Werewolves are often talked about by horror fans as getting the bad side of the coin when it comes to classic movie monsters. Often they aren’t taken as seriously as vampires, zombies, or even Frankenstein. There are far fewer major motion pictures that tackle werewolves as the main villain or protagonists than any of these other creatures.
That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a huge shift in what the werewolf is and how it can be used in cinema over the decades. From comedies to horrors, and from treating werewolves as something to be feared to something that can be a great force of good, films have constantly changed the perception of werewolves and what they are.
7 Teen Wolf (1985)
Michael J Fox managed to put an irreversible stamp on the 1980s across much of cinema. One of his more surprising films was Teen Wolf, which set him as a teenager who couldn’t achieve any of the things he really wanted. Teen Wolf was one of the first times that becoming a werewolf was seen as cool, or a positive thing.
His newfound powers enabled Scott to impress the girl he liked and become the key player for his school’s basketball team. But he eventually realized he didn’t need these powers to have everything that he’d always wanted and gave up using them. Being a comedy and hardly focusing on the dangerous wolf aspect at all, Teen Wolf was a revolutionary film for the werewolf sub-genre.
6 Werewolf Of London (1935)
It is strange to think that such an early version of a werewolf in cinema could have switched things up so thoroughly. Indeed, Werewolf Of London came out even before The Wolf Man, or most of the other films that set standard werewolf practices. But this film wasn’t afraid to do some strange things, such as having the titular Dr. Glendon perform scientific experiments while he was a werewolf.
The unusual step of not having Glendon lose his sense of self during the transformation is reminiscent of how many creatures that transform have changed over time, but it was unheard of at the time and was an especially strange piece of viewing for fans of the genre.
5 Wer (2013)
Imagine as a defense attorney that one has been assigned to defend a client that supposedly slaughtered a family out in the wilderness. Then imagine finding out that the client is a werewolf. This was the situation for Kate Moore in Wer, an especially unusual film that decided to tackle the sub-genre from a completely different angle.
The slow-burn discovery of how werewolves work in this world, while one of the defense team is slowly transformed himself, made for an interesting story. It also felt and took the form of something completely different from where the werewolf mythos had gone before.
4 Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)
Another classic entry, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man was one of the early quintessential entries in the Universal Monsters franchise. It featured the Wolf Man, Larry Talbot, being brought back to life by the light of the full moon years after the events of The Wolf Man. This was a major shift from anything seen before or since about werewolves and led to the intriguing story that followed.
The main focus of the film is Talbot seeking out Dr. Frankenstein to learn how to permanently die, so he can stop killing. This was a major point that has come and gone for werewolves over the years, the theme of repentance for their uncontrollable crimes was a significant change to anything known about the remorseless creatures up to that point.
3 Werewolves Within (2021)
Werewolves Within was a completely off-the-wall change of pace for werewolves. Firstly, the werewolf wasn’t known to actually exist until the dying moments of the film, which mostly dealt with paranoia among the people living in a small town as they begin to believe murders being committed around the town are the work of a beast.
This film was a hilarious shift in the mythos of werewolves, and the remorseless killer who was fully aware of their actions, in the end, proved to be an excellent solution to the whodunit puzzle this presented.
2 Dog Soldiers (2002)
Dog Soldiers is one of the most well-hidden gems in the werewolf genre. A British film that pits special operatives against several werewolves in the remote Scottish Highlands. A serious film that had a fair share of quirks, some fans have described this as the Predator of werewolf movies.
This changed werewolves into dangerous creatures that the government wanted to explore, but the unit sent in was only a diversion and was considered expendable. The tribe of werewolves was an interesting shift away from the lone wolf way they were usually presented in cinema.
1 An American Werewolf In London (1981)
Considered one of the definitive cinematic works on the subject, An American Werewolf In London dealt with David, who was attacked by a werewolf and transformed into one, being haunted by his dead friend and the victims he has killed since transforming.
Constantly these ghosts try to convince David to kill himself, but he is led further down the path of disaster by a completely new concept for a werewolf. Cowardice. This was a hugely defining moment for the sub-genre and a great example of what a werewolf film can achieve with the right story and version of the mythos.