Best Horror Movies

I’ve seen a lot of werewolf movies. In fact, I’ve probably seen all of them with a few exceptions of the really old ones like Laurel and Hardy Meet the Wolfman. From the reviews, I put seeing this one off, but I was actually surprised.

If you’re looking for an in depth plot skip this. In fact, skip any werewolf movie. As much as I love them, very few are strong in the plot department.

Many werewolf movies come in 3 basic flavors. There’s the “monster among us” where the creature has to be found out. The “stranded on a snowbound hill” which is a favorite from zombies to The Alien where a group of people are stuck somewhere they can’t escape. Of course there’s always something trying to kill them, and then there’s the chase.

Skinwalkers followed the chase formula.

Pros: It kept a decent pace, and I didn’t think it was boring. They kept the chase going and since that was basically all the movie was, the action rolled pretty well. A great deal of it was shooting at each other with mundane guns and trying to stay a step ahead rather than running from werewolves under the full moon. It did keep things moving.

The acting was passable. It’s not going to win any awards, but some of these movies make you want to poke your own ears out so you don’t have to listen to the horrible acting. This wasn’t one of those.

I found it entertaining as long as you take it for what it is.

Cons: Formula plot. It had the usual violence for a horror movie, a traditional dash of sex for no apparent reason, and overall followed a very predictable path. Violence was mild for a horror movie because it was mundane – snapped necks, gunshots, werewolf crunchies and knives. There have been plenty of horror movies which came up with ways to torture and kill people to make the skin crawl. This one wasn’t any worse than your average war movie with the exception of the occasional werewolf eating someone in the dark. We were at least spared the rubber guts you see frequently in B grade werewolf movies.

Special effects were fairly pitiful. The make up wasn’t all that far beyond the 50′s and Lon Chaney Jr. They had some chest plates and a little bit more bone structure and hair, but really … haven’t we come far enough to put a muzzle on our werewolves so they can bite properly? The human mouth, no matter how many fangs you put into it, just doesn’t open far enough to rip out a throat. Leave the fangs to the vampires so they can slurp on the victims since they’re made for it. Even some of the worst B grade cheese has managed to pull off a more “wolfy” werewolf.

If you’re looking for some entertainment which happens to have some fur, a lot of chasing and action scenes then give it a try. If you’re looking for hard core plot, FX, and character development then this probably isn’t for you.

I’ve seen better werewolf movies, but I’ve also certainly seen a lot worse.

Wolf has a movie of the week quality to it. The characters are very one demensional and to say Jack’s immense talents were woefully under used in WOLF is the kind of understatement to boggle the minds of sick and sane alike. That said Wolf is an enjoyable movie, with way too little werewolf action for my heart. The werewolf scenes were all too breif. The lighting was so bad in Wolf because, better lighting would have revealed the dime store special effects and prostetics used in the filming.

Jack makes this movie work because, he is convincing as a lycanthrope. There is something that creeps you out about Jack being a werewolf that he invests in the character just enough to make you buy in to the paper thin plot of WOLF! I won’t lie. I enjoyed WOLF immensely which is why I gave it 4 stars. I know many of my Lycanthope loving purest’s pan the movie for being so average and in some ways sub-par and I hear you brothers and sisters but. I have seen some far worse werewolf movies than this one. Wolves of Wall Street leaps right to mind for one of the worst werewolf films.

WOLF is not bad. WOLF was so refreshing because it protrayed a werewolf as a force of good for once and that earned it four stars from my amazon.com den. Wolf keeps the Werewolf genre’ alive and does so with more class than most these days. I added WOLF to my growing werewolf collection a long time ago and never regretted it for a moment.

The Wolf Man (1941) was Hollywood’s first breakthrough in theatrical make-up dealing with latex appliances and tremendous amounts of hair. Legendary make-up artist Jack Pierce had not enabled Boris Karloff to achieve a wide variety of emotion, and the feelings of the monster were difficult to read. However, the excellent actor Lon Chaney, Jr. was able to project and deliver exactly what the Wolf Man felt and was doing with his face. The film was not only a breakthrough in make-up; it was the inspiration for many werewolf films to come in appearace, signs, and weaknesses of a werewolf. Even sci-fi channel’s Project Metalbest featured a werewolf weakened by silver.

The film begins in Lanwelly Village, Wales, England. Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) returns to his ancestral home, where his father Sir John Talbot (Claude Reins) waits for him. John Jr., “Larry’s” brother had recently died, and Sir John has asked his son to be the inheritant of the Talbot estate. After working with his father’s telescope, Larry sees Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), the young daughter of an antique shop owner. Larry stops by to ask Gwen to go with him to a gypsy carnival, and purchases a silver cane with a wolf’s head. Gwen tells Larry a poem that would be repeated even in the cartoon Alvin and the Chipmunks meet the Wolfman:

Even a man who is pure at heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
and the autum moon is bright.

At the gypsy carnival, Gwen, Larry, and Gwen’s friend Jenny go to the fortune tellers Maleva and her son Bela (Bela Lugosi). Bela tells Jenny to run quickly, and Larry sees her killed by a wolf. He beats it to death, but in the process is bitten. The next morning, Larry meets Gwen’s fiance` Frank Andrews (Patric Knowles) and the gypsy Maleva, who warns him he is a werewolf. This fact is revealed that night, when Larry transforms.

Larry Talbot is a very sympathetic character. He wishes to do good, but is forced to do evil. Sir John, Larry’s father, must lose his son, and I can feel very sorry for the Wolf Man. This is an ideal family horror film. It is an undisputed classic, and Universal made 1 million dollars from it.

Hammer only made one foray into the murky world of werewolf-mania, but they hit one over the fence with this entry. Young Leon Corledo (Oliver Reed) changes into a gray-pelted werewolf when evil is exalted and the full moon shines bright.

Terence Fisher provides his sure-fire talent as director. Although influenced by the classic Universal product, this wolf man stands on his own. Odd elements to a familiar story line appear in the beast’s origin. The script is based on “The Werewolf of Paris,” an obscure novel by Guy Endore. The setting is 18th century Spain. Take note, the full werewolf makeup only appears at the climax of the film. The monster is the unseen terror for much of the movie. Suspense builds slowly.

Unlike Dracula’s unholy delight in his blood lust, Leon suffers the torments of the damned. The curse of the beast. The full moon draws him, but pure love and careful nurturing keep him human. Cristina (Catherine Feller) is his love interest. When they confine Leon in jail, Cristina can’t minister to him. All hell breaks loose as the werewolf explodes out of jail and tears off over the rooftops. This beast must be part monkey, the way he jumps from ledge to roof and back again. He climbs the church tower, and meets his fate as the bells toll loudly.

This is one of the great moments in Hammer folklore. The usual Hammer traits of lush color photography and rich period detail are evident. A true delight for collectors classic horror flicks.

The film opens in a small rural town, Tarker’s Mills, Maine that is set upon by a death of a railroad worker, Arnie Westrum (Gammon). Although he is murdered by a werewolf, the county coroner concludes that Arnie passed out on the railroad tracks and was run over by a train.

Later on, a woman, Stella Randolph (Wendy Walker), is slaughtered in her bedroom. This murder goes unsolved and the town’s concerns grow.

The narrator of the film is the older sister, Jane (Follows), of a family of four. Her narration centers around her relationship with her younger, paraplegic brother Marty (Haim). Immediately upon their introduction, the story depicts the rocky affair between the ‘handicapped’ little brother and the over burdened ‘older sister’, their relationship strained from the start. The next victim, Milt Sturmfuller (James A. Baffico), is a drunken redneck who hears someone destroying his flower pots in a shed not far from his house. Believing it is mischievous teens, Sturmfuller plans to go ward them off with a shotgun. After arriving in the shed, he is killed by the werewolf.

It isn’t until the brutal slaying of a teenage male, Brady Kincaid (Joe Wright), that townsfolks are at the verge of abandoning local authorities and seeking their own kind of ‘private justice’. In the middle of the melee is a Baptist Reverend, Lester Lowe (McGill), who initially parades as a concerned member of the community attempting to prevent the townfolks from invoking further bloodshed.

The citizens go to hunt the werewolf and several of them are attacked and killed by the monster, including Owen Knopfler (Tierney), although the survivors of the encounter later deny seeing anything unusual.

The nicest surprise in the film comes in the form of the alcoholic Uncle Red (Busey). His ‘no care in the world’ approach to life is a large contrast to the prudish demeanor of the people in this town of Tarker’s Mills. The uncle concocts a wheelchair/motorcycle for his nephew’s birthday – that is the vehicle by which the nephew sets upon in the middle of the night along a small bridge to light up fireworks. At this moment he is confronted by a werewolf and barely escapes with his life if not for the launching of a firerocket into the left eye of the creature.

Marty enlists the help of Jane in looking for a town regular with a missing left eye. She conducts this search through a bottle drive, so as not to arouse suspicion. She finds it in the form of the Reverend Lowe. That ignites a cat and mouse chase between the siblings threatening to disclose of the Reverend’s true lunar transformations. Lowe, in turn, using Judeo-Christian morale to rationalize the murders of sinners – in order to prevent them from eternal damnation in hell – sets out to kill Marty. It is implied that Lowe is now completely insane. Finally, the courageous sibling duo manage to convince Red that things smell afoul with Lowe. Uncle Red then convinces local Sheriff Joe Haller (O’Quinn) to investigate Reverend Lowe. That night, Haller, skeptical about Lowe at first but desperate to find a killer, is shocked to discover evidence that at least some of Marty’s story may be factual. Haller then finds Lowe, who has locked himself in his garage, but before he can arrest him, Lowe transforms and kills Haller.

At the end of the film, Red, Marty, and Jane have a final showdown with the big bad wolf. The only thing that stands between their survival or horrific demise: a silver bullet. Marty shoots the werewolf in the right eye, killing him. Afterwards, Marty and Jane share a tender moment together following their ordeal. The brother/sister bond between them is forever strengthened.

Howling IV: The Original Nightmare is a 1988 direct-to-video horror sequel to The Howling. It was directed by John Hough from the screenplay by Freddie Rowe and Clive Turner.

It stars Romy Windsor, Michael T. Weiss, Antony Hamilton, Susanne Severeid, and Lamya Derval. 94 minutes, rated R. International Video Entertainment (IVE) released this film directly to home video in 1988. Platinum Disc Corporation released it to DVD in 2004. It was filmed on location in South Africa.

Marie Adams, a successful author, visits the scenic woodland town of Drago with her husband Richard to find respite from constant nightmare visions involving werewolves and a mysterious nun. Marie’s stay in the village does nothing to dispel the visions, which increase in frequency and seem to suggest strange portents of evil events to come…and a warning to get out of town before the next full moon.

Howling III (also known as Howling III: The Marsupials and Marsupials: The Howling III) is a 1987 Australian horror sequel to The Howling, directed by Howling II director Philippe Mora and filmed on location in Sydney, Australia.

Although Gary Brandner approved the director’s purchase of the right to the name The Howling, the film is completely unrelated to Gary Brandner’s “Howling III” novel, published in 1985. It does feature some small amount of similarity in terms of plot and sympathetic view of the werewolf. (This aspect would be revisited in Howling VI).

This film is also the only PG-13 rated entry in the series.

Howling III: The Marsupials is about a scientist involved with a cult of Australian werewolves via his love interest. The plot line is based on the premise of Australian werewolves descended from the now extinct Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger, a marsupial carnivore which was hunted to extinction by Australian farmers to protect their sheep.

Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch (also known as Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf) is a 1985 horror sequel to The Howling directed by Philippe Mora.

Although he co-wrote the screenplay, the film “Howling II” is largely unrelated to Gary Brandner’s “Howling II” novel (a.k.a. “Return Of The Howling”) from 1979, though like that book it was the first in its series to introduce Eastern European customs and Gypsies into it’s werewolf mythology.

It was marketed with the tagline “The rocking, shocking new wave of horror!”

Three years after the events of The Howling, Karyn Beatty has now remarried and lives in Seattle. Although content with her new life with her husband, David Richter, and her stepson Joey, she is still occasionally plagued by nightmares that stem from her horrfying ordeal in the Californian mountain village of Drago with its werewolf inhabitants. Karyn regularly sees a therapist to help work through her problems, but when a spate of horrifying killings begin to occur, including that of the family’s housekeeper, Karyn is convinced that the surviving werewolves of Drago have tracked her down. Fearing for the lives of her new family, Karyn leaves town hoping she will lead the evil creatures away from her loved ones.

Karyn’s fears were well founded as she had indeed been tracked down by none other than her ex-husband Roy (now a werewolf) and Marcia Lura, the evil Drago werewolf who first bit him. Both Roy and Marcia survived the fire in Drago, but Marcia is now partially scarred and incapacitated due to being shot in the head with a silver bullet by Karyn at the end of the first novel. Though the bullet did not kill her as expected, it left a streak of silver through her black hair and rendered her unable to fully transform into a werewolf as before, leaving her only able to become a grotesque half-woman/half-wolf at night. As such, she wants revenge for what Karyn did to her.

In Mexico, Karyn tracks down Chris Halloran, the family friend who helped her during her first ordeal in Drago. She tells him that the werewolves of Drago have come for her and she needs his help once more. However, Chris’s new girlfriend, Audrey, is jealous of his prior relationship with Karyn and does everything she can to undermine their friendship. When Roy and Marcia finally track Karyn down to Mexico, they set a trap for her at a mountainside cabin with Audrey’s help, and close in for the kill. Again, Chris comes to Karyn’s rescue and fights with Roy (who takes the form of a wolf). Chris fears Roy has bitten him during their fight, but eventually manages to kill Roy with a silver knife. However, in the the nearby mountainside cabin, Marcia is holding Karyn hostage and is about to torture her with a red hot poker when Marcia begins her agonizing change into the half-wolf creature she has become. When Chris arrives, a fire breaks out in the cabin. Chris rescues Karyn, and Marcia (or the creature she has become) burns to death as the cabin goes up in flames.

The Howling is a 1981 horror film directed by Joe Dante. Based on the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner, the screenplay is written by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless. The original music score is composed by Pino Donaggio.

When middle-class Karyn Beatty is attacked and raped in her Los Angeles home, she suffers a miscarriage and a nervous breakdown. She and her husband, Roy, leave the city and go to stay in the secluded Californian mountain village of Drago whilst Karyn recuperates. Although the town offers Karyn a quiet lifestyle and the locals are friendly, Karyn is disturbed when she continues to hear a strange howling sound at night coming from the woods outside their new home. This puts further strain on her marriage as Roy believes she is becoming more and more unstable, but Karyn is adamant that there is something in the woods. As tension between the couple mounts, Roy begins an affair with one of the local women, a shopkeeper named Marcia Lura. However, on his way home, Roy is attacked in the woods by a large black wolf. Though the wolf only bites him, Roy becomes ill for several days and becomes (quite literally) a changed man. He was bitten by a werewolf, and has now become one himself. Karyn eventually discovers that the town’s entire population are all in fact werewolves, and becomes trapped in Drago. She contacts her husband’s friend and business partner, Chris Halloran, who comes up from Los Angeles to rescue her. Chris arrives with some silver bullets which he had made at her insistence. That night, the two of them fend off a group of werewolves (one of which is Karyn’s husband, Roy) and Karyn is forced to shoot the black werewolf (revealed to be Marcia Lura) in the head. In the commotion, a fire breaks out at Karyn’s woodland house which sweeps through the woods and the entire town of Drago is engulfed in flames as Karyn and Chris escape from its cursed inhabitants. However, as they flee, they can still hear the howling in the distance.