It’s that time of year again – arguably the best season of all! A time of longer nights and shorter days. A season fraught with nightmarish landscapes! Skeletons hang silently from banisters like cadavers strung over a hangman’s gallows, neighboring lawns – the same ones we pass day in and out – become overnight graveyards, masked ghouls take to the streets seeking treats, and inhuman voices howl at autumn moons. The season of horror and the hour of monsters is again upon us.
Horror fans don’t have to wait a whole year to indulge in the inner beasts that drive us, but this time of year makes it much more fun to embrace all things macabre. With Halloween approaching, I’ve decided to continue my tradition of focusing on a specific legendary monster. This year, my fangs are bare and I’m going for the jugular with Universal Monster’s Wolf Man.
The film stands as an early example of body horror, showcasing our protagonist’s human form abandoning its natural grace and becoming grotesquely animalistic. Bones break and rearrange, skin tears and fur grows, nails curl blackly into sharpened talons and teeth sprout from a beastly maul hungry for human blood. Human anatomy is mutilated until a man becomes an accursed beast trapped under the gossamer shine of a haunting moon. Such is the horrid fate of the werewolf as we know it today. And nearly all of our knowledge concerning werewolf lore draws from the imaginative concepts introduced in this classic horror spectacle.
The movie takes its viewers on a dangerous journey across haunted moors and a gypsy camp where old magic still rules the night and locks all under a gloom of superstition and existential dread. This distant land of mysticism is shared by resplendent mansions and modern conveniences, which, intentional or not, leaves us a message – the modern day of science and progression is not protected from the old curses of a much more powerful world still lingering on the outskirts of society. The moors hold their secrets and the practitioners of the old ways know more than modern mankind when it comes to safeguarding against primordial haunts and horrors. This lesson our protagonist, Larry Talbot (played by horror royalty Lon Chaney Jr.) all too soon falls prey to.
We’re entering the violent world of the Wolf Man and only a silver bullet can protect you from that haunter of night. Lock yourself behind an iron gate and say your prayers he’s not picked up your scent.
“Even a man who’s pure at heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” – The Wolf Man
The plot is one of pathos. Much like the other demons of Universal Studios’ House of Horrors, this monster is another lamentation of lost innocence. Larry Talbot has reluctantly returned home to his father’s house (here played by acclaimed actor Claude Raines who starred in The Invisible Man and later Phantom of the Opera) and it’s not long before Larry’s struck by otherworldly powers.
In many cases, victims in horror movies often get exactly what they’re looking for. A puzzle box that opens the labyrinths of Hell, an Ouija board, calling out the Candyman’s name five times, or simply exploring a house said to be haunted are all examples of how curiosity can lead to dire consequences and make for some really good scares. However, this is not the case with the Wolf Man. He neither went seeking to become a wolf nor was he even the intended victim of the werewolf’s bloodlust.
Larry brings Hell down upon himself by simply being a good Samaritan. Hearing the distressed cries of a woman being attacked in the woods Larry rushes out to help only to find she’s being attacked by a wolf. With no thought to caution, Larry throws himself between the beast and its prey and quickly becomes the new object of its rage.
Unbeknownst to Larry this isn’t a mere wolf which would’ve been bad enough. No, this was a werewolf. Larry wins the fight and kills the beast but doesn’t walk away as a victor. He’s been bitten and we all know good and well what that means for poor Larry.
His selfless act of valor ends up cursing him to the beast’s possession. A murderous rage soon takes over his mind, eating away at his senses and sending him out into the night to hunt down and kill all whom he holds dear. It’s a story of sublime pathos if ever there was one and that’s the silent genius of the movie’s timeless strength.
This ingenious concept – that still holds up in every werewolf movie to come out after Universal’s feral classic I might add – is all due to the insight of one man – the movie’s screenwriter, Curt Siodmak. Of course, werewolf lore existed before the movie’s release and this wasn’t even the first werewolf movie out at the time. Werewolf of London had already come and gone but ultimately didn’t enjoy the success Wolf Man managed. This is due to the personal touch of sadness Siodmak put into his screenplay.
Siodmak’s youth was ravaged by sudden tragedy as his home was overtaken by men and women who turned hostile and monstrous against him and his own kind as if overnight. Being Jewish Siodmak saw his neighbors and acquaintances transform and give in to bestial instincts. Jewish people were forced to identify with a star, a symbol that later on would mark them for death. It’s no wonder then that in his screenplay the Wolf Man can see a pentagram star appear on the palm of his victim’s hand, a sure mark of death for the innocent and unsuspecting victim.
This harrowing environment stayed with Siodmak well after his family fled Germany and elements of it settled into his imagination and went on to create one of the most enduring movie monsters of all time. So powerful was Siodmak’s vision that Wolf Man DNA can be seen in every werewolf movie to follow. Before Wolf Man people turned into a werewolf by eating a poisonous plant or by magic herbs. But now all of a sudden a man bitten by a werewolf (and lived) would join the demons of the night in a rampage of grotesquely.
Wolf Man also introduced the idea that silver is lethal to werewolves, as well as the concept of transformation during a full moon. These elements contributed to the foundation of many iconic and cult werewolf films, including Silver Bullet, The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, and Ginger Snaps. All of these “wolfy” favorites draw on the concepts established in this classic Universal horror film.
In short, what Bram Stoker did for vampires and George Romero did for zombies Siodmak did for werewolves. Ask anyone: how do you kill a werewolf and they’ll tell you a silver bullet. Same goes for how we all know a werewolf transforms on full moons. These monster facts are rooted securely in our cultural zeitgeist and that’s something very, very hard to pull off. And so we salute Siodmak, a man not very well known among horror fans, but, maybe that can change, because had it not been for his imagination and insight we would’ve been robbed of one of the most enduring movie monsters to ever go tearing across the screen.
Is Universal’s Wolf Man a perfect film? Hell no, of course not and I’m not gonna pretend it is otherwise. But it serves perfectly on my annual Halloween watchlist. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective. Its moody atmosphere and eerie imagery are all perfectly Halloweeny and if you’ve never seen it you’re missing out on one of horror’s essential foundations that set the criteria for the genre.
Remakes of the Wolf
Wolf Man (2010)
I honestly don’t hate the 2010 remake. I saw it at the theater back when it came out. I also just ordered the Scream Factory special edition release. I think it’s a good retelling of the familiar classic with some decent (honestly gotta say shocking) gore. I also like how the Wolf Man looks proving once again that Rick Baker (American Werewolf in London) is the monster maker. It’s an updated vision of what Jack Pierce came up with all those years ago and I love it.
The one glaring fault with the movie is its unnecessary use of CGI. Because the studio had the genius of Rick Baker behind the project there’s no excuse for not letting him be in charge of the werewolf transformation scenes. Compare those scenes to what Baker did with AAWIL and you’ll see what I mean.
Overall does the remake deserve the hate it got? No. I mean comparing the look of its werewolf to that stupid shit Blumhouse is trying to push and yeah. Superior!
The story closely follows the original film with a few new twists and surprise elements to keep it fresh. Honestly, I say give it a chance.
Wolf (1994)
This is a weird one and shocking that it even exists. It’s not a bad movie but it’s just a bit odd. It’s a modern retelling of the Wolf Man and was inspired by the striking success of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The ‘90s wanted to restore the audience’s love for classic horror icons with new erotic romance, updated effects, and blood. Woo hoo!
Well, Wolf might strike some (probably most) viewers as a boring journey seeing as how there is no wild transformation scene. Not on the lever of AAIL or The Howling. You also won’t get a full-body werewolf costume like you do in Silver Bullet. Our lead protagonist slowly does turn more wolf-like and will fully become a beast by the end of the movie but it’s nothing at all like what people expect to see.
This time our lead is played by Jack Nicholson (The Shining, Batman), and is no stranger to horror roles or larger-than-life parts. He’s a perfect casting choice to play the role of Larry Talbot but the filmmaker chose to hold back. There’s no amazing monster makeup and Nicholson’s roles in The Shining and The Joker are way more memorable. That’s not to say there’s no monster effects. There are they’re just, well, have a look. They look fine.
Wolf came out during that weird time in the ‘90s when Hollywood didn’t want to make ‘horror’ films and preferred the term thrillers. Because of this attitude, the movie really feels like a monster movie that’s scared of being associated with being a monster movie. So it misses the point. All that said I do weirdly like it. I mean honestly, I’ve not seen it since I was a teen and I liked it back then. If I rewatched it now all these years later that all could possibly change.
Personally, I’d recommend just watching any other werewolf flick. That or the 2010 remake. If you’ve never seen the original movie I say go give it a watch because I’m a whore for Universal Monsters and have to watch them every year around this time.
Further Recommendations: Sequels
I’d also strongly recommend the Wolf Man’s sequel, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. One of the first times horror icons met up in a fatal fight to the death as the man made of cadavers and the man cursed by the moon are locked in battle. It’s also the earliest example of a shared universe way before Marvel ever acted like they started that shit.
And, if you’re like me and have seen all these movies a dozen times over and still need a lycan fix, I just discovered a novel officially released by Universal Monsters that’s a sequel to the Wolf Man. It’s called Return of the Wolf Man and the book opens up right away with our hairy beast promptly fighting Dracula! Not only that but the Frankenstein Monster shows up and already this is proving to be a wild monster mash well worth the price I paid for it.
Yeah, so about that, it’s sad to say this thing can be pricy as all fuck. I paid $40 at Half Price Books for my (used paperback) copy but a copy on Amazon (last I looked) is going for over a hundred big ones. So yeah… If you happen to chance across this book at a used store or the library I say pick it up.
So that’s it, my nasties. Hope you all enjoyed our little journey into the night to discuss werewolves. You all have a Happy Halloween and watch out when you go out after sunset. If you hear something howling in the dark run as fast as you can. You might get away with your life.
