The Wolfman Returneth : Essential Werewolf Movies
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Every so often there's a movie that creates a huge sensation at the time of its release, and yet somehow doesn't quite enter the popular consciousness and is lost on future generations. "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" was a huge financial success when it came out, and sparked off a whole sub-genre of werewolf movies which continues even to this day (see my article They Were All Teenage Werewolves!). It's somewhat hard to track down, but more than worthwhile if you're interested in this genre. This movie was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. To me it seemed a bit unfair of them to put it on the same level as some of the other movies they mock, but any publicity is good publicity I suppose ... |
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Oliver Reed is almost up there with Lon Chaney Jr in the pantheon of movie werewolves, and here is the reason why. "Curse of the Werewolf" was the only werewolf movie that Hammer put out, as unlike their 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' series it didn't manage to spark off a franchise. Never mind, we'll just have to do make do with what we've got, and this stand-alone movie isn't half bad. Rather than relying on an original concept as Universal had done, the screenwriter here instead decided to adapt Guy Endore's novel "The Werewolf of Paris" into a movie screenplay, with generally very successful results. This wasn't available on DVD for quite some time, but it was quite recently released so you now have no excuse for not having seen it. |
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This wouldn't be much of an essential list if it didn't have at least one Waldemar Daninsky movie on it. Paul Naschy was a spanish bodybuilder with a passion for classic horror movies, most noteably for Lon Chaney Jr's "Wolf Man" series. He loved it so much that he decided to create his own saga of werewolf movies, focusing on the cursed nobleman Waldemar Daninsky. I chose this one because it is the most well-known (the English title is "The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman"), and at the time of its release it developed something of an international cult following. The saga is comprised of over a dozen movies. For more information on this series, check out my article on The Waldemar Daninsky Saga. |
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A werewolf mystery put out by Amicus Studios, one of several movie studios influenced by Hammer and who attempted to emulate their widespread success. Despite its modern setting it more or less feels like a Hammer movie (helped by the presence of Peter Cushing), and it has a very original concept. A wealthy man invites a group of strangers to stay at his home, and there he reveals that one of them is in fact a werewolf. He's narrowed it down to this small group, and nobody is leaving until the beast is revealed. There's even a 'werewolf break' in order to allow the viewer to guess who the werewolf is. It's not a great movie by any means, but it is an interesting idea and very entertaining for the most part. |
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Whether or not this is essential viewing is debatable, especially since at the time of writing it's somewhat hard to come by thanks to the lack of a proper DVD release. Basically this is the closest we have to a second Hammer werewolf film. It was written by the same screenwriter who wrote "Curse of the Werewolf", and based on the very same novel. It has Peter Cushing as a forensics expert and it is more or less of the quality that you'd expect of Hammer, for the most part at least. It's a good movie in its own right, and if you can get hold of a copy then it's definitely worth seeing. The sooner somebody gets their act together and puts it out on DVD, the better. |