On May 8th, the fourth film in the pleather-clad monster mash series Underworld will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray. It is called Underworld: Awakening, and it teaches us that the battle between the underground vampire army and their hoary werewolf rivals (called “lycans”) is an eternal struggle for dominance. Never mind that there are also half-vampire-half-werewolf beings in this universe. And why would any werewolf want to kill the lithe and beautiful Kate Beckinsale while she’s wearing a fetching skintight vinyl catsuit?
Thinking up the best vampire movies is an easy task, as bloodsuckers have been given their fair share of screentime. Vampires have been cast as anything from diseased monsters, dangerous vermin, dashing Byronic royalty, angsty Goth navel-gazers, stumbling children, cool punkers, and, to the most recent generation, sparking romantic poets with killer abs. Sub-categorizing vampires is a no-brainer. Werewolves, by contrast, have been given short shrift at the movies. True, there are hundreds of werewolf movies throughout film history (indeed, there’s are a few dandy websites devoted entirely to the topic, but there aren’t as many truly great and universally recognized werewolf movies as there are great and universally recognized vampire movies. Werewolves are also often the same type of monster from film to film. They’re never seen as stumbling children, or as European royalty. And they’re so rarely cool.
Well, to rectify that, I have rifled through my mental Rolodex (if anyone still remembers what a Rolodex is), and come up with ten of the coolest werewolves in film history. These are not necessarily scary monsters. These are not necessarily badass killing machines (although there are plenty of those). These are just the werewolves that you’d want to hang out with, provided they wouldn’t bit you.
Full Disclosure: This article was sponsored by Screen Gems.
Top 10 Badass Werewolves in Film
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10. Scott Howard, from Teen Wolf (1985)
As a teenager, Scott Howard (Michael J. Fox) learned that he is the latest in a long line of werewolves. He has recently started turning into a wolf man every full moon, or whenever he gets excited. He doesn't turn into a snarling killer beast, but his does grow hair all over his body, and becomes lithe and fast. What Teen Wolf did back in the 1980s was turn bland a sitcom teen drama about puberty and sexuality into a playful monster flick. Scott's lycanthropy is what makes him a man. It's also what makes him a better basketball player, and also, eerily enough, makes him a better lover. It seems to me that going to high school with a square like Scott, only to learn that he is a werewolf would make him all the more fun to hang out with. It would be like learning that a classmate was secretly a movie star, only writ larger, and more awesome, 'cause he's a werewolf.
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9. Vivian, from Blood and Chocolate (2007)
Teen angst is nothing new to the world of vampires, so why not let a werewolf have a turn? While the world was busy drooling wildly all over the Twilight franchise, I was quietly remembering a 2007 film that was nearly identical called Blood and Chocolate. The moody film followed a teenage werewolf named Vivian (played by Agnes Bruckner) who became intensely romantically entangled with a perfectly handsome human (the dashing Hugh Dancy). The film was less about the mechanics of her teeth-and-fangs thing, and was more about her angst in keeping her werewolfy secret, and romancing the boy of her dreams. The entire cast was moody, and they all looked great. What's more, they all had pseudo-mythic foreign names like Ulf and Rafe and Gregor. If you're a Twilight fan (and surely there are one or two of you reading this) then check out Vivian. You liked her before she was cool.
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8. The Nameless Werewolves, from Dog Soldiers (2002)
Neil Marshall's recent cult classic is essentially a monster-fied take on the reliable old Rio Bravo mold. You put a group of characters in a small place, and have a group of bad guys beset them from outside, and you've got yourself a reliable B-movie. In the case of Dog Soldiers, a group of Scottish military trainees are performing a specialty exercise in the Scottish wilderness when they find themselves being attacked by some wicked-looking werewolves. They must flee to a small cabin, where the bulk of the film's action takes place, and fend off the monster threat. True, these werewolves seem to be just the usual forest-dwelling monsters you've seen in countless werewolf films before, but there's something lightning quick and bold about their playful killing of the Scottish military. Think about that. Here are werewolves that can actually kill angry Scots with guns. That's no small feat.
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7. Someone Whom I Won't Name, from Trick 'r Treat (2007)
WARNING. CONTAINS SPOILERS.
The 2007 anthology film Trick 'r Treat is a playfully gory horror film that resembles old EC comics in many ways, and features decapitations, stabbings, ghosts, a being that may be an alien, and, for good measure, a coven of sexy werewolf women. That there are werewolves is kind of a surprise, as the werewolf short (the one featuring Anna Paquin) seems to indicate that the teenage girls involved are just the usual horny horror movie teens who are, according to convention, ripe for victimhood. It will turn out, later in the film, that these gals are not merely out to shag boys, but to strip off their rubbery human skin, and eat of human flesh. These are laidback, sexy gals who love Halloween, like to dress in costumes, and wanna shag. I want to hang out with them.
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6. Helen, from Werewolves on Wheels (1971)
An oddity that was recently unearthed for DVD release, Werewolves on Wheels has one of those titles that tells you all you need to know about the movie. Biker werewolves. Badass, right? It's surprising to think that it took as long as it did to get something like this made. The story is about a cadre of biker badasses who break up the Satanic rites of a local Satanic monastery. The head biker's Old Lady, though, ends up getting cursed by the Satanists, and turns into a werewolf. The film is sloppier than the one you're imagining, but is still perfect for those late Friday nights when you're unwinding with a beer. What's more, Helen is a pretty sexy lady. Look at the box cover, and you can already add a point in the werewolf column.
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5. Ginger, from Ginger Snaps (2000)
Ginger Snaps is a pretty cool horror film, mostly because it really nails teenage sexual dynamics so well. The teen girls at the center of the film, Ginger and Brigitte (Katherine Isabelle and Emily Perkins) are best friend Goth outsider sisters who spend their free time staging gory death photos. They keep gallons of red Karo syrup in their shared bedroom, and have a grand time badmouthing the Normals and shunning the romantic passes of boys. One night, Ginger is attacked by a werewolf (!), and, over the course of the next few weeks, begins to become a werewolf herself. What's more, her werewolfism has turned her from a broody loner into a flirty seductress, much to the chagrin of her younger sister. Ginger Snaps is clearly a metaphor for puberty, but it also gets its characters just right. Ginger is actually a pretty cool kid, even if she is developing a taste for human flesh.
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4. The Wolfman and the Wolfman, from Transylvania 6-5000 (1985) & The Monster Squad (1987)- (tie)
Monster mash spoofs are pretty common, and, I must admit, I kinda like all of them. Well, most of them. Saturday the 14th is pretty lame. But the two best of the genre are the widely adored The Monster Squad, and the slightly more obscure Transylvania 6-5000. The former is about a group of kids who have to team up to stop Count Dracula from ruling the world. In Dracula's retinue is a rather cool-looking Wolf Man, modeled after the 1941 film, but more angular and agile. Well, not too agile. He is subdued by a notorious kick in the nards. Many consider The Monster Squad to be a classic. The latter is a hilariously quirky film about a pair of reporters (Ed Begley Jr. and Jeff Goldblum) who are investigating the appearance of several monsters in Transylvania. The tone of the film is less horror and more an episode of The Addams Family. At the end of the film, we learn that the Wolf Man in question is a regular guy who just needs to lose his magical wolf hair. He seems like a laidback fellow.
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3. Stirba, from Howling II: …Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)
Stirba, as played by the immortal and perpetually topless Sybil Danning (well, she's perpetually topless in my mind), is the queen of a secret werewolf pack living in the mountains of Transylvania. But she is no stuff matron, or decrepit old witch. No, she is a prowling, ultra-sexual superbabe with oversized sunglasses, and an angular outfit that would make Grace Jones jealous. She is interested in creepy ancient rituals (she is able to shunt her soul from one body to another), but augments the ancient rituals with gust rock bands, and hairy, enthused werewolf threesomes. Lon Cheney may have taught us that being a Wolf Man was a curse, but if there's topless Sybil Danning, awesome underground Transylvanian rock 'n' roll, and numerous ritualistic threesomes, then I'm eager to volunteer.
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2. The She-Wolves of Mexico, from Santo vs. Las Lobas (1976)
The luchador superstar Santo starred in over 30 feature films, and was often seen wrestling famous supernatural monsters. He fought mummies, he fought Dracula, he fought a banshee, and he wrestled Frankenstein's monster. In some films, he would team up with Blue Demon, and fight combinations of these monsters, occasionally facing off against all of them at once. There is a grand folk hero purity to luchador films, that any lover of camp can get behind. In this little-seen late-entry oddity, Santo faces off against a coven of evil werewolf women who have been prowling the plains of Mexico. While most of Santo's films were playful and o.k. for kids, this one was particularly violent, and features way more comely hot Mexican actresses than any of the previous installments; miles of cleavage are on display. Yeah, it's hard to find, but it will render up untold rewards for the lover of werewolves and of B-movies.
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Michael Jackson, from "Thriller" (1983)
Okay, technically this was a music video, and not a feature film, but it was directed by a film director (who had already made one of the most highly-regarded werewolf movies in history with An American Werewolf in London), and the extended 13-minute video plays like a feature film, so I think it ought to count. Plus, to ignore it would be to dismiss the coolest werewolf of them all: Michael Jackson. I think every child of a certain generation can remember the truly terrifying experience of watching what can be argued to be the greatest music video of all time, and I recall personally, at about age 7, the experience of watching Michael Jackson sprout whiskers and turn into a beast man before my very eyes. Here was a pop music icon painfully and monstrously transforming in front of his terrified date, played by Ola Ray (hilariously credited as “Michael's Girl”). If you haven't seen the video, it waits for you. Don't make it mad.
