WHY WATCH THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF?

The Witcher is a polish fantasy novel that was released between 1986-2013. The book series is said to be up to nine in number, that's without accounting for short stories, standalone and spin-offs novels. Being originally a polish novel, its English version was published from 2007-2018 for English readers. Apart from the novels, there has been two tv adaptations based on the books. The popular one being the recent one on Netflix in 2019. There has also been a fantastic trilogy of video game releases; all with it own different lore to discover. I just thought I put this background information for you guys because not a lot of people are familiar with The Witcher franchise. When the tv series came out on Netflix to a broader movie audience, many people were left in confusion after watching the series. Apart from storytelling being non-chronological, the world of The Witcher is one many are not familiar with. I believe giving this background information helps you guys to understand that The Witcher's world wasn't created yesterday. It has got a robust source material for many tv adaptations to be made, and that's why we have one of such that you're here for. The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf. With all that being said you can find out more about The Witcher on your own. It's as big as the Lord Of The Rings and other fantasy franchise out there. Now to what we're here for!

The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf tells the story of the young Witcher, Vesemir. A character that later became the mentor to Geralt(The protagonist of the franchise.) This movie explores Vesimir's journey from a young boy who dreams of leaving is servitude behind to go on adventures into the world. This came into fruition when he crosses paths with a witcher named Deglan, whom serves as his own mentor. 

The runtime of this movie is one hour and twenty minutes long and by no means is it a children friendly anime. So I'll recommend you don't watch this with any kids around. It's overall tone and atmosphere is dark, bloody, gory and brutal. This is clearly established in the first few minutes of the movie. It's an anime for a matured audience. 

The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf from my view serves as a bridge between season one of The Witcher and the upcoming season two. Reason being that the character Vesimir is likely going to be making a debut in season two of The Witcher. This movie basically sets that up in some sense. It helps the audience to get familiar with the character of Vesimir'. There are also some a major occurrences in The Witcher's timeline shown in this movie, this includes events like the fall of Kaer Morhen and most importantly there is a scene at the end where Vesimir interacts with a group of young witcher subjects, saying to a bald one among them: 'There will always be another monster, Geralt'. This marks the start of Geralt story and relationships between him and Vesimir.

The Witcher: Nightmare of The Wolf sheds more light to the some areas like how Witchers are made through horrific magic experimentation and different trials on young boys abandoned by their family. The humane reality of Witchers is another area of focus of this movie. We could see the effect the transformative process has on those who survive the experiments. They are stripped of almost all their humanity. A sad reality of this is when Vesimir encounters his childhood friend and lover, Illyana, in the future. Vesimir can be evidently seen to still be a young man while Illyana is now an old lady with grandkids. This shows that witchers will see many lifetimes before they can die; if its a natural death. There is a lot more this movie reveals that I belive you'll realize yourself by watching it.  

If you're planning to watch The Witcher season two. The Witcher: Nightmare Of The Wolf is definitely a movie you should watch to stay informed with some of the new information that will be thrown at us in season two. On a final note, I will say watching this movie will make you less ignorant about The Witcher's lore.