Howling at the Moon
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Released during the 1940s, Universal’s more popular werewolf films
featuring Lon Chaney, Jr.’s turn as Larry Talbot, also find the focal lupine
coming into existence as the result of a bite from another lycanthrope. In The
Wolf Man the extant shapeshifter is the gypsy fortuneteller Bela (Bela Lugosi),
who passes on his affliction when he bites Talbot, who has the bad grace to
interrupt the hirsute gypsy’s attack on a woman from the local village. The Wolf
Man was such a popular monster that Lon Chaney, Jr. returned in four other
releases. In each, Larry Talbot shakes off his apparent demise in the previous
film to once again face his nocturnal problems.
Are the Universal films, including Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man,
House o f Frankenstein, Home o f Dracula, and the horror/comedy Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein, indicative of the most-utilized narrative device in
werewolf cinema, or are there other recognizable tropes recurring throughout
these productions? On the other hand, is the use of an origin story ignored more
often than it is used in werewolf films, with the existence of such creatures
merely taken for granted and no explanation provided for their existence? Since
it would appear that the use of a tale depicting a monster’s origin might help
establish the rules of the game for the narrative and provide richness to the
plotline, it behooves us to take a look at how such background information is
presented in werewolf cinema.
In establishing the foundation for this survey, I have decided to focus
upon what I consider “serious, mainline” werewolf productions. Thus, the list of
films for review contains titles released by major studios in the United States,
Canada, and Great Britain, with a few inclusions from the so-called “Poverty
Row” studios of the 1930s and ’40s. Additionally, I have decided to delete
counting sequels for this study, since the focus here is upon original stories. For
example, since the Universal sequels featuring the Wolf Man all hark back to
Bela the Gypsy’s attack on Larry Talbot in the 1941 release, they are not
addressed individually. I have also arbitrarily decided to delete werewolf films
from countries such as Spain, Mexico, and Italy. As Donald F. Glut notes in
Classic Movies Monsters, these titles tend to either repeat the plotlines found in
the Universal series or exhibit convoluted narratives requiring “. . . little in the
way of actual dramatics but a maximum of grimacing, snarling, crouching,
running, leaping and attacking. . . ” (48). Astute horror fans will also note that
the list does not include any direct-to-video or made-for-cable titles. Films such
as the Teen Wolf series have also been excluded, as I consider these productions
to be primarily comedies that fail the “serious” criterion.
With these guidelines in place, we find nineteen films for study. Of the
group, thirteen spin their story relying on an existing werewolf who usually bites
the film’s main character and turns him/her into a lycanthrope. In the films
following this narrative device, the main character’s travails resulting from the
bite become fodder for the ensuing conflict(s) she/he is forced to face. Such
titles as Werewolf o f London, The Wolf Man, The Howling, Wolf Ginger Snaps,
and Cursed all exhibit variations of this plotline. The remaining six films present