The 25 Best Werewolf Movies of All Time

The 25 Best Werewolf Movies of All Time

There’s a saying (or at least a sentiment) among horror geeks: Werewolves always get short shrift. They just do. Of the classic cinematic monsters, which were essentially canonized in the public consciousness by the Universal monster films of the ’30s and ’40s, even the best werewolf movies are never quite given the luster or romanticization of the others. They’re not nearly so ubiquitous as ghosts. They don’t represent the pop culture zeitgeist so appropriately as zombies. They’re not nearly as sexualized (and capitalized upon) as vampires. Even a foundation of the genre, such as George Waggner’s classic 1941 The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr., never received a direct sequel of its own—rather, the Wolf Man was lumped in alongside other monsters in the future, in films such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. For whatever reason, the werewolves themselves are rarely seen as vital enough to continue carrying a franchise solo.

Then of course there’s the issue of costuming—it’s a lot more expensive to build full-body werewolf suits than it is to slap a few wounds on an extra, call him a zombie, and call it a day. Werewolf movies are inherently more costume-dependent, and they also tend to be scrutinized more harshly for their effects as a result. It’s the Achilles’ heel of pretty much any indie werewolf movie—a refrain of “the suit looks cheap!” Horror fans are fickle, and tough to please.

Which is all to say that in the end, there are a lot fewer werewolf movies out there than there are for the other classic monsters. They continue to be made, but they’re utterly dwarfed by zombie movies, vampire movies, etc. But despite all that, we still love a good werewolf yarn, and there have been some cinematic classics in the genre along the way. Below we present the 25 best werewolf movies of all time, which constitute an 80-plus year journey through everything hairy and lupine. You can also check out some of our other big horror lists, such as the 100 best vampire movies of all time, the 50 best zombie movies of all time, and the overall 100 best horror films of all time.

Please note: We’re trying to keep this list to films that primarily revolve around werewolves, rather than simply featuring them as part of an ensemble. Thus, you won’t find the likes of The Monster Squad here, despite its classic “Wolf Man’s got nards!” scene. You also won’t find anything from the Underworld franchise—not because they don’t have enough werewolves, but because those movies are all dumpster fires.

Let’s get into it, shall we?


25. Arizona Werewolf, AKA Werewolf (1996)Director: Tony Zarrindast

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Look, it’s no secret that we enjoy opening these lists with at least one entry that is so horrendous it becomes extremely entertaining, and Arizona Werewolf is the ultimate example of a terrible (but side-splitting) werewolf feature. Famously lampooned on MST3k, where it bore the less geographically specific title Werewolf, the film is an inscrutable mess of vaguely European-sounding people lounging in attics and delivering hilariously garbled innuendo, served with a bonus side of Joe Estevez. In particular, the female lead played Adrianna Miles is a riot, as her repeated attempts to pronounce “werewolf” (war-welf? wor-wulf?) only stray increasingly into fantasy as time goes on. The werewolf costume, meanwhile, shockingly transitions in appearance from one scene to another—at one point, it looks like a reference to Lon Chaney’s The Wolf Man makeup, but at other times it involves closeups of a huge, poofy mask that the MST3k riffers alternatingly compare to a bat or an insect. There’s a reason that Werewolf landed in the top 10 of our ranking of every single MST3k episode — it’s because the film itself is ludicrously entertaining to watch in its awfulness.—Jim Vorel


24. The Beast Must Die (1974)Director: Paul Annett

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Britain’s Amicus Productions is known to most horror geeks for their classic anthology films, which blend Hammer-style British horror and humor in titles such as Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors and The House that Dripped Blood. Less well-known are the full-length features, which tended to come off as “Hammer-lite,” despite starring many of the same genre staples such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. This one is a rather farcical werewolf yarn, with elements that remind one somewhat of William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill when it comes to gimmickry. A millionaire invites a bunch of suspects to his mansion, then reveals that one of them is actually … a werewolf! The group is subjected to some hilariously silly tests, including putting a silver bullet in their mouths, to suss out the werewolf’s identity. Cushing is present in a professorial role, of the exact type that he played in seemingly every British horror film made between 1957-1975, and he’s unsurprisingly the highlight. Near the end, this goofy flick even features a 30-second “Werewolf Break,” where the audience is asked to guess the wolf’s identity. Castle would have loved its blend of silly horror and humor.—Jim Vorel


23. Wolf (1994)Director: Mike Nichols

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Mike Nichols’ Wolf is a divisive, difficult film to rank in the pantheon of major studio werewolf movies. It often seems to be aspiring toward profundity—the telling of a more mature, darkly romantic wolf story that touches on themes of entropy, ambition and the animal in all of us. But at the same time, it sought to give audiences at least a little bit of the “horror movie action” that studio execs presumably thought they were expecting from a werewolf movie, and the film’s two halves are (sometimes comically) at odds with one another. The casting choice of Jack Nicholson was widely lampooned at the time, but he’s giving it his campy best, and it could have been far worse. It’s the ridiculously over-the-top silliness of the ending, complete with a full-on werewolf battle between Nicholson and James Spader, that will likely have you chuckling when the director wanted you to be gasping. There are kernels of an interesting film in Wolf, but it feels like it’s been meddled with until its best ideas were diluted.—Jim Vorel


22. When Animals Dream (2014)Director: Jonas Alexander Arnby

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Movie monsters are beloved foremost for their baser expectations: We watch vampire flicks because we want to see fanged horrors drain humans of their life force, zombie flicks because we want to see some flesh and maybe some brains get chowed down on, and ghost flicks because there’s nothing quite like a haunted house to make you feel uneasy falling asleep at night. We watch werewolf movies, then, to bask in primal, unbridled ferocity, which means right off the bat that When Animals Dream may not be your jam. Here’s the rule to follow: If you couldn’t stand Let the Right One In, steer clear of When Animals Dream. If you do, however, appreciate horror films that lend their monsters layers of humanity, then Danish filmmaker Jonas Alexander Arnby’s feature debut will single-handedly make you reconsider the werewolf sub-genre. Taking a cue from Ginger Snaps, When Animals Dream trades masculine studies for a young woman’s coming of age, heralded by the traces of beastly ancestry in sixteen-year-old Marie (Sonia Suhl) as she grapples with her changing body and endures social isolation in the fishing village she calls home. Arnby’s pacing is deliberate; the film is in no hurry to get where it’s going. But the destination isn’t When Animals Dream’s best merit. The journey is. You’ll want for the bloody savagery that is the werewolf film’s birthright, but its combination of dread and compassion easily make up for the deficit.—Andy Crump


21. Trick ’r Treat (2007)Director: Mike Dougherty

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This is a tough one to rank for a “werewolf movie” list, as I was trying to focus exclusively on films where they are more or less centric to the plot, but the werewolf section of this creatively threaded anthology is just so good that I have to include it here, while simultaneously keeping it on the lower portion of the list because it’s only one of four main stories happening simultaneously. It stars a shy, pre-True Blood Anna Paquin as a teen girl out for a debauched Halloween night with her sexually explicit sister and friends, only to fall prey to a stalker … before viciously turning the tables when the true nature of her sister’s “squad” becomes painfully clear. It’s a playful twist on the modern werewolf mythos that is perfectly threaded into the previous story of the anthology, paying off the misdeeds of the last story’s central character in apropos fashion. All that, and a pretty solid transformation scene, too—if this story was somehow strung out to feature length, it would no doubt be much closer to the top of this list.—Jim Vorel


20. Wolf Guy (1975)Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

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This is almost certainly the strangest film on the list, which is saying something. Wolf Guy is a little-known Japanese feature, based on similarly titled manga, which starred martial arts star Sonny Chiba, best known to American audiences for his late career appearance as sword-maker Hattori Hanzo in Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1. To us martial arts geeks, he’s better remembered for his classic The Street Fighter series, whose brutal antihero Terry Tsurugi also seems to be the model for his Wolf Guy character. In it, he plays “the only survivor of a clan of werewolves, who relies on his feral, full-moon-activated superpowers to solve mysterious crimes.” In reality, the film is an acid-trip combination of action and horror, but mostly action. Bizarrely, Chiba never actually transforms into a wolf or wolf man—instead, he gains “feral” superpowers that depend upon the cycle of the moon, which allow him to do everything from catch a bullet to literally survive having his guts torn out. It’s a hilarious piece of Japanese exploitation cinema that, despite somewhat lacking in overt werewolfness, is more than enough fun to make it worth watching.—Jim Vorel


19. Blackout (2024)

Director: Larry Fessenden

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Being a werewolf sounds fun, until it happens to you: The late nights, the insatiable hunger, the undying rage, the ballooning of your clothing budget as every outfit you own inexorably falls apart with each moonlit transformation. The cuisine isn’t great, either, unless you’re the over-adventurous type to whom eating animals alive sounds like a test of intestinal and gustatory mettle. It’s enough to make an afflicted person lose their zest for life, which might in turn be enough to make shuffling oneself off one’s own mortal coil an appealing alternative. That’s the space Larry Fessenden occupies in his new movie, Blackout, an existential and depressive character study of Charley (Alex Hurt). A suicidal werewolf is a welcome novelty, especially since more often than not it’s vampires who have all the fun feeling conflicted about their predatory nature. As is, the film balances its talkative side with its gory side nicely. Wanting more isn’t the worst feeling a film can leave you with. —Andy Crump


18. Wolfen (1981)Director: Michael Wadleigh

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Wolfen is an odd-duck film, and one gets the sense while watching it that it couldn’t possibly have been what the studio was wanting or expecting, especially once you look at the marketing. It was made to look like an exploitative, slasher-esque horror film, but in reality Wolfen is brooding, morose and dreamlike. The titular creatures aren’t “werewolves” so much as they are predators from a higher plain of consciousness, who share a bond with Native Americans. This is made all the stranger by the fact that the setting isn’t in the country—this film is set in New York City! It follows a cop who is attempting to solve a series of wolf-related murders, before learning that things may not be nearly so black-and-white. It was noted for early adoption of the in-camera “predator vision” effect for the wolves, which was similarly used in 1987’s Predator, but in this case the effect is illustrating how a wolf’s sense of smell combines with its visual signals. In general, you’re never quite sure of the tone Wolfen is trying to evoke—sometimes it seems to be making a genuine effort at scaring you, but other times it’s more concerned with making a moral or even ecological point. The Howling remains the much better-remembered werewolf film from the same year, but every once in a while you’ll stumble upon one of those eccentric Wolfen purists who will try to make a case for this one.—Jim Vorel


17. The Wolfman (2010)Director: Joe Johnston

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In terms of both critical and audience appraisal, the 2010 remake of Universal’s The Wolf Man had a tough uphill battle ahead of it from the moment it was conceived. You could probably have changed some names and called it something other than The Wolfman, and been rewarded with at least marginally better reviews. The bottom line is that it’s a tough task to remake the most famous and iconic of werewolf movies, and even the serviceable results that we received were largely deemed middling by viewers with no opinion as to how it might have been improved. There’s room for more suspense, but there’s certainly some joy to be had in the prosthetics/makeup effects of Rick Baker, who went out of his way to emulate the iconic Jack Pierce makeup of the 1941 original as much as possible—when he wasn’t being superseded by CGI. Benicio Del Toro is fun as a somewhat strangely cast Lawrence Talbot, and Anthony Hopkins actually seems to be enjoying himself for once, but Emily Blunt’s female lead is largely wasted and Hugo Weaving’s inspector character simply comes off as an awkward creep. Perhaps this version of The Wolfman could have been a modern classic with a narrow scope and focus on slowly brooding suspense, but that was never really an option—an absurdly large $150 million budget pushed it into being the marketed as the blockbuster it should have never attempted to be. But you can still do far worse in the werewolf movie canon.—Jim Vorel


16. Curse of the Werewolf (1961)Director: Terence Fisher

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How’s this, for a method of werewolf creation: A filthy beggar trundles into a Spanish hamlet and is imprisoned by the cruel marquis. He languishes in prison for years while eyeing the jailer’s beautiful daughter, and eventually rapes her when she’s also thrown into prison. The girl becomes pregnant and eventually gives birth to a baby on Christmas Day … which is apparently an affront to God, so the child is cursed to become a werewolf. Ah, makes perfect—wait, what? Regardless of the nonsensical plot, the saving grace here is that Curse of the Werewolf is a Hammer Horror production from the studio’s classic run of revitalized monster movies, right alongside the likes of Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein, and helmed by their A-list director Terence Fisher. It certainly looks the part, with lush sets and gorgeous use of color, and plenty of those trademark Hammer “heaving bosoms.” The performances, on the other hand, are pretty uneven—Oliver Reed has good intensity as the main protagonist/werewolf, but some of the secondary characters perform with cartoonish excess, evoking the dated comedic sensibilities of Una O’Connor in Bride of Frankenstein. The werewolf costume, meanwhile, seems like a pretty deliberate throwback to Jack Pierce’s iconic Wolf Man makeup. It’s fun and stylish, but if there’s one undeniable criticism, there’s just not enough werewolf action in this one. Still, “Hammer does werewolves” makes it a necessary watch.—Jim Vorel


15. Wolfcop (2014)Director: Lowell Dean

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Wolfcop is full-on horror-comedy, but it’s delirious good fun. When an alcoholic small-town Canadian cop gets cursed and turned into a werewolf, he retains all of his human faculties—above all, a respect for the law. Using his newfound werewolf superpowers, he opposes the local cabal of reptilian shapeshifters. Yep. That’s your film. It’s one of those carefully calculated modern indie horror-comedies that was created explicitly in the hopes of someday being labeled “cult classic,” but it does its job better than most. It feels at times a bit like the neo-grindhouse aesthetic of Hobo with a Shotgun, perhaps thanks to the gore effects, although it’s nowhere near as nihilistic. More than anything, you feel a very genuine love for the utter ridiculousness of the premise. It’s a film that people clearly enjoyed the hell out of making, which makes that fun infectious to the viewer.—Jim Vorel


14. Werewolf of London (1935)Director: Stuart Walker

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Before The Wolf Man, there was Werewolf of London, which actually stands today as the oldest surviving werewolf film that you can still plop down on the couch and view via DVD. It’s interesting how few people, even horror film geeks, seem to be familiar with Werewolf of London—like The Wolf Man six years later, it’s from Universal and also features werewolf makeup (although not as complex) by the legendary Jack Pierce. It’s just not quite as memorable, although the image of a well-to-do, professorial werewolf in a smoking jacket is amusing enough that it will stick in your mind for a long time. The story concerns a botanist, searching for a rare plant, who is bitten by a werewolf. Returning to his native London, he is followed by a rival botanist/fellow werewolf who is also after the plant, which may contain the secret to curing the wolf condition. It helped to establish some of the tropes of werewolves in cinema, but watching it today it feels a bit undercooked—a stepping stone to loftier werewolf pursuits. Still, for a werewolf completist it’s mandatory viewing.—Jim Vorel


13. The Company of Wolves (1984)Director: Neil Jordan

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The Company of Wolves is among the most bewitching and oddest of werewolf movies, uneven but memorably bonkers all at once. Evoking fairy tale and Brothers Grimm sensibilities, it mostly takes place within a dream—or a dream within a dream—and visually reflects this with a sheen of creepy, gauzy otherworldliness. The fantasy world that exists within draws upon fantasy clichés of magical, haunted forests, while also infusing itself with the gothic grandeur and stateliness of Hammer horror productions. It feels at times like a high production value stage play, with somewhat unusual, campy performances, but little plot to speak of…until the moments that it explodes with gory, violent intensity. To watch only the various transformations and “wolfy” moments, you might think the film was an excessive ’80s American gore film, but whenever we move away from what might be deemed “horror scenes,” the focus is instead on lush sets, beautiful backdrops, vivid colors and a positively “painterly” mindset. It may not quite serve up the coherent story and tight plotting that a modern audience would expect, but the images of The Company of Wolves will likely stick with you for a long time.—Jim Vorel


12. Wer (2013)Director: William Brent Bell

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Wer represents one of the more creative, novel takes on the classical werewolf mythos in recent memory, and it’s a shame that the low budget (which isn’t a constraint at all) meant that few ended up seeing it. In structure, this film is an unusual mix of presentation styles, with elements of mockumentary, court procedural and found footage horror, all wrapped up into one. After a family is brutally murdered in the French countryside by an apparent animal, police arrest a local, hairy eccentric with some distinctly “wolfish” features. Our protagonist, though, isn’t a cop—she’s a lawyer representing this apparent werewolf, who she quickly begins to suspect has been framed. What follows is a film that morphs from an unusual (but effective) character study and courtroom drama into a surprisingly vicious werewolf action-horror hybrid in the second half, which is something most viewers honestly won’t see coming. The tonal shifts are weird, but they echo the transformation inherent to the werewolf himself—from lumbering, harmless man into slavering beast. I also have to give Wer points for featuring what I think has to be the only “shaved werewolf” in cinema history. I’ve already said too much—go see this genre-defying movie for yourself.—Jim Vorel


11. Silver Bullet (1985)Director: Dan Attias

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The best Stephen King adaptations have a consistency at their core, and that consistency is the palpable, warming feeling of nostalgia. Perhaps you didn’t expect us to start waxing philosophic about the warm and fuzzy feelings we’re getting from werewolf movies, but that’s how Silver Bullet will make you feel. It’s an intriguing blend of elements that simultaneously evokes the childhood coming-of-age quality you get in Stand By Me with some good old werewolf blood ‘n’ guts at the same time. Corey Haim is a unique protagonist for this sort of film in the sense that he’s paraplegic, although not nearly as immobile as you’d expect—the titular “Silver Bullet” is his totally rad motorized wheelchair/motorcycle hybrid. The structure is almost like a parody of slasher movies, which were at their peak of popularity at the time—an unknown assailant in town among a list of suspects, while various people turn up dead in increasingly gruesome fashion. The special effects are a little suspect at times—the wolf kind of looks more like a bear—but it’s the only movie I know of where you can watch a young boy shoot a werewolf’s eye out with fireworks, and you’ve gotta reward that. Plus: Don’t discount the drunken Gary Busey Bump.—Jim Vorel


10. The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)Director: Jim Cummings

Snow Hollow police officer John Marshall (Cummings) unsteadily balances Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with the travails of raising his teen daughter, Jenna (Chloe East), looking after his ailing father, Hadley (Forster), maintaining diplomatic relations with his ex, and keeping a lid on his volcanic temper. When a woman (Annie Hamilton) is torn to shreds on a weekend visit to John’s ski resort hometown, just moments before her boyfriend (Jimmy Tatro) planned to propose to her, John stretches to his limits and beyond in his pursuit of the killer, who everyone concludes with baffling swiftness is a werewolf rather than a man. His peers’ and subordinates’ stumblebum character and the ass-backwardness of Snow Hollow itself act like gasoline as is. The consensus that the town is under attack from a mythical creature is the straw that makes the vein in John’s neck go taut with anger. The Wolf of Snow Hollow lands in the space where horror and humor meet, mining laughter in mourning and custody battles. Cummings’ laughs are the sort that signal discomfort: His punchlines are razor sharp, which make the movie’s surrounding unpleasantries go down more easily. Watching a policeman get physical with anybody who sufficiently pushes his buttons induces squirms. When fellow officer Bo (Kevin Changaris) accidentally says too much about the murders in front of reporters, John calls him over to a snowbank and starts smacking the poor schmuck around, a moment that would tip over into pure darkness without the aid of a lighthearted soundtrack and the slapstick of their scuffle. Regardless, the point is made: John’s on edge, and his edge is surprisingly amusing. The wry, snappy banter gives The Wolf of Snow Hollow a prickly skin, and the restrained application of FX gives it tension. At just under 80 minutes, that economy is key. It’s not so much that the horror is elevated as controlled. But rather than clang with the innate savagery of the werewolf niche, Cummings’ command over his material gives the film a certain freshness. He tames the monster in the man so that the man is all that’s left, for better and for worse. John isn’t perfect, but an imperfect man need not be a beast.—Andy Crump


9. Bad Moon (1996)Director: Eric Red

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Presenting the most underrated film on this list, and thus the “most underrated” of werewolf movies: Bad Moon. From the premise, which revolves around a single mom and her precocious little boy living out in the woods when their werewolf uncle comes to visit, you might for a moment think that this film will be treating its subject with kiddie gloves, but man would you be mistaken. This is made clear enough within the opening minutes, which not only includes a fairly explicit sex scene but then features a camp full of people being torn limb from limb by a werewolf before its head is blown off with a shotgun. It’s a fist-pumping, Peter Jackson-esque “FUCK, YEAH!” moment that sets the tone for what is a campy, stupid but very fun feature. In some sense, the actual main character is the family’s overgrown and defensive German Shepherd, who is the only one to suss out the werewolf’s identity, pitting dog vs. wolf in a battle of wits. Featuring a whole lot of bloodletting, Bad Moon is entertaining despite (or perhaps because of) its melodramatic performances, and it also happens to feature one of the best physical werewolf suits you’ll ever see. Why the filmmakers used any of the atrocious CGI you’ll see in the transformation scene is beyond me, given how spectacular the actual suit looks. Don’t sleep on Bad Moon—it’s the best werewolf movie you’ve never heard of.—Jim Vorel


8. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)Director: Roy William Neill

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Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man was a big moment for Universal’s original series of monster movies, even if it arrives during the latter portion—the first true “monster mash” feature that begat many others in the years to follow. On one hand, it’s a somewhat garbled continuation of the increasingly confused Frankenstein series, but it focuses more tightly on its role as a sequel to The Wolf Man. Lon Chaney is back as Larry Talbot, who is revived from the dead when moonlight falls on his corpse (it’s just that easy!), and seeks to die again in a way that is a bit more permanent. He eventually hears that “permadeath” is a secret that Dr. Frankenstein can bestow, which kicks off the chain of events that leads to the Wolf Man’s iconic confrontation with Frankenstein’s Monster, here being played by Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi. It’s a film with moments of iconic Universal horror charm—such as the opening graveyard set, which is lovely to look at—but it bogs down in the middle with a lot of wasted time before finally delivering upon the fight that all the audience members wanted to see all along. It can’t stand up against the better entries in the Frankenstein series, or the original Wolf Man, but there’s no substitute for seeing two of the original monster icons go toe-to-toe. —Jim Vorel


7. Werewolves Within (2021)Director: Josh Ruben

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With the release of his feature film debut Scare Me last year, director Josh Ruben put himself on the horror-comedy map with his tale about horror writers telling scary stories. With Werewolves Within, Ruben further proves his skills as a director who knows how to walk that delicate line between horror and comedy, deftly moving between genres to create something that isn’t just scary, but genuinely hilarious. The cherry on top? This is a videogame adaptation. Werewolves Within is based on the Ubisoft game of the same name where players try to determine who is the werewolf; Mafia but with shapeshifting lycanthropes. Unlike the game, which takes place in a medieval town, Ruben’s film instead takes place in the present day in the small town of Beaverfield. Forest ranger Finn (Sam Richardson) moves to Beaverfield on assignment after a gas pipeline has been proposed to run through the town. But as the snow starts to fall and the sun sets behind the trees, something big and hairy begins hunting the townsfolk. Trapped in the local bed and breakfast, it’s up to Finn and postal worker Cecily (Milana Vayntrub) to try to find out who is picking people off one by one. But as red herrings fly across the screen like a dolphin show at the local aquarium, it feels almost impossible. Just when you think you’ve guessed the killer, something completely uproots your theories. Writer Mishna Wolff takes the core idea (a hidden werewolf in a small town where everyone knows each other), and places it in an even more outlandish and contemporary context to pack an even funnier punch. While the jokes never stop flowing in Werewolves Within, Ruben and Wolff never lose sight of the film’s horrific aspects through plenty of gore, tense scares and one hell of a climax. This film full of over-the-top characters, ridiculous hijinks and more red herrings than you can keep track of is a great entry in the woefully small werewolf subgenre.—Mary Beth McAndrews


6. Late Phases (2014)Director: Adrian Garcia Bogliano

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Late Phases is a limited but kind of brilliant take on the werewolf movie, featuring a truly outstanding performance by screenwriter-turned-actor Nick Damici (from Stake Land) as an elderly, blind Vietnam veteran who moves to a retiree community currently being menaced by a lycanthrope. After beginning with a bang, it unfolds slowly, developing the strained relationship between the protagonist and his son, the difficulties presented by his blindness and the search for the werewolf’s identity. The characterization of the embittered protagonist is very well developed, and the film shines with lots of the little things: Great sound design, great dialogue, well-cast minor roles. It even features a pretty awesome werewolf transformation scene that, if not quite in American Werewolf in London territory, is one of the best I’ve seen in quite a while. The actual werewolf costumes, it must be noted, look just a little bit ridiculous—like a man in a wolf-bat hybrid suit, and nowhere near as good as say, Dog Soldiers—but the blood effects are top-notch. It’s far above most indie horror films in terms of performances, though, and even tugs at the heartstrings a bit with some effective drama. If werewolves are your movie monster of choice, it has to vault up your must-see list.—Jim Vorel


5. The Wolf Man (1941)Director: George Waggner

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Wolf Man Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), along with Frankenstein’s Monster, represents the more sympathetic side of the Universal Monster movie canon, although some viewers would doubtlessly use the word “whiny.” Regardless, poor Larry never asked to turn into a werewolf, and he spends most of the sequels trying to figure out a way not only to be cured, but to kill himself and end his long suffering in the process. The 1941 original remains the best and most earnest film in the series—a portrait of a man who has no power over the raging beast within. It’s the film that made Chaney Jr. a household name, throwing him into the same career full of genre films as his father during the silent film era. Famed for the groundbreaking FX of its iconic transformation scene, and aided by the same top-notch makeup that Jack Pierce employed in Frankenstein, it raised the bar for horror FX and makeup substantially. Like other Universal horror films from the classic era of monster horror, it’s heavy on the atmosphere and old-fashioned spooky settings—fog-wreathed graveyards, dark forests and gothic dwellings—while taking to heart some of the lessons learned by superior Frankenstein sequels such as Bride and Son of Frankenstein. Throw it on at your next Halloween party, and you’ll see that it holds up remarkably well.—Jim Vorel


4. Dog Soldiers (2002)Director: Neil Marshall

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If someone ever asks me to venture an opinion on the best-looking practical effects/full-body werewolf suits used in a feature-length horror film, the choice of Dog Soldiers will be an easy one to make. This isn’t exactly a character-driven tale, a la American Werewolf in London, but instead an action-packed wolf yarn that pits a squad of soldiers against a rampaging family of lycanthropes in the Scottish Highlands. It borrows the basic structure of Night of the Living Dead to do so, having our group of protagonists holed up in a rickety farmhouse that is under siege by a large group of werewolves. As members of the squad are slowly picked off in increasingly grisly ways, the only question is who, if anyone, will survive. Dog Soldiers is a stylish (although sometimes a bit dark and hard to see) entry in the genre, with great pieces of action and, as previously mentioned, some really spectacular werewolf designs. I love the odd proportions they give the monsters—humanoid bodies with long, somewhat thin limbs which give the werewolves an imposing height, but heads that are straight-up wolves rather than a mixture of wolf and man. They look utterly alien, and it’s great.—Jim Vorel


3. The Howling (1981)Director: Joe Dante

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1981 happens to be the best year in the history of werewolf cinema, thanks to three films: An American Werewolf in London, The Howling and Wolfen. Of those, The Howling can’t quite compete with the macabre humor and budget of John Landis’ British werewolf classic, but it still ranks among the best lycanthrope movies of all time. The Howling is grittier and darker, but it still maintains a sort of perverted, sadistic sense of humor, as well. Its iconic transformation scenes are long, grisly and exceedingly painful looking, as is just about everything else in this movie, such as the werewolf’s face that has been splashed with corrosive acid—all of the practical effects are absolutely top-notch. It’s rife with historic werewolf movie references for the cinephiles in the audience, including obvious allusions to The Wolf Man and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, while still delivering on the pulp, gore and cheap thrills demanded by the multiplex crowd. That’s the Joe Dante Special: Smart enough to appeal to the film geeks, but silly and funny enough for the layman. It might be the most “pure” of all the modern werewolf films, with a single-minded focus on blood, guts and crowd-pleasing thrills.

P.S. The Howling’s sequels are largely terrible, but Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf is worth seeing solely for the most awkward performance of Christopher Lee’s career—not to mention some hilariously gratuitous Sybil Danning nudity.—Jim Vorel


2. Ginger Snaps (2000)Director: John Fawcett

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Ginger Snaps is a high school werewolf story, but before you go making any Twilight comparisons, let me state for the record: Where Twilight is maudlin, Ginger Snaps is vicious. A pair of death-obsessed, outsider sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, are faced with issues of maturation and sexual awakening when Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) is bitten by a werewolf. As she begins to become bolder and more animalistic in her desires, the second, meeker sister (Emily Perkins) searches for a way to reverse the damages before Ginger carves a path of destruction through their community. Reflecting the influence of Cronenberg-style body horror and especially John Landis’s American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps is a surprisingly effective horror movie and mix of drama/black comedy that brought the werewolf mythos into suburbia in the same sort of way Fright Night managed to do so with vampires. It also made a genre star of Isabelle, who has since appeared in several sequels and above-average horror flicks such as American Mary. Even if the condition of lycanthropy is an obvious parallel to the struggles of adolescence and puberty, Ginger Snaps is the one film that has taken that rich vein of source material and imbued it with the same kind of punk spirit as Heathers.—Jim Vorel


1. An American Werewolf in London (1981)Director: John Landis

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Few directors have ever displayed such an innate knack for combining dark humor and horror the way John Landis does. At the height of his powers in the early ’80s, one year removed from The Blues Brothers, Landis opted for a much grittier, scarier story that stands as what is still the best werewolf movie of all time. When two travelers backpacking across the English moors are attacked by a werewolf, one is killed and the other, David (David Naughton), is infected with the wolf’s curse. Haunted by the simultaneously unnerving and hilarious visions of his dead friend, David must decide how to come to terms with the monster he has become, even as he strikes up a relationship with a beautiful nurse (Jenny Agutter). The film lulls you into comfort with its witticism before springing shocking, gory dream sequences on the viewer, which repeatedly arrive unannounced. The key moment is the protagonist’s incredibly painful, traumatic full transformation, set to the crooning of Sam Cooke doing “Blue Moon,” which is still unsurpassed in the history of the genre. Legendary FX and monster makeup artist Rick Baker took home the first-ever Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for creating a scene that has given the canine-averse nightmares ever since.—Jim Vorel


Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident horror guru. You can follow him on Twitter for much more film writing.

 
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