The Best Lycanthrope Movies (2020): Movie Monsters

By Steve Hutchison

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite lycanthrope movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870699

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

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Tales of Terror’s

Movie Monsters 2020

The Best LYCANTHROPE Movies

INTRODUCTION

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite lycanthrope movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

#1

An American Werewolf in London

1981

The survivor of a wolf attack fears he might be cursed by lycanthropy.

8/8

Werewolf movies are often horrifying because the enemy is the curse; not just the beast. This film does it better than most, but transformation is what it does better than all. It features the greatest effects money and grey matter can buy. The werewolf animatronics and the other practical effects used for metamorphosis are pure genius. It’s raw, real, hairy, and it looks as painful as it should.

A few dream sequences, irrelevant and inconsequential, come out as indulgent. Otherwise, the script is clever and well-paced. There is a mind-shattering subplot dealing with ghosts. It implies that the werewolf’s dark fate involves being forever haunted by the spirits of his or her victims. This kind of writing adds depth to a mythology merely alluded to in previous film history, and it’s scary.

The vocal soundtrack is excellent; carefully selected and with lunar references as lyrics, and spices up the omnipresent tongue in cheek humor. The great acting and the intimate shooting locations work hand in hand in delivering a thick ambiance that feels familiar, comfortable, romantic, next door. Everything comes together in creating one of the spookiest werewolf movies out there.

#2

Late Phases

2014

A veteran moves into a retirement community and is attacked by a werewolf.

7/8

For a werewolf movie to succeed, two criteria must be met. First, the beast itself must be photorealistic. Second, the transformation(s) must be explicit. Most werewolf films neglect these elements and perhaps shouldn’t exist in the first place. Here, ten minutes in, we see our first werewolf. It starts with a silhouette through the curtains and it soon escalates into a full-blown attack.

The most peculiar aspect of Late Phases is that the second act takes place between two full moons, which creates a big gap where our beloved veteran works out and gears up, being the only character in the whole movie remotely aware of what’s going on, for some reason. It’s refreshing to see such an imperfect protagonist face his weaknesses with such determination.

He’s blind, he’s old, he’s an asshole, but he has acute senses and he can use a gun and a shovel like no one can. You know how just about almost every lycanthrope movie has left you insatiate in the past? Well, be patient and give this one a chance. It will satisfy you beyond your wildest dreams. It is worth the wait. The protagonists are colorful and time with them is time well spent.

#3

Bad Moon

1996

A lycanthrope struggles to hide his curse from his sister and nephew.

7/8

Filmmakers should take notes. This is how it’s done. If screenwriters want to please fans of werewolf films, then they have to write lengthy scenes where the beast is exposed and interacts with its victims. Directors, consequently, must use proper lighting, be assisted by a strong team of practical effects artists and, preferably, excellent puppeteers. That transformation, though, it looks bad...

The novel this is based on was told from the perspective of a family’s dog, which is reflected to a reasonable extent in the movie. Michael Paré plays the werewolf. Because he’s cursed and not deliberately evil, we consider him one of the protagonists for a while, knowing full well that he’s the bad guy, which