8 Best Werewolf Movies

Recently the topic of best werewolf movies came across my desk. This shouldn’t come as a shock because I’m a werewolf enthusiast (they have those), and werewolf lists often come across my desk. 8 Hairiest Werewolves, 8 best werewolf names, 8 werewolves you wouldn’t want to take home to mom, you know what I’m talking about. So this day wasn’t all that different. But it needed to be said,  because there are 8 Werewolf movies that stand out above the rest. They are…

8. Ginger Snaps- This is a really excellent movie, and even though it’s debatable I think parts 2 and 3 are good as well. The title alone earns it a spot with it’s fun play on words. Two young sisters struggle to deal with the fact that one of them is a monster and dangerously close to causing chaos through their lives. It’s low budget and off the beaten path and excellent all the way through.

7. Teen Wolf- They can’t all be scary movies. Teen Wolf is classic and possibly Micheal J Fox’s best role. It’s way better than Spin City or Doc Hollywood, that much we can say for sure. It’s kind of stupid but in the 80’s this movie made me want to be a werewolf and my child size brain thought this is actually how it would turn out. I didn’t dream that the towns people would chase me away with torches and pitchforks (but I learned).

6. The Wolf Man- Lon Cheney style. The modern day remake of this film was great stylistically, but revealed too much  (which happens often since the film industry discovered CGI). If you don’t leave the shadows and the minimal monster shots you take too much from peoples imaginations, which are far more frightening than anything the Hollywood machine can make. Cheney’s Wolf Man didn’t forget to though. This B&W classic brought the werewolf mythos to the masses and every monster movie since owes something to it.

5. The Monster Squad- This brilliant piece of Playful Horror isn’t a straight werewolf movie. It does have a great werewolf in it, but as a whole is an even greater movie. Plays on a lot of simple stereotypes for monsters, and I can’t say I’m a fan of the wolf as some sort of subservient creature to the vampire, but where it lacks in those details it makes up with Cousin Rico.

4.Underworld- This movie shows a lot and abuses the hell out of CGI, but the atmosphere and the general design of their wolves, along with the story idea is really really good. The wolves though, some of the best ever created. Take their awesome effects and appearance and lay it in with that cool blue on black atmosphere and even with Cell Generation Images they are bad ass.

3. The Howling- It was a tough decision to place this movie at number three. It is almost, and might be, the best werewolf movie ever made. It couldn’t be left out of any conversation about werewolf movies, and its a cult classic just in the horror genre. The wolves themselves are awesome, especially for the time in which they were made. I’m also a fan of the Howling 3, even though it’s story and some of the effects are lackluster, the idea of a Tazmanian Wolf is frightening. But these 7 foot monstrosities tower over almost everything else and deserve every bit of attention they’ve garnered over the years.

2. Silver Bullet- Stephen King’s novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, is good. It’s short and has pictures and conveniently has full moons falling on every major holiday, but the movie adaptation that really goes off in it’s own direction is a masterpiece of horror. The bottle rocket scene with Marty and the Wolf on the bridge is one of the most frightening scenes from any movie created by man. The 70’s-80’s feel of the movie and the characters in it has a new haunting feel today that it probably lacked during it’s release. By far one of the best Werewolf Movies of all time.

1. Dog Soldiers- it’s not that old of a movie, and during a time when horror movies were on a decline and taking the cheap way out this shining beacon of terror came to us. A brilliant story with an amazing cast, and werewolves as good as any ever made. Costume werewolves at that, with out the computer generated effects of Underworld these wolves terrorize the screen with their massive size in a chaotic battle with a military squad on a training mission. I can imagine this one keeping kids up at night.

 

Well, there you have it. The eightest and greatest Werewolf Movies ever made. Some of them near the top may need some reshuffling, and maybe Ginger Snaps 2 or Wax Work deserved a spot, but this is what we have. The Howling will live on forever, and hopefully future generations will give Dog Soldiers the same respect, and help secure it’s spot not just in Werewolf Movie history, but horror movie as well. Next week we’ll do it again, same bat time same bat channel.

Feel free to comment below or @werewolforigin on twitter

 

 

About Eric bookout

Writer/Artist for X amount of years. Recently worked with people from IGN on a comic and studied writing under Victor Gischler of Marvel Comics at RSU in Oklahoma more X amount of years ago. Follow me @WerewolfOrigin on twitter
Bookmark the permalink.

2 Comments

  1. American werewolf movies would be nudged out, but I see in London being #9

  2. My favorite werewolf movie is American Werewolf in Paris. Don’t judge me!

    Ginger Snaps is pretty good, I will admit. I was a little surprised with it and that was in a good way. The second one in the timeline kind of sucks, but only because the first one was so surprisingly good. And the prequel thing was okay. I need to go back and watch it when I’m not falling asleep.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.