What is it About Werewolves?
Werewolf stories and tales of transformation are my absolute favorite horror tales. Ever since I saw Gil Kane’s cover for Werewolf by Night #27 sitting on the top of a well read stack of comics, I have felt the pull of the full moon. The cover featured the eponymous hero fighting against some form of Eldritch Horror. It was compelling and bizarre and though it showed the werewolf in the “hero” role in the battle, there was the hint of danger.
It was only later that I noticed how well Gil Kane channeled the spirit of Werewolf by Night’s co-creator Mike Ploog’s art style. As talented as I think Kane is in general as an illustrator, Ploog’s work is consistently stylishly weird and original in a way that Kane’s never is. From Man-Thing and Werewolf by Night to Lord of the Rings, The Dark Crystal, and The Thing, the Ploogian touch captures the intersection of the mundane and the weird in wonderful ways. Even though Kane is no Ploog, his Soul Beast perfectly captures the essence of Ploogian illustration and I was compelled to read the book.
When I did, I was instantly all-in. Jack Russell, the werewolf in,Werewolf by Night was instantly my favorite Marvel character. Yes, Marvel actually named their canine character Jack Russell. It’s not as bad as giving the teleporting X-man villain The Vanisher the name Telford Porter, but it’s pretty bad. Russell’s werewolf abilities weren’t merely a curse because they granted Jack the power to fight supernatural evil. As with other lycanthropes though, the power came with a cost and he was cursed with an almost uncontrollable rage than endangered those he loved. Even at a young age, I fully understood the horrific and narratively compelling intersection of the horror of the possibility that the one who was supposed to protect you could be the biggest threat to your safety. While this narrative device isn’t for everyone, it and similar devices are my favorite horror tropes.
The Dr. Glitternight story arc (pictured two image up) is one I return to again and again when I’m reading comics on the Marvel Unlimited App. I wish that they hadn’t “digitally smoothed” the coloring and had followed colorist José Villarrubia’s advice on matching original coloring styles when updating the images. There are some nuances of the line art and shading missing from the updated image and while I understand it’s better than a mere scan of a yellow paged comic with faded colors, I wish they’d put forth the effort that José was allowed to do when he colored the Bernie Wrightson Absolute Swamp Thing.
My first encounter with Werewolf by Night led to a long list of lycansumption of comics and books. I’ve read Jack Williamson’s Darker than You Think more times than I can remember and I love the way it transforms werewolf and vampire lore in a unique way. Heck, the adventure I wrote for the Savage Worlds role playing game sourcebook Savage Tales of Horror Volume 2 features werewolves in a central role. So what are some werewolf movies that I think are absolute must watch films? Here is a list of seven films to watch and one to avoid at all costs.
Dog Soldiers (2002)
One of the reasons I love Dog Soldiers is that it is a Scottish high concept mash up of Deliverance and Southern Comfort with a heavy dose of werewolves added for good measure. After all, why have dueling banjos when you can have duelling lycanthropes. The movie focuses on a group of Scottish soldiers who are on an exercise where they are supposed to the be opponents of a Special Forces unit. One of the members of this regular unit (Private Cooper, who is played by Kevin McKidd) had tried out for the Special Forces and was kicked out when he refused to kill a dog when ordered to do so by the head of the Special Forces unit (Liam Cunningham’s Captain Ryan). Private Cooper, and his unit’s Sergeant a down to earth character named Harry Wells (played by Sean Pertwee), eventually discover that the Special Forces team were hunting a werewolf and wanted to use them as bait. Mayhem ensues and it’s a really fun ride.
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
No werewolf recommendation list could be taken seriously if it didn’t include John Landis’ classic An American Werewolf in London. The movie takes the personal tragedy of the lycanthrope’s journey and dials it to 11 all while adding a dose of humor to make the horror and tragedy more acute. Griffin Dunne’s performance as Jack adds a particular depth to the film as his disarming humorous nerdy charm provide the emotional center for the film. Jack loves his friend David and tries to guide him to the inevitable end with as little harm to others as possible. Jack is a gruesome, honest, and never scolding Jiminy Cricket trying to persuade his friend to end the curse before he does more harm.
On a side note, my favorite Comic Con moment features John Landis. I was attending the event and went to listen to Forrest Ackerman share tales of his time as the superfan of superfans when…well, you can read my memory below.
The Howling (1981)
If you were to tell someone that Robert Picardo, “The Doctor” in Star Trek Voyager, could star in a film as the tremendously frightening serial killer cult-like leader of a werewolf clan who brought a raw sexuality to the role they might roll their eyes but you would be correct. The Howling is a fantastic Werewolf film that combines commentary on the media’s obsession with serial killers and a critique of the spiritual cults of the 1970s with a raw sexuality.
Picardo’s transformation is a master class in building tension and the simultaneous sex/transformation scene with Elisabeth Brooks and Christopher Stone ranks almost as high as The Hunger on the “why did I choose to watch this with my mom?” scale. Joe Dante’s film is filled with nods to so many films that you could teach a semester of film criticism filled with watching those references including a final scene that evokes the classic rant in Network while demonstrating perfectly the argument that Daniel Boorstin makes in The Image. While the movie resulted in a number of sequels, the first one is the good stuff.
Wolfen (1981)
If you watched the trailer, or have seen the film, then you know that Wolfen is the film where I stretch the definition of Werewolf a touch. The premise of the film is simple. Human society has developed to the point where many of our cities are in a state of decay on the fringes. The homeless and forgotten live in the decayed and forgotten parts of our Metropolises, but nature has decided to take back what once belonged to it and it is taking it back through a predator that seems new but which represents the oldest threat to mankind…the wilderness after dark.
The film stars Albert Finney, Gregory Hines, Diane Venora, and Edward James Olmos in what is clearly a commentary on pollution, the climate, and a civilization in decline. The shots of New York that show the city as rotting from within weren’t filmed on a set. They are just pictures of what some of The Bronx looked like at the time. There’s a reason that The Warriors and 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982) were able to be filmed on location. The city was in many ways dying, as were many cities.
The 1970s were a period of economic stagnation and high inflation for much of the West, so much so that if you invested $1,000 in the stock market in 1968 and cashed it out in 1982 you’d have had $1,000. Given the inflation of the era, that money would also have significantly less spending power. When people talk about the 2008 financial crisis as the “worst economic crisis since the Great Depression” they are exhibiting amnesia regarding the 70s. It was a decade of stagnation, but maybe all the cocaine and Disco made them forget how bad it was.
Wolfen gives you a glimpse of the reality and is a demonstration that talk about “Late Stage Capitalism” wasn’t as far-fetched then as it is today. Wolfen captures that fear and is a perfect encapsulation of the fears of economic uncertainty and the guilt of cultural and climatological neglect.
The Wolfman (2010)
Okay, between Wolfen, The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London, I think we can say that 1981 was the greatest year in history for Werewolf movies, but we’ve had some excellent ones recently as well. Luke argued that his controversial pick was Van Helsing, but I think mine is even more controversial in a way. Van Helsing may be a gonzo video game influenced actioner, but it has its defenders. There are few who will defend 2010s The Wolfman, but I’m proud to be among them. The film came out four years before Universal’s planned shared universe project the Dark Universe which would pit Superheroic Monsters against The Devil. In some ways its poor performance in the box office was a contributing factor to Universal’s decision to attempt that project.
There are several reasons I enjoy The Wolfman ranging from the fact that it is a haunting update of the original Universal film to the fact that it has a stellar cast that includes Anthony Hopkins, Benecio del Toro, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt, all of whom put in yeomanlike efforts. The special effects are fantastic and Rick Baker and Dave Elsey rightly won the Oscar for their work. None of those are the reason the film resonates with me though. My love of the film comes from a single amazing sequence in which The Wolfman critiques the hubris of the scientific community. Like The Exorcist, The Wolfman is a film about a person tortured by supernatural forces who looks to science to save them yet finds the science more horrifying than the curse. While the film was a commercial, and critical (32% on Rotten Tomatoes and the fans agreed), failure, it’s one of those cases where the critical reviews read more like memos from the Universal Development team than actual reviews. It’s almost as if Development was recruiting critics to justify their upcoming Dark Universe instead of examining what was in front of them.
The Wolfman, like Hammer’s The Woman in Black, is a wonderfully Gothic tale filled with the passions and tragedies so prevalent in that genre and it’s a film I watch every year. Ironically, the product line they promoted to replace the “out of date Gothic tale” with new Superheroic action was also a failure and even more ironically, I’m one of the Dark Universe’s lone defenders too. I liked Dracula Untold and The Mummy, but I might not have enjoyed The Rock as Werewolf in Aaron Guzikowski’s Wolf Man had that ever emerged from Development Hell.
Cursed (2005)
I’m a sucker for a Kevin Williamson/Wes Craven horror film and Cursed is in many ways the quintessential Kevin Williamson horror movie. The movie follows the plot of the original Wolf Man very closely, but adds a couple of twists involving the sexual politics of people in their young 20s. It’s a bit of a spin on Fright Night and The O.C. and is light-hearted fun. Williamson’s original screenplay involving a serial killer is much darker, and might have been a better film, but the studio wanted a PG-13 horror-comedy. Since I’m one of the 20 people in the world who like those, this one is definitely my bag. If you prefer darker tales, there are plenty of those in our combined lists.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Most werewolf movies focus on the dread society feels regarding the hidden violent instincts that supposedly civilized men have lurking somewhere within their psyche. These are tales that answer the question why many women would rather encounter a bear than a lone man on a remote hiking trail. As I mentioned, this is one of my favorite horror metaphors, but I also appreciate it when someone does something fresh with the formula by changing one small detail. John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps, with a screenplay written by Karen Walton, turns the gender dynamics completely on its head and uses the lycanthopic curse to represent both sexual awakening and female empowerment.
Kevin Williamson’s Cursed plays around a little with sexual politics, but for Ginger Snaps it is the central focus and it works extremely well. In some ways, Ginger Snaps is a mashup of Heathers (1988), or the later Mean Girls (2004), with the traditional werewolf tale, and it marks the tail end of the 1980s to 2000s teenage revenge story that became muted in cinema as the metaphors became reality on the evening news. Another, non-filmic, story that examines the connection of femininity and lycanthropy, while also commenting on the very real cruelty of some men, is Susan Palwick’s brilliant story “Gestella.” The short story is featured in her The Fate of Mice collection and was originally published in Starlight 3. “Gestella” is a metaphor for divorce and like most Susan Palwick stories it will make you weep. Susan is a mentor of mine, she was one of my writing and literature professors as an undergrad, and I adore her. I strongly recommend her writing to anyone and everyone. Keep in mind that that with most of her writing you should a bring a bit of tissue because the relationships in her stories are very personal and feel very real.
Dishonorable Mention: The Beast Within (2024)
I don’t often do “unrecommends,” but I am breaking my rule in this case because it is one of those rare movies that made me angry that I had watched it.
Do not watch this movie. It takes everything I love about the “danger within” metaphor and makes it explicit. Where Wolf Man (2025) used lycanthropy as a metaphor for abuse and the generational transmission of trauma, The Beast Within turns it into a psychological coping mechanism for the victim of abuse. Yes, that’s a spoiler, because you shouldn’t watch this film. I am a big fan of Kit Harrington, and his performance here is good as are all the performances. In fact, this film is in general very well made. It has so much potential, but it’s betrayed by its ending and I blame the director and the editor for that failing. At least one of them should have said, we don’t need those last 3 minutes where we explain to the audience the parallels we are making. No one said that and, contrary to many reviewer claims, the ending isn’t ambiguous. It would have been ambiguous, and good, if they left the last 3 minutes of the film on the cutting room floor. The metaphor is sufficient. Don’t make it literal. We don’t need you to explain to us that lycanthropy represents very real fears, we can talk about that on our own. Watch Wolf Man (2025) instead. It touches on the same themes, but trusts us to understand the metaphor and only pulls the veil back for one line of dialogue that assures us the cycle is complete.