Top 10 Werewolves in films!

Last Updated on August 3, 2021

So…who else is pumped for David Hayter’s WOLVES next month? Well, to help get you nice and lathered up for what should be an action-packed horror extravaganza (Hayter did write X-MEN, X-MEN 2 and WATCHMEN), we thought it’d be a cool idea to take a look back at some of the best werewolf characters to ever his the screen. Not werewolf movies per se – been there done that – but singular, well-drawn werewolf characters that have crouched, stood and leapt head and shoulders above the pack. Sound good? Groovy! Smash it up above to see who made the cut in our Top 10 Werewolves!

#1. LON CHANEY JR. (THE WOLF MAN)

You already know our steez…gold medals around here go to the OGs! So, when it comes to progenitive lycanthropy, not a single soul can trump the unrivaled Lon Chaney Jr. I mean look at that feral facial fur…dude’s a boss! Real shite, it’s easy to peep the cheesily outmoded makeup and FX of the Universal monster movie classic, but don’t front, without the fully committed performance of Chaney in said movie, we’d likely be entirely bereft of the rich, successive 70-year spate of werewolf fiction that arrived in THE WOLF MAN’S wake. The whole mythos is laid out…tropes we so readily associate with werewolf lore…turning into a wolf after being bit, changing during a full moon, dying via silver bullet only…all originated here with Chaney and the OG Wolf Man!

#2. DAVID NAUGHTON (AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON)

Come on now, aside from featuring in arguably the most mortifying werewolf transformations ever committed to celluloid, the pre-bitten character of David Kessler (played by David Naughton) is one funny mofo. The kind of dude you’d like hit the pub and pick up chicks with! Now, I could have just as easily gone with Dave’s onscreen pal Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne), who is equally cool and funny as a fish-out-of-water tourist. Only difference is that gnarly prolonged werewolf metamorphosis Dave suffers through. Props to writer/director John Landis and makeup maestro Rick Baker for rendering such a fully realized creation.

#3. OLIVER REED (CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF)

If you take away nothing else in this Top 10, please go out and find the cool character-driven Hammer Films production of THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF from 1961. I assure you, you won’t rue the move! See, the great Oliver Reed plays Leon, the orphaned werewolf offspring of a raped woman by a jailed beggar. We see Leon grow up, under the care of a man named Don Alfredo. But as he matures, Leon can’t help but reckon with his true identity. And that’s what makes the character so memorable…he’s a werewolf with a conscience! We seem grapple with his primal urges and animalistic nature, the emotional and moral conundrums that ensue. And of course, when the moon fills up, Leon needs to sate his bloodlust. Great performance!

#4. PAUL NASCHY (NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF)

Alrighty guys and ghouls, since this Paul Naschy dude (born Jacinto Molina Alvarez) – long heralded as the godfather of Spanish horror cinema – portrayed his own variation of the Wolf Man no less than a dozen times over three decades (as the character Waldemar Daninsky) , I’m afraid he’s credentials cannot be discounted out of the Top 10. Seriously, if there was a Werewolf Hall of Fame, Naschy would have to be there not far behind Lon Chaney Jr. Dude’s a dedicated lifer, first playing the part in the 1968 flick FRANKENSTEIN’S BLOODY TERROR and last playing it in the 1996 flick LICANTROPO. In my opinion, he was best in the ’81 joint NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF.

#5. KATHERINE ISABELLE (GINGER SNAPS)

Ginger snaps indeed! 14 years later and we still hold an eternal flame for Katherine Isabelle’s wonderfully wicked turn as the pubescent titular anti-heroine in GINGER SNAPS. What a nasty little flick…and even better performance. Those in the know not, much like Neil Jordan’s BROTHER HOOD OF THE WOLF (albeit less dreamy), GINGER SNAPS is more or less a filmic allegory regarding a young woman’s sexual appetite. More accurately, the violent werewolf transmutations Ginger undergoes is meant to parallel her menstrual rite of passage. Yup, it’s about a girl getting her period!

#6. JACK NICHOLSON (WOLF)

Ahh…what’s not to love about the laconic, eye-rolling Nicholson as he slowly morphs into an attitudinal middle-aged lycanthrope in WOLF? Come on, that scene where he gleefully pisses all over the snooty James Spader’s loafers in the john? F*cking priceless! Granted, the last act of the film devolves into a pretty standard state of horror platitude, but Jack’s character of Will Randall is a complex one, and director Mike Nichols directs the film around him as such. It’s an A-list horror film of elegance, which allows Nicholson a chance to really shade the character with multiple dimensions and elevate the material beyond mere B-movie dreck.

#7. MICHAEL PARE (BAD MOON)

Anytime we get a chance to cast some adoration toward our man Eric Red’s criminally under-seen werewolf picture BAD MOON, we do so. As it happens however, the great Michael Pare’s convincingly complex turn as Uncle Ted, an accursed mortal battling the werewolf blood that courses through his veins, is alone worthy as a standout lycanthropic portrayal. Dude kills it, literally! And I think what makes the turn so special is the subtle internalization and torment he keeps inside of him with weight of a secret. Pare plays the part with a palpable panic that makes you sympathize with him early on, and the evil menace later to detest him.

#8. EVERETT MCGILL (SILVER BULLET)

In one of the better Stephen King adaptations, Everett McGill lends a creepily credible dual-turn – as a force of both light and dark – in the 1985 flick SILVER BULLET. And that’s exactly what lands McGill a top spot, the rangy dichotomy. On one side, McGill fronts a benevolent facade as the upstanding Reverend Lowe, a well loved man of the community. Of course, it’s all a ruse to mask his true identity…that of a hulking, hirsute man-beast with huge fangs and insatiable thirst for human blood! It’s a multifaceted character grappling with both sides of the moral coin, realized wonderfully by the deft casting of McGill.

#9. MICHAEL J. FOX (TEEN WOLF)

“Hey I’m no different…than anyone else!” Yup, such a ludicrous line was so smugly uttered by Mike J. Fox under a pair of shades and an ungodly Cousin It-mountain-of-hair in TEEN WOLF…a horror comedy of semi-cult-status that has bred a far campier pack of feral beasts in MTV’s Teen Wolf series. Now, we all know little Scott wasn’t as cool as his epithetic-shirt-wearing pal Styles (What are you looking at, dick nose?), but in the end, he not only got to scare the living piss out of his adversarial bully-jock, he slammed dude’s hot blonde girlfriend before realizing his true match was, all along, the girl right down the street in Boof. Sly like a motherf*cking Fox!

#10. SYBIL DANNING (THE HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER’S A WEREWOLF)

Terrible movie, yes, but there’s no way in flame-roasted hell we’d omit the buxom Austrian goddess Sybil Danning from this here celebratory punch. Chick is too damn fine! So yes, all bow to the mighty Stirba…sexy werewolf queen extraordinaire! What I love so much about this unabashed B-level turn from Danning is how she embraces the camp and kitsch factor and just has fun with it. Not to be taken seriously, you can tell Danning is having a good time, which permeates the rest of the cast. Also, it’s a wise move to have her appear so gorgeous in human form before morphing into a sex-starved she-wolf of dastard delight.