The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The werewolf is a human that is able to transform into a wolf. There are various werewolves in mythology and folklore but the werewolf as we know it was created on movie screens.
This came about with Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941) starring Lon Chaney Jr. This was not the first werewolf film but it created all the essential mythology that every film since has drawn from – that the afflicted person transforms into a wolf under the full moon; that the affliction is transmitted by a bite from another wolf; and the werewolf’s fatal aversion to silver.
Universal made several sequels and there were soon a number of other werewolf films. Werewolf films from the 1950s onwards began to experiment with wacky titles, a practice begun with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957).
In the 1980s, hits like The Howling (1981) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) introduced air bladder transformation effects and we saw people transforming into wolves in real time with snouts, teeth and fur emerging in prodigious detail.
There have been a number of comedies and parodies. More recent variations have offered action and children’s movie treatments, science-fictional explanations, pitted werewolves against vampires and offered werewolf reinterpretations of Little Red Riding Hood.
A full essay on the history and development of the werewolf film can be found here at Werewolf Films.
The most well remembered of Abbott and Costello’s films. Universal had shuffled their Famous Monsters through several team-ups and here decided to play them for outright laughs. Undeniably likeable
Film version of a popular series of Dutch children’s books. The lonely bespectacled werewolf boy is the most adorable sight, while the film is a sweetly gentle delight, not making a single wrong misstep
John Landis brings the werewolf film into the modern era with this revisionist work where a modern character is forced to confront it as real, while depicting the transformation with an arsenal of top-drawer effects.
Sequel to An American Werewolf in London, which copies the set-up with a different city but misses all of the sense of humour, even fails to offer anything like the classic transformation effects
A film about the internecine in-fighting among werewolf clans and a werewolf P.I. in a near-future European Union. With Lindsay Lohan as the EU President’s wife!
Adaptation of a novel by Splatterpunk authors Skipp and Spector, this sits halfway between being a monster movie and an erotic thriller. Disowned by its director who hides behind a pseudonym
WolfCop found an appeal with its amusing title premise. Here the principal talents involved have reunited for a sequel, although the feeling is more that they have done so solely because the first film was a success
Eric Red directed film with Michael Paré as a werewolf fighting a territorial dispute with his sister’s dog. Slight effort that suffers from crappy morphing werewolf transformation effects
A halfway reasonable film from The Asylum with the military trying to appropriate werewolves for weapons purposes. A good premise despite so-so-effects work
Amicus film that manages the novel idea of combining a werewolf with an an Agatha Christie styled whodunnit as people try to guess which among the guests gathered at a mansion is a werewolf
This is a werewolf film with a difference. Everything comes with an ambiguity that is seen through the eyes of a young child trying to make sense of what is happening to her father
An affectionate recreation of 80s-type kids-on-an-adventure films like The Goonies as kids come up against a creature that may be a werewolf or a Bigfoot. Made with humour and a liking for its characters while not forgetting to be scary
Tim Burton film where Albert Finney plays a habitual teller of tall tales whose son sets out to find the truth. Burton’s characteristic quirkiness seems buried by such a blandness you suspect he has been replaced by a clone of Ron Howard
Larry Fessenden is a strong genre force as director, producer and sometimes actor. He has covered most major horror themes in his films. Blackout was his take on the werewolf film
An interesting attempt to do something different with the werewolf film set in the tribal world of werewolves where Agnes Bruckner decides to defy tradition to liaise with a human
One of the films from Z-budget director Al Adamson, who should be a rival for Edward D. Wood Jr in the bad movies stakes. This resurrects Count Dracula in the present-day, living in a castle in the California desert
Video-released anthology of short films on the theme of werewolves, offering some different and unusual takes
Promising film about an ingénue singer under the control of a Svengali-esque record producer who is struggling against giving in to her true werewolf nature
This comes with a cutely amusing title – about a boy who witnesses his father becoming a werewolf but nobody will believe him – but only emerges as a cheap and shabby B movie
Entirely unrelated to the forgettable 1973 film, this is a children’s film for the Nickelodeon Channel. Merely adequate but no more. Brooke Shields seems to be having the time of her life vamping it up with Bela Lugosi accent
The point where the Twilight series collapses under its pretensions and draws every detail of its wedding out for an excruciating hour. A series that has been all about preaching chastity then segues into Right to Life advocacy
Perhaps the best thing about this is that the Twilight saga is finally ended. This provides a moderately spectacular showdown but also wraps its plotlines up with absurd deus ex machina wimp outs and an infuriating twist ending
A parody of the Twilight series, which feeds the films through the vulgar and sophomoric gags of the Scary Movie type film parody
Probably the least satisfying of Terry Gilliam’s films that turns the real-life fairytale authors into scam ghost hunters in an adventure. Purportedly the subject of behind the scenes troubles, the film never quite comes to life on screen
This takes the award for bizarre concepts – a phone app that turns users into werewolves
Joss Whedon scripted work that is less a horror film than a meta-horror film that is constantly deconstructing the genre and subverting its cliches. A rare genre entry less about visceral impact than it has brains to spare
Twelfth of the popular British comedy series, here the Carry On team conduct a bawdy farce on the Hammer horror film that was all the in-thing at the time
In the same vein as Grindhouse, four filmmakers have come together to make an anthology of spoof horror films that homage the drive-in tradition. Good taste is left well behind and the results are both outrageous and funny
Adaptation of a series of Young Adult books that should have emerged as Harry Potter made with the sensibilities of a Tim Burton. But the result fails to come to life in Paul Weitz’s hands
Cocaine Bear seems to have given birth to a mini-genre of films about drug-addicted animals amok. Here regular Z-budget Mark Polonia gives us a cocaine-snorting werewolf
In his first film, Neil Jordan adapts an Angela Carter story that retells Little Red Riding Hood as a werewolf film that becomes a fascinating swim of fairytale and sexual allegory
Adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp adventure stories and the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. The script from Oliver Stone takes unevenly from Howard but director John Milius gives the film a brutal, primal majesty
Hammer Films offer their take on the werewolf film starring a young, unknown Oliver Reed. Director Terence Fisher creates a lush film rich in symbolism, made with the full weight of Hammer’s production values
Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson had the huge hit of Scream but failed to replicate that with this werewolf film, which was a behind the scenes nightmare that emerges as a mess on screen
The greatly underrated Sean Ellis returns with a beautifully understated film about the hunt for a possible werewolf creature loose in rural 19th Century France. Everything happens in a state of careful ambiguity
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
From cult director Edgar G. Ulmer, a film ostensibly pitched as a sequel to the Jekyll and Hyde story focused on his daughter where it is revealed that Dr Jekyll was actually a werewolf!
Horror anthology with the novelty where all of the stories are horror versions of fairytales. Particularly amusing is the second episode, a modernised version of Little Red Riding Hood
The fifth film where cult Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy played the werewolf Waldermar Daninsky. Here Waldemar is pitted up against Dr Jekyll with Naschy playing both Waldemar and Mr Hyde
The first of Amicus’s horror anthologies. The stories are rehashes of five popular horror tropes, all united by Peter Cushing as the title doctor telling the fortunes of five passengers on a train carriage
The first film from Neil Marshall. Essentially a version of Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort but with soldiers being hunted by werewolves instead of Cajuns. Marshall directs with a satisfying ferocity.
UK’s Amicus Films had a reasonable hit with their horror anthology Dr Terror’s House of Horrors. Director/producer David L. Hewitt jumped in with a copy with a soundalike title produced on a poverty row budget
This may possibly be the worst Dracula film ever made. A nudie film that has been dubbed over with excruciatingly unfunny one-liners that makes it sound more like a rifftrack film
This was one several different films with the same title that came out around the same time. This painful effort comes from Spanish horror star Paul Naschy who plays his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninksy
US film adaptation of a cult Italian comic-book about a private eye who investigates the supernatural, this comes out like a weak episode of tv’s Angel where a potential worthwhile idea descends to lame humour
The third of the Twilight films. This extrudes the dramatic irresolution of the last film’s cliffhanger – should Bella marry Edward or does she really love Jacob? – with over-padded momentousness
Painfully dull film edited together from two unrelated Mexican films ending an incomprehensible plot featuring a revived Aztec Mummy and another mummy that transforms into a werewolf played by Lon Chaney Jr
The first film in which Universal teamed-up their in-house monsters, leading to several other monster bashes throughout the decade. For all that, this fails to make any interesting use of the title set-up
Not a Frankenstein film but a werewolf film. Spanish actor Paul Naschy debuts his signature role of the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky. Naschy would return to the role nine times, as well as play most of the classic horror characters
Werewolf films were all the thing around 1980-1 with hits like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. This is cult director Larry Cohen’s often extremely silly but not entirely unamusing comedy take
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before
This was the fourth (or maybe the fifth) of the Spanish films in the popular series about the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky starring Paul Naschy. Also one of the shabbiest of the series.
Witty, wryly sarcastic modern take on the werewolf film where two teenage sister become affected – sort of like a remake of I Was a Teenage Werewolf by way of Ghost World. Two sequels followed.
Third of the Ginger Snaps films, a prequel set during the pioneer era with Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle again as sisters taking refuge at a fort under attack by werewolves. The scene-setting and atmosphere of foreboding is superlative
The first of two sequels to the Canadian werewolf film. This takes place with the surviving sister placed in a rehab facility and is the best of the trilogy, even better than the first film was in its writing and characters
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
A film based on the hugely popular children’s horror series. The film creates a story where the creatures from all the books are unleashed. This is fun to watch, yet what we ultimately have is easy, undemanding horror for family audiences
Quebecois (French-speaking Canadian) historical werewolf film. The plot proves entertaining in its whisplash reversals, although the film’s provision of a werewolf falls down amid some ratty CGI effects
Adult actress Tori Black plays a straight role as a hooker who goes to a meet with a client in a motel room where claims that he is a werewolf
Deranged entry in the 80s fad for heavy metal horror films where a band are resurrected from the dead to play an all-important concert, while fighting off conservative townspeople and a very much alive Adolf Hitler
The third Harry Potter film where it seems all that it took for the series to become quite good was the exit of the perpetually banal Chris Columbus and the entry of a new director in Alfonso Cuaron
Both directing and starring here, Gene Wilder attempts to revive the Old Dark House comedy. By the 1980s, this was datedly creaky, while Wilder’s comedy mugging histrionics are excruciating to sit through
Reboot of the Hellboy series promisingly comes from Neil Marshall but is also made by Millennium Films who have a habit of buying up previously successful properties and churning out cheaper spinoffs
A variant on the much more charming Mad Monster Party?, an animated film featuring cute cuddly versions of the Famous Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, wolfman etc) with Adam Sandler voicing Dracula
I had little enthusiasm for this, I tend to like my classic monsters serious rather than defanged – these Hotel Transylvania films are so watered down, Dracula doesn’t even get to drink blood
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
Minus Adam Sandler this time, the Hotel Transylvania series trots out a fourth entry. Here, in some search for novelty on what has gone before, the monsters are turned back into humans
The third of Universal’s monster bashes, a successor to the previous House of Frankenstein. These Universal crossovers felt contrived in their reasons to bring the monsters together but this works better than the others
The second of Universal’s team-ups of their in-house monsters and superior to the first of these, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Despite some imaginative moments, the script has a stitched-together improbability
We had Snakes of a Plane; by the same token, this could have titled ‘Werewolf on a Train’, although plays itself seriously the whole way. This is a model of effectiveness that delivers constant contained tension
A low-budget film directed by lead actress Michele Martin that sets out to conduct a modernised retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in which she becomes a wolf
The film that made the name of Joe Dante who fills it with a barrage of werewolf movie references and in-jokes. The film’s reputation rests on an amazing mid-film effects sequence where a man transforms into a wolf
The first of a string of bad follow-ups to Joe Dante’s classic. Sybil Danning plays the werewolf queen and displays her impressive chest measurements, while Christopher Lee was somehow persuaded to appear
The Howling was a witty and genre savvy werewolf film; this is one of several all-terrible sequels. The plot tiresomely rehashes the first film and the only point of note are the variably effective wolf transformation effects
This was a hit in its dayo by tapping the burgeoning teenage market who had just realised they were misunderstood thanks to James Dean. Not a particularly great film but it is one that carries a great deal of primal ferocity
Paul W.S. Anderson adapts a George R.R. Martin fantasy story but somehow still manages to make it into another Resident Evil copy still starring Milla Jovovich
Stephen King adapted mini-series and one of the best. A dark Coming of Age tale, Tim Curry makes an unsettling Pennywise (in doing so popularised the figure of the killer clown)
A conceptually ambitious anime that builds a complex metaphor out of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf in a story centred around the self-doubting member of an anti-terrorist squad
An anthology adapted from the stories of Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello directed by the Taviani Brothers. The stories include a werewolf episode and a ghost story
A highly original treatment of werewolf themes that begins with the unique premise of ‘Werewolf in a Retirement Village’ and features a hero who is an aging blind man
A Freddie Francis directed werewolf film from the latter days entry in the Anglo-horror cycle set in 1900s France. This owes much to Hammer’s earlier Curse of the Werewolf
Another of the DC Original Animated Movies. This deals with both the Legion of Super-Heroes and Supergirl, bringing them together in a mutual adventure
This had me watched on the basis of the title alone. An Asylum production, this is less a twisted take on the fairytale than one that turns Little Red Riding Hood into a werewolf hunter
This is a film filled with enormous possibilities in its set-up – a Western where Mary Stuart Masterson plays a woman who gets married only to find that her husband is a werewolf
A poverty row mad scientist film where a magnificently sinister George Zucco turns his gardener into a werewolf. A copycat that was made not long after Universal’s The Wolf Man
Absolutely delightful stop-motion animated homage to the Universal Famous Monsters, which places tongue perfectly in cheek
Third of The Howling films where director Philippe Mora travels to Australia to show us marsupial werewolves. A conceptually wild mix that fails abysmally due to cheap effects and Mora not taking things seriously
A much better than usual film from Charles Band, an erotic fairytale in which Sherilyn Fenn becomes involved with a circusmaster and his twin brother who turns into a werewolf
Classic Halloween tv special. As with most of its ilk, it places the focus on a light-hearted treatment where the monsters are no more serious than Halloween revelers
This has the mildly amusing idea of taking the idea of films like Dracula vs Frankenstein et al one step further and actually pitting various classic monsters against one another in a wrestling match. Beyond its mimicry of televised wrestling though, there is almost nothing else to the film
The Asylum conduct a monster bash – a crossover between the Famous Monsters – and actually do a modest and quite enjoyable job that pays affectionate homage to the characters
Rather charming effort where the Famous Monsters – Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature – are revived and pitted against a group of kids. The film has a great deal of affection for the originals and the encounters are delightful
A Young Adult fantasy adaptation that fells a Harry Potter wannabe repackaged with the brooding teen romanticism of the Twilight series, all under a director whose indifferent handling fails to animate any of the material
Sequel to the Mortal Kombat film. While the first film was fun, here anything resembling plot has been stripped away to concentrate on fight scenes such that the film blurs into a single shapeless action sequence
Rob Zombie conducts a big-screen remake of The Munsters and surprisingly enough makes his best film yet
Fairly silly comedy in which housewife Susan Blakely discovers that she is turning into a werewolf. This varies between the over-the-top and the oddly amusing line
The second of the Twilight films where the moderately grounded original is blown up into the near laughable with the ridiculously over-the-top hyper-sexualised posturing of its male leads
This comes with the irresistible appeal of a premise where frustrated mother Amy Adams finds herself turning into a dog. A very interesting take on the problems of motherhood
Tim Burton and Henry Selick combine on this stop-motion animated fantasy made in Burton’s characteristcially eccentric style, a beautifully stylised and dark fantasy in which assorted Halloween denizens invade Christmas
Thought to be a long-lost Edward D. Wood, Jr film for many years. Although only written by Wood, this has all the bad acting and hilarious purple prose of a Wood film. The film consists of strippers doing routines in a graveyard