Story
In the opening scenes, a high-profiler magnate named Christopher Van der Veer (Max Brown) partakes in a ground-breaking cerimony for a new building to be built in the South Bronx. That evening, Van der Veer, his cocaine-snorting wife, and bodyguard/limo driver drive through Manhattan to the Battery Park waterfront. While the three of them take strolls around the deserted park, they are stalked by a number of mysterious creatures (unseen except for point-of-view shots set a few feet off the ground and in a strange thermal-image color pattern). They are all killed one by one in rapid sucession by the unseen creatures.The next morning, NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is assigned to solve the bizarre, violent murders. Executive Security, Van der Veers client, prefers to blame the murders on terrorists, but knowing that the victims bodyguard was a 300 pound Haitian with voodoo ties makes Wilson skeptical. At the crime scene, Wilson meets with Warren, his superior. With pressure to solve the case coming down from both the commissioner and mayor, Warren partners Wilson with criminal psychologist Rebecca Neff (Diane Venora).Meanwhile a homeless man goes exploring an abandoned church in Charlotte Street, South Bronx, which was going to be demolished by Van der Veer along with the rest of the ruined buildings in the area, in order to build new apartment complexes, and is suddenly attacked and torn to pieces by another unseen monstrous being.Soon after that and while investigating the abandoned church, sounds of suffering lure Neff upstairs. Wilson follows her but doesnt hear the suffering, but once Neff is separated from him, he hears a wolfs howl. He goes up after Neff and drags her forcibly to safety. Soon after, a bridge worker is murdered by another unseen attacker.NY coroner Whittington (Gregory Hines) discovers non-human hairs on several mutilation victims and consults zoologist Ferguson (Tom Noonan). Ferguson immediately identifies the hairs as belonging to Canis lupus, also explaining that there are 40 existing subspecies and these particular hairs dont belong to any of them. Ferguson foreshadows his own death when he asks incredulously "What are you two trying to pin on the big bad (wolf)?". He compares wolves to Indians, giving Wilson his first real inspiration.Wilson finds Eddie Holt (Edward James Olmos), a militant Native activist he arrested some years ago for killing a conservative Indian or "apple" (a Native who is "red" -a true Native- on the outside but white on the inside). He claims hes a shapeshifter, which implicates him as the killer, and even goes so far as to threaten Wilson with carefully constructed dialogue. Feeling that the conversation is circumstantial and potentially dangerous, Wilson opts to let well alone and tail Eddie later that night on his own terms. While following animal clues Ferguson goes to Central Park, where the actual killer ambushes and kills him under a tunnel. Oblivious, Wilson spends the remainder of his night with Neff. In the following morning, a man in a jogging suit rides Fergusons motorcycle right past Wilson as he leaves Rebeccas apartment. The man crashes, illustrating that he stole the motorcycle.Back at the police station, Whittington is the second person to foreshadow his own death when he says "If violence comes, Im ready. Im a dead shot, and a karate expert". He and Wilson stakeout the Bronx church armed with sniper rifles and sound equipment and after he almost blows his ears out by opening a beer can near the sound mic, an animal who appears to be a wolf ambushes and kills him. Meanwhile, Executive Security apprehends a "G
