The Most Underrated Werewolf Movies

While many of the most notable werewolf films have come out of the US, the UK has also produced its fair share of classics. Dog Soldiers is one of the best to emerge from the island. When a group of soldiers go to the Highlands for what seems to be a training exercise, they soon find more than they bargained for when they encounter werewolves. 

Much of the horror of Dog Soldiers stems from the creature design. The werewolves are towering monstrosities. However, there are also quite a few plot twists that are just as terrifying, particularly once it’s revealed the extent to which the government has been complicit in the soldiers’ plight; in fact, they were bait all along. As Dog Soldiers reveals, sometimes it’s not just the werewolves who are the monsters.

Ginger Snaps is one of those films that skillfully uses the werewolf trope to explore notions of desire, femininity, and coming of age, focusing on a young woman, Ginger, who starts to transform into a werewolf after getting her first period and being bitten by a lycanthrope.

Like all the best werewolf movies, it has a nice blend of comedy and tragedy, particularly as the film hurtles toward its conclusion. Moreover, it also satirizes teenage films which were also very popular during the period it was released. Ginger Snaps demonstrates the extent to which the metaphor of the werewolf is remarkably flexible and can be used to explore some of the most important problems and issues percolating in society at a given moment.

Bad Moon has many things going for it as a werewolf film, particularly since it doesn’t really aspire to be something it is not. However, this isn’t to say it doesn’t have moments of brilliance. It deserves a lot of credit for imbuing its characters with a remarkable amount of depth for a horror picture. At the center of the story is journalist Ted who is bitten by a werewolf as he attempts and fails to rescue his girlfriend. He subsequently becomes a werewolf and ends up having a fatal encounter with his sister, nephew, and their dog. 

There is, then, a sort of tragedy at the heart of Bad Moon which sets it above simple schlock. It allows the viewer to understand and sympathize with Ted as someone who didn’t ask for his fate but who has nevertheless been forced to carry the burden of being a vicious monster. The film shows how even monsters can be complex.

In the 2015 film Howl, a British train derails in a wooded area outside London, and the passengers soon find they are at the mercy of a pack of werewolves. Though they do everything they can to try to protect themselves, they are unfortunately no match for the vicious creatures and their bloodlust. As several members are killed, others transform themselves. 

The unfortunate passengers garner the viewer’s sympathy since, after all, they did nothing wrong, and the film gives them enough characterization to make them easy to care about. The film has some interesting things to say about the relationships between men and women, and, beneath it all, there is the stubborn ache of tragedy, as both the characters and the viewer seem to recognize just how doomed they really are despite their best efforts to save themselves.

Part comedy, part mystery, and part horror, Werewolves Within is one of the newest werewolf movies to have attempted to do something new and entertaining with the well-established lycanthrope figure. Drawing on the story established in the video game upon which it’s based, it takes place in a small town during a snowstorm. As the bodies begin to pile up, it becomes clear a werewolf stalks among them. 

Werewolves Within certainly doesn’t shy away from the blood and the gore, and there are plenty of dismembered body parts for horror lovers to feast on. Moreover, while it is generally light in tone and features several very funny actors in its cast, it has some genuinely unsettling moments, particularly when the various residents of the town start turning on one another.  There might be an actual werewolf pulling the strings, but there’s no getting around how darkness lurks within far too many people’s hearts. 

Late Phases is a refreshing take on the werewolf genre. Though many of the genre’s more well-known entries focus on young people, this film instead focuses on Will, a retired Vietnam War vet who moves into a retirement home at the behest of his son, Ambrose. Though there are quite a few frights - it is a werewolf film, after all - it’s really the relationship between father and son that serves as the film’s emotional heart. 

This isn’t to say the film doesn’t have some genuinely horrifying moments, though. The creature designs are ideally suited to appeal to fans of the genre, finding the right balance between looking vaguely human and yet utterly monstrous. Any time they are on the screen, they strike fear into the part of the brain that recognizes the frail humanity of the werewolf.