I watched “Pacte des Loups” again, for the third time or so, and it’s still as good as it’s always been.

The year is 1734. For the last two years a beast has been terrorising the French province of Geuvadan (and up until this point, it’s actually a true story, you know), preying upon women and children, but disappearing as if into thin air when men go out to hunt for it. Now, the Chevalier de Fronsac arrives in the province, bringing Mani, his Skraeling blood brother, with him. Fronsac is a naturalist in the King’s Garden, sent to prepare the taxidermy of the Beast. He is also something of a libertine, a modern Frenchman, a child of the dawning Enlightenment. This creates some friction between him and the local gentry, most of whom are devout Catholics, and deeply rooted in what, to me, seems like the Baroque.

It does not take Fronsac, who is a man of science, long to realise that something isn’t right in Geuvadan. He discovers that the Beast isn’t a beast, in the ordinary sense of the word, but as the modern man of science he is, neither is he convinced that the Beast is of supernatural origins.

Here, the observant viewer might begin to see some likenesses to Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow”. In both movies, a man who believes in science and laughs at silly superstition, is sent out to investigate what the locals are convinced is a supernatural phenomenon. Also, both are set in the 18th century — albeit different end of it — and both movies are among the most atmospheric movies I know of.

The makers of “Pacte des Loups” have put a lot into the details of the setting. The sets, the costumes, and also the people simply reek of 18th century France, in a splendid mixture of old and new, of decadence, of feudalism, of science, of superstition, and everything else I connect with the era. Some dream sequences — resembling those of “Blueberry”, with the exception that the ones in “Pacte des Loups” are of an acceptable length — help enhance the atmosphere or feel of the movie.

Additionally, the story is both captivating and thrilling. Action fans will get what they crave, as Mani is played by one of the world’s foremost martial arts actors, and as the action scenes are typically extremely cool, as well as violent — think Wolverine in X2, and you’re basically there. At the same time, there is something of a detective story, which in spite of being quite transparent is just the kind I like, with secret societies, religious fanatics, papal agents (yay! :D ), mad priests, an old beastmaster, and a lot of other nifty stuff.

This is most definitely one of my favourite movies, and it manages to entertain me and draw me in every time I watch it. I’ll dock it half a point or so, though, as I feel a need to distinguish it from the real cream of the crop — movies like “Donnie Darko”. 9.5/10.