From
TES issue 28 (July 2004)
Series 4/5.
Level 1/2/3.
WOLVES
When England's fair great land was dominated by rolling woodlands and dense forests, wolves were endemic in this country. As
Knightmare Castle exists in such a time, so any
dungeoneer venturing into the surrounding woodland might find himself as potential prey for a pack of hungry wolves. Of course, what masked this threat on Knightmare was that the wolves were nowhere to be seen; they were only heard. Still, the howls (in series 4 at least) were scary enough. The only time we caught a glimpse of a wolf was in the second episode of series 4. It ran across the woodland glade from which Helen II had just departed, but was only on screen for a fraction of a second. It was obviously not a real wolf, of course - it looked a lot like an Alsatian.
With the extension of the
Dungeon realm into the woodland in series 4, a whole new dimension to the Knightmare world was created. It certainly rings true that there would be wolves abroad in the woods, but the way they were presented on Knightmare did not make for a very threatening creature. Basically, all we had to go on were the howls. These were very convincing in series 4, although many people do not seem to feel that this created any kind of convincing atmosphere. In
series 5, however, the howls were redone and sounded a lot less convincing - in fact, they sounded like people pretending to be wolves, which is what they undoubtedly were!
Pickle's warning cry of "white wolves, Master!" when Ben was in
Winteria was a bit chilling, but still there were no real threats presented.
Perhaps I am not doing the wolves justice here - after all, atmospheric howls are a lot scarier that the salivating CG carnivores we would undoubtedly be treated to if Knightmare were being made today. As a bit of atmosphere, the wolves were okay, but as a threat... well, I'd look elsewhere for that.
Fear Factor: 4 The howls were reasonably unnerving to begin with.
Killer Instinct: 0 Not a physical threat.
Gore Factor: 1 Few people find wolves physically repulsive.
Humanity: 3 More closely related to us than some of Knightmare's creatures and monsters.
