Theme: Werewolves

The werewolf is a human that is able to transform into a wolf. There are various werewolves in mythology and folklore but the werewolf as we know it was created on movie screens.

This came about with Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941) starring Lon Chaney Jr. This was not the first werewolf film but it created all the essential mythology that every film since has drawn from – that the afflicted person transforms into a wolf under the full moon; that the affliction is transmitted by a bite from another wolf; and the werewolf’s fatal aversion to silver.

Universal made several sequels and there were soon a number of other werewolf films. Werewolf films from the 1950s onwards began to experiment with wacky titles, a practice begun with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957).

In the 1980s, hits like The Howling (1981) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) introduced air bladder transformation effects and we saw people transforming into wolves in real time with snouts, teeth and fur emerging in prodigious detail.

There have been a number of comedies and parodies. More recent variations have offered action and children’s movie treatments, science-fictional explanations, pitted werewolves against vampires and offered werewolf reinterpretations of Little Red Riding Hood.

A full essay on the history and development of the werewolf film can be found here at Werewolf Films.