, buy a Snickers. If you want blood, stub your toe. Both are more satisfying experiences than sitting through this cinematic catastrophe.
Verdict: Blood & Chocolate is the kind of film that makes you question whether anyone involved had actually seen a werewolf movie before. It’s less “new age of hope” and more “new age of nope.”
