Werewolf movies have a long history going back to at least 1913 with the short film called The Werewolf (though it was Universal's The Wolf Man in 1941 that really launched the creature into the public consciousness). The subgenre has been overdone since then but, when handled well, werewolf movies can still be a ton of fun. Unfortunately, they are trickier to pull off than one might expect, with the result that there are countless awful werewolf flicks out there.
With this in mind, this looks at some of the most howlingly bad efforts the subgenre has to offer. They flop due to cheap special effects, incoherent plots, tonal misfires, or all of the above. For all the excitement werewolf films promise, these ten movies stand as reminders of how difficult it is to get the formula right; indeed, there's no silver bullet.
10
'Cursed' (2005)
Directed by Wes Craven
"Do you know what’s happening to me? I’m changing." With Cursed, Wes Craven attempts to update the werewolf genre by introducing a modern, urban take on the myth, but the results are a far cry from his usual standard. The story revolves around siblings Ellie (Christina Ricci) and Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), who are attacked by a mysterious creature and soon show wolfish symptoms.
It starts fine enough but quickly collapses into a mess. The performances from Ricci and Eisenberg are solid, but the rest of the movie suffers from a campy, overly jokey (but not really funny) tone. A lot of the problems seem to have arisen from studio interference, with the producers demanding the film be recut for a PG-13 rating, and also replacing Rick Baker's practical effects with shaky CGI. For all these reasons, Cursed was a major box office bomb, grossing just $29.6m against a budget of at least $38m.
“You don’t want me to be the hero. You want me to be the monster.” The Twilight Saga occupies a unique place in the genre, as it was both the most commercially successful and most hated vampire/werewolf franchise of the late 2000s and early 2010s. The series's nadir was the second movie, which introduced werewolves into the emo relationship drama, resulting in an angsty love triangle.
The werewolves look fine in this movie (the CGI budget was massive, after all) but the characters are cardboard cutouts. They can shapeshift at will, too, which is inherently less dramatic. They're also never scary. Some of Stephanie Meyer's werewolf lore is also quite cringe-y, like when Jacob (Taylor Lautner) "imprints" on Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella's (Kristen Stewart) baby daughter later in the series. As a whole, the film is overlong and fairly boring, offering fan service for Twilight diehards but not much to entertain general audiences.
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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The second film in the Twilight film series, New Moon follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who is thrown into a deep depression when he vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) breaks up with Bella and moves away after an incident convinces him that he and his family and dangerous to her. As she struggles to cope with her depression and begins forming a closer bond with her werewolf best friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella begins to be pulled deeper into the world of the supernatural despite both Jacob's and Edward's attempts to keep her safe.
8
'Dogman' (2012)
Directed by Richard Brauer
“Sometimes you have to fight the beast, even if it’s inside you.” This low-budget horror tells the story of Hank Purvis (Larry Joe Campbell), who encounters a mysterious creature terrorizing his small rural town. He resolves to find out the truth about the beast, as well as face the darkness within himself. It's a decent if unoriginal premise, brought down by shabby execution.
Once again, tone is a big problem, with the movie seemingly unsure of whether it wants to be a comedy or a serious horror. The lead actors are not bad, but the script gives them frighteningly little to work with. The writing becomes increasingly clumsy as the film rolls along, with dialogue and plot developments that strain credibility. Finally, the wolf effects are subpar, which is why the creature is barely ever on screen. All told, Dogman is a snooze-fest, and safely skippable.
Dogman
Cast
Larry Joe Campbell
, Mariann Mayberry
, Kimberly Guerrero
, Stacie Hadgikosti
, Tom Cilluffo
, Luke Bonczyk
“This isn’t just another ride—it’s a ride to hell.” This exploitation flick combines the unlikely genres of biker drama and werewolf horror. Plot-wise, it's about a motorcycle gang that unwittingly falls under the spell of a satanic cult, leading to a series of werewolf transformations and deadly encounters. The premise is outrageous and had the potential for campy fun, but the end result is a lot less enjoyable than it could have been.
The narrative is super chaotic, to the point that Werewolves on Wheels feels more like a series of random events than a structured film. The dialogue is shaky too, and the acting does little to elevate the material. Finally, the werewolf elements aren't even done with much care or enthusiasm. For all these reasons, rather than being 'so bad it's good', Werewolves on Wheels is basically a waste of time. A few viewers might enjoy the weirdness, but most will be left scratching their heads.
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Werewolves on Wheels
Cast
D.J. Anderson
, Steve Oliver
, Gene Shane
, Billy Gray
, Gray Johnson
, Barry MacGuire
, Owen Orr
, Anna Lynn Brown
, Ingrid Grunewald
, Marilyn Munger
, Leonard Rogel
, Severn Darden
, Tex Hall
, Dan Kopp
, Kieth Guthrie
, John Hull
, Carl Lee
, Bart Smith
, Nick Palmisano
Runtime
85 minutes
Writers
David M. Kaufman
6
'Skinwalkers' (2006)
Directed by James Isaac
“Your destiny isn’t to run—it’s to fight.” Skinwalkers disastrously attempts to weave Native American mythology into its werewolf lot. In the movie, two opposing factions of werewolves battle for control over a young boy (Matthew Knight), believed to be the key to ending their curse. It's essentially The Wolf Man meets The Terminator, but awful.
Once again, this is a werewolf movie that doesn't put much emphasis on the actual werewolves. Everything here is thoroughly uninspired, mostly recycling old tropes and resorting to B-grade action. Most of the story elements here were played out even when Werewolves on Wheels was in theaters. Consequently, critics ripped Skinwalkers to shreds, with particular ire directed at the acting and the shabby action sequences. One would've expected more from director James Isaac, who had proved himself as a great special effects artist on Arachnophobia and eXistenz.
5
'Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf' (1985)
Directed by Philippe Mora
“Your sister is out there, howling at the moon.” Joe Dante's The Howling is a solid horror boasting one of the best werewolf transformations of its era. The same cannot be said for its sequels, which quickly degenerated into mediocrity and then outright slop. The second movie is one of the worst, with Ben White (Reb Brown) discovering that his sister has transformed into a werewolf. He teams up with a werewolf hunter, Stefan (Christopher Lee) to stop a coven of the beasts causing mayhem.
Where the original was bold and intense, Howling II is simply trashy, with a cheesy rock soundtrack, subpar creature effects, and a lot of nudity thrown in to compensate for the narrative shortcomings. All this means the movie feels overlong despite clocking in at just 87 minutes. The only positive points here are the decent performances by Lee and Sybil Danning as the werewolf leader.
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Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch
Cast
Annie McEnroe
, Christopher Lee
, Reb Brown
, Marsha Hunt
, Sybil Danning
, Jimmy Nail
, Judd Omen
, Ferdy Mayne
, Patrick Field
, Steven Bronowski
, James Crawford
, Jiří Krytinář
, Ladislav Krečmer
, Jan Kraus
, Jared Seide
, Srance Leclerc
, Joyce Walker
, Carolyn Doyle
, Courtney Leonard
, Ron Leonard
, Terry Coppersmith
, Jill Sinclair
, Alex Kleynen
, John Brown
, Miriam Lugerova
“Do I have to howl at the moon too?” Teen Wolf Too is the ill-conceived sequel to the 1985 Michael J. Fox-starring hit. This time, the story follows Todd Howard (Jason Bateman), the cousin of Scott Howard, as he discovers his own werewolf abilities while attending college on a sports scholarship. Bateman is a good actor but here he fails to match Fox's star power.
It doesn't help that the script is much less witty (not that the first one was a comedic masterpiece either) and mostly rehashes plot points from the first one without adding anything really new. All in all, Teen Wolf Too just comes across like a lazy cash grab. Unsurprisingly, while Teen Wolf grossed $40m on a $4m budget, Teen Wolf Too only made $7.9m despite almost double the budget. Critics didn't like it any more than the audiences. The movie currently holds a weak 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Teen Wolf Too
CastJason Bateman
, Kim Darby
, John Astin
, Paul Sand
, James Hampton
, Mark Holton
“Fear the wolf, for it hunts in the shadows.” Darkwolffollows a young woman, Josie (Samaire Armstrong), who becomes the target of a werewolf intent on claiming her as his mate. The film blends elements of horror and eroticism but quickly devolves into a series of clichéd encounters and poorly executed action sequences. The characters frequently act without logic, and the actors deliver their corny lives clumsily.
Darkwolf also fails on the visual front, with the werewolf barely appearing for most of the runtime (other than some shots of its fangs). When the beast is revealed, it's almost laughable thanks to the flimsy CGI. In hindsight, it would have been better if it had never been shown at all. The directors vainly try to cover up these flaws with buckets of blood and mountains of gore, though none of it is particularly engaging. The movie is admittedly a direct-to-video affair, but it's disappointing even by that low standard.
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Dark Wolf
Cast
Ryan Alosio
, Samaire Armstrong
, Andrea Bogart
, Jaime Bergman
, Alexis Cruz
, Sasha Williams
, Tippi Hedren
, Kane Hodder
, Steven Williams
, Katie Lohmann
, Rick McCallum
, Meghann Scully
, Bruna Rubio
, Sarah Helena Coombs
Runtime
94 minutes
Writers
Geoffrey Alan Holliday
2
'Howling: New Moon Rising' (1995)
Directed by Clive Turner
“The moon is full, and so is this town’s trouble.” Howling II is abysmal but it's not even the worst movie in the franchise. That dubious honor goes to the seventh installment, New Moon Rising, which borders on self-parody. The story follows a string of murders in a small desert town, where the locals begin to suspect that a werewolf may be responsible, but the plot is defined more by awkward jokes and mundane interactions than wolfy action.
The movie is simply tedious, with a meandering plot (and some absurd twists), an ill-fitting focus on small-town drama, and one-note characters. It's also shockingly low on werewolves, essentially never showing the creature properly. The best the viewer gets is some red-tinted shots from the monster's POV. Also odd is that many of the actors are real people playing themselves. That said, some viewers may find New Moon Rising ironically entertaining to hate-watch.
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Howling: New Moon Rising
Cast
Ernest Kester
, John Ramsden
, Clive Turner
, Elizabeth Shé
, Jaqueline Armitage
, Romy Walthall
“You can’t outrun the curse. It will find you.” Claiming the top spot on this list is the imaginatively titled Werewolf (no relation to the recently released Werewolves). It's about a group of archaeologists who uncover a mysterious skeleton in the Arizona desert. When one of the team members is bitten by the creature’s remains, he begins to transform into a werewolf, unleashing terror on those around him.
Oh, boy. This movie is wild, failing on every level. The movie is a chaotic jumble of half-baked ideas, wooden performances, and laughable production choices. Even as an unintentional comedy, it fails to be entertaining. This is not just a bad film—it's a complete disaster. For these reasons, Werewolf opened to vicious reviewers and was quickly lampooned on the satirical review show Mystery Science Theater 3000. It currently holds an impressively low 1.7 out of 10 on IMDb, based on over 4000 reviews.
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Werewolf
Cast
Jorge Rivero
, Richard Lynch
, Federico Cavalli
, Adrianna Miles
, Joe Estevez
, Jules Desjarlais
, R.C. Bates
, Lisa Frantz
, Tony Zarindast
, Dawn Morgan
Runtime
99 minutes
Writers
Brad Hornbacher
Release Date
February 11, 1997
Director
Tony Zarindast
Character(s)
Yuri
, Noel
, Paul Niles
, Natalie Burke
, Joel
, Tommy
, Sam the Keeper
, Nurse
, Security Guard
, Party Guest
Image via Summit Entertainment
Image via Summit Entertainment
Image via Briarcliff Entertainment
English (US) ·