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.
Typical 1990s video-released effort that stands out by dint of a far-out idea – a cyborg werewolf – even if in the end the film does nothing with it and everything only boils down to a standard monster movie that takes everything from the Alien playbook
Alain Resnais meta-fiction with John Gielgud as an aging writer sits in bed writing a story that is based on the people around him
Maybe one of the great exploitation titles of all time quickly telescopes down to a near-unwatchable film from Andy Milligan. A Victorian-set werewolf film with rats thrown in to capitalise on the success of Willard
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations that Cannon Films made during the 1980s
Catherine Hardwcke’s adapts the fairytale as a dark adult fantasy where there has been the clear intention to pitch it to Twilight audiences but the results are surprisingly good
Syfy Channel film that seems to offer the intriguing premise of a Modernised Little Red Riding Hood but only deals with this in the vaguest ways. Otherwise this is a standard werewolf film and contains maybe the crappiest CGI wolf transformation scenes ever
From Paco Plaza, a beautifully made film supposedly based on a true incident featuring Julian Sands as a man placed on trail in 19th Century Spain with the defence that he is a werewolf
One of the better films from Santo the Mexican wrestling superhero, quite an atmospheric work where Santo and his friend Blue Demon faces Dracula and his werewolf acolyte
Another of the films from the Mexican wrestling superhero Santo where he and his friend Blue Demon encounter assorted Famous Monsters raised by a mad scientist
The first of Disney’s live-action comedies, a comic variant on the werewolf story with Tommy Kirk turning into a dog. Mildly amusing but later efforts would do this type of comedy better
The remake of the old Disney comedy becomes a vehicle for Tim Allen, played with a manic slapstickery wherein Allen demonstrates there are few levels of silliness he will travel to in imitating dog-like behaviours
A mind-bogglingly bad film that has absolutely nothing to do with H. Rider Haggard and is a post-holocaust film with Sandahl Bergman as an Amazonian warrior. The film is made with a bizarreness that may cause mental damage
There is a good idea for a film in here somewhere where a fan joins Scream Queen Tiffany Shepis playing a Scream Queen tracking down the print of her werewolf movie before finding she is a real werewolf. But the presentation is an utterly confused mishmash
Overlooked but not entirely unworthwhile Stephen King adaptation about the hunt for a werewolf preying on a small town
The Asylum made Avengers Grimm as a copycat of The Avengers films, featuring a team-up of fairytale heroines, and so for the release of Suicide Squad they made this sequel featuring a team-up of fairytale villains. Both films are utterly incomprehensible and require you to essentially ignore the originals
A big-budget revival of the werewolf film set amongst warring werewolf clans of bikers. Produced by Stan Winston and with an interesting cast line-up
A werewolf comedy that takes place on the set of a zombie film. Comes with much in the way of homage to An American Werewolf in London
Probably the next logical move after Zombie Strippers! Alas, where we should have had a fast, funny and sarcastic genre entry, the humour in this British entry becomes painfully belaboured in its constant unfunny efforts to get laughs
This lamely updates I Was a Teenage Werewolf to the 1980s high school, strips all horror elements and has Michael J. Fox’s transformation be regarded as an instant injection of cool. The result was a surprising hit
Feeble sequel to the unexpected Michael J. Fox comedy hit where Jason Bateman plays his cousin who discovers his inner wolf as he heads to university
Another of David DeCoteau’s bizarre homoerotic horror films featuring a trio of former 80s Scream Queens who are were-cougars
Painfully unfunny comedy from Mel Brooks writer Rudy De Luca with journalists Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr encountering monsters while on assignment in Transylvania
Disappointing Bryan Singer produced horror anthology set around Halloween where its potential is frequently dragged down by over-emphatic direction
Before the teen idol phenomenon took over, the original in the massively popular Young Adult series works as an earnest romance where all involved are clearly making an effort to play with a conviction
For a time Kevin J. Lindemuth had a reasonable place making direct-to-video films and anthologies. This is a solidly effective video-released anthology of horror tales
This stirs a bunch of elements from the late 90s vampire film and dark poses from the graphic novel to create a slick vampire action film. Several sequels followed.
Yet another entry that nobody asked for in a conceptually threadbare series that nobody seems to like … passably better than the last two sequels due to some ok action moves but still empty-headed in terms of ideas
I am at a loss to understand who the audience for the Underworld films is – they are films devoid of minimal requirements like plotting and seem to only exist as a series of forgettable action sequences and interchangeable Gothic poses by characters in black leather – and yet we keep getting more of them
The second of the Underworld films where Len Wiseman gets a bigger budget and amplifies the CGI and action sequences,. On the other hand, the characters and story are so stripped to a minimum you lose track of why things are happening
Third of the Underworld films, a prequel to the previous entries. In truth, it is just the same as the others – lots of kinetic action moves and Gothic poses with little in the way of plot
One of the first few werewolf films ever made, this takes place at a big old mansion and is a murder mystery whodunnit about who might be the werewolf
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witlessly run a series of crude, unfunny gags over films and celebrities of the previous twelve months vintage. Here they take on the Twilight series
Stephen Sommers conducts a big-budget rehash of a 1940s Universal monster bash. A film so overloaded with CGI bombast and general overkill it becomes utterly absurd.
A Norwegian-made werewolf film where you have to admit the title Viking Wolf sets up some intriguing possibilities
The only horror film ever made in Communist Russia. Adaptation of a classic story about a monk sequestered with the body of a woman for three nights, the film creates an undeniable atmosphere and mounts to a wildly fantastical climax where he must face all the minions of Hell
Aardman Animation spread the seemingly universal appeal of their Wallace and Gromit short films out onto the big screen with deliriously nonsensical results
Mini-series based on the works of Terry Pratchett that feels as though it is made, designed and cast by people who haven’t even read the books
From the director of The Devil Inside comes a werewolf film that wants to convince us it might not be a werewolf and a Found Footage film that is only pretending to be a Found Footage film. The result is a crappily photographed film that takes a long time to ever unleash its werewolf
Exactly as the title suggests, a film in which a girl is transformed into a weredeer after a bite from a deer. Surprisingly enough, the film plays itself seriously
A real oddity among the werewolf genre – a film that tries to mix the werewolf up with the 1950s fad for the atomic monster movie in having the transformation brought on by atomically irradiated wolf blood
Despite the title, this South Korean film is less a werewolf story than it is a love story about a feral child. The film seems overburdened by the need to pitch the film to the teen demographic and play the violins and heartstrings as a Twilight wannabe
Despite one of the great exploitation titles of all time, this collapses into a dreary dullness the moment one actually sits down to watch it
This is exactly what it sounds like – a blend of werewolf film and the women in prison exploitation genre with expectedly lurid and entertaining focus. A film that makes no pretence it is being serious, which actually becomes its redeeming quality
Director Charlie Steeds creates a modest film set in 19th Century England about people at an inn as it comes under attack by werewolves
Hollywood’s first werewolf film. Largely overlooked and overshadowed by The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr, it takes an approach to the subject that is not uninteresting
Another bizarre werewolf movie title collusion from the 1970s era that produced such as Werewolves on Wheels and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf. The film is never quite up to making the notion of hippies vs werewolves work with the amusement of its title
The third of Spanish star Paul Naschy’s films about the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. This becomes a crossover where Daninsky meets up to fight Countess Bathory
A classic from 70s Euro trash cinema. The title is misleading as this is not about a female werewolf but more akin to Cat People about a disturbed woman who thinks she has turned into a werewolf at the thought of sex
A werewolf film with an original idea and a furious action movie sensibility
I was hooked into watching the film from the sensationalism from the title but this is a disappointment due to the attempts to provide World War II setting and werewolf transformation effects on a low budget
The werewolf underwent some bizarre title mashups in the 1970s. This has the amusing idea of mashing the werewolf film up with the biker film. The results are played surprisingly seriously.
A werewolf film that is quite unlike anything you expect when you hear the term videogame adaptation
Hands down, this is the best vampire comedy ever made. An incredibly witty effort that contrasts the cliches of the genre with the mundane business of a group of vampires flatting together in New Zealand. A film that comes with sly deadpan gags packed into the corner of every frame
Beautifully low key Danish werewolf film (even if the term is never mentioned throughout) that takes place in a tiny seaside village as a girl tries to understand her transformations, the film is quiet and often takes place in silences rather than dialogue, its horror understated with striking effect
Bel Powley gives a great performance as a wild child introduced to civilisation for the first time before it is discovered she is a wildling creature
Reasonable box-office hit that offers a stripped-back werewolf film with minimalist effects as milquetoast Jack Nicholson suddenly discovers the beast within
Not to be confused with the Jack Nicholson film, this is a fine low-budget film about a group of centurions during the Roman occupation of Britain encountering werewolves on an expedition north of Hadrian’s Wall
Mamoru Hosoda proves himself as one of the major directors in anime with this tender, lovely and enormously affecting work about a mother raising two werewolf children.
This may be or may not be a werewolf film. What we have is a work that is long on mood and much ambiguity as a man hides in the English countryside from a crime he has conducted
Although it wasn’t the first werewolf film, this is the one the created all the mythology of the werewolf film – full moons, silver bullets etc – while the wolfman went on to join the pantheon of Universal Famous Monsters.
After reviving The Invisible Man, James Wan associate Leigh Whannell takes on a reworking of The Wolf Man
A British werewolf film that takes place during the shooting of an old-fashioned Hammer-styled film
A film directed by actor Jim Cummings about a small Utah town that is facing a series of werewolf attacks. This works surprisingly well due to a series of witty and well-rounded characterisations
Deliberately made to look like a lost 1980s/early 90s film, this has a winning concept and sets in with an appealingly sarcastic amusement. On the other hand, the film is never quite as amusing as it gives the impression it is going to be and starts to lose it in the third act
The 1941 Lon Chaney Jr The Wolf Man is given the remake treatment in a way that builds out on the creaky original with lavish sets and state of the art transformation effects
The third film from Irish animator Tomm Moore, a beautiful Princess Mononoke-like tale of a girl’s friendship with persecuted werewolves in the forest
Evidently intended to be a werewolf equivalent of the Star Wars saga in in its epically contorted familial struggles, this sits just between the stylish and another classic monster repackaged for the teen crowd and cast with handsome good-looking faces
British werewolf film that wittily uses being a werewolf as a metaphor for being gay
Way before The Wolf of Wall Street, we had this David DeCoteau film about werewolf stockbrokers