Bad Moon Rising

Moving on from the sci-fi theme and heading a little further along the genre spectrum, we come to horror. I've decided to split this into two posts for more bite-sized reading, as it was getting a little long...

Now, it can't have escaped anyone's attention that vampires and werewolves have suddenly become very popular. Vampires have always been popular, but for werewolves this seems to be a pleasant little renaissance. They've been out of vogue for a very long time. I tried writing a list of vampire and werewolf films that I've seen earlier, and only managed to come up with 7 werewolf films, compared with at least 17 vampire films (not including cross-overs such as Underworld and Twilight).

Of course, werewolves are smelly and hairy and not nearly as romantic a horror villain as your average vampire, so they've always been rather underrated. However, I would argue that An American Werewolf in London is one of the finest horror films (albeit a horror-comedy) of all time. And still to this day has THE finest werewolf transformation scene (although George's first transformation scene in the TV series Being Human was pretty damn impressive, and quite brutal). I was distressed earlier to hear a rumour that somebody plans to re-make it. Why on earth would you want to do that? It's such a classic.

In fact, An American Werewolf in London is the only good werewolf film on my list! The sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, was just poor. Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps were cheesy (but faintly amusing!), Cursed was pathetic, and Teen Wolf was...well, Teen Wolf. Say no more. Ah, tell a lie. The Jack Nicholson film Wolf was actually very good.

So, two good werewolf films, in the whole of cinematic history (that I've seen, anyway. If anyone is aware of any more good ones, please let me know!). That's a little pathetic. But there is a wealth of good vampire mythos kicking around, and many different takes on the legend, giving vampire films a diversity and popularity that has always far outstripped that of the humble werewolf.


To be continued...