Werewolf by Night is a very different sort of Marvel feature, nothing at all like the movies or TV series that have preceded it. Produced as a Halloween special for Disney+, the film is visually striking, slower paced and a bit bloodier than most of what we've seen from the Marvel/Disney franchise before.

It's great, in part because it's so very different.

The basic plot revolves around the death of a monster hunter, and the ritualistic choosing of a successor to inherit the powerful Bloodstone. The decision is to be made through a canned hunt of a captured monster in a labyrinthian walled garden. The monster in this case, however, is the Man-Thing, aka Ted (Carey Jones), and not all participants in the hunt want him dead.

Among the contenders are Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), the estranged heir of the Bloodstone line, along with fellow hunters Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal), Jovan (Kirk R. Thatcher), Azarel (Eugenie Bondurant), Liorn (Leonardo Nam) and Barasso (Daniel J. Watts). One of those people is secretly a werewolf, which should be no surprise if you read the film's title. Richard Dixon provides the voice of the late Ulysses Bloodstone, who has a bit more to say than you'd expect from a corpse, and Verussa (Harriet Sansom Harris) is his grieving, scenery-chewing widow.

The cast is solid all around, but Donnelly and Bernal are particularly good in their roles. While the movie's connection to the great Marvel Cinematic Universe is not yet known, I hope we see them (and let's not forget Ted, too!) in future projects.

Werewolf by Night is presented in vintage black and white, paying clear visual and stylistic homage to the movie monster classics of long ago. The only break in the shades of gray is the visually arresting ruby-red Bloodstone itself, plus the final scene, which shifts to full color.

Some movie fans complain endlessly that Marvel keeps producing things that aren't all big stakes and global threats, but personally I don't think everything needs to be an Avengers-level crisis. The diversity shown over the last year or two has been incredible, and I think it's that diversity that will keep Marvel going for years to come.

This hour-long Halloween special is dark, atmospheric and tons of fun. Kudos to first-time director Michael Giacchino for producing a winner!