The Werewolf (1956)Ī film for fans of Dog Soldiers (2002), Paul Hyett’s Howl (2015) could crudely be described as ‘werewolves on a train,’ but it is far more than that brief synopsis suggests. With that in mind, here are 5 lesser-known werewolf films to watch on Halloween that illustrate the monster’s metaphorical potential, all of them great choices for a Halloween that falls on the night of a full moon. While I can’t disagree that werewolf movies are often prohibitively expensive to make, my book is designed to take issue with that second point – and illustrate that werewolves, like vampires or zombies, have always been multifaceted monsters that have evolved in step with social, cultural and political developments. There is a prevailing idea that the werewolf is thematically limiting, something of a one-note monster that solely functions as a manifestation of the ‘beast within’ (or the id run rampant). Werewolves are notoriously difficult to realise on the screen horror fans raised on The Howling (1981) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) expect to see expensive practical effects and complex transformation scenes that are often out of reach for productions with lower budgets (and, of course, there is no horror fan with a keener eye for poor CGI than one with a taste for werewolf movies). There are a few reasons for this, some of them purely industrial. Vampires and zombies are the subjects of far more films and, as a consequence, a much larger body of academic work. But another was that – if you’ll excuse an awful pun – werewolves in cinema have long been underdogs, never celebrated in the same way as their bloodsucking (or even brain-eating) brethren. I wanted to write Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Filmfor many reasons, the first being a lifelong love of werewolf fiction. With Halloween approaching and a full moon appearing on the same day, it seems fitting that Craig Ian Mann discusses his pick of 5 lesser-known werewolf films to watch on Halloween.

Cycle of the werewolf movie