Hairy palms and halitosis: The 5 best wolf men of all time

Nice doggie. Del Toro as "The Wolfman."

What is it about creatures of the night that thrills us so? With narry a year off since 1979, The Vampire has ruled our cinematic wee hours, emptying our pockets of savings, and the inheritance we’d thought to se aside for our children (sorry, kiddies, you’re on your own!). The 80’s alone brought Once Bitten, Fright Night, Near Dark, The Lost Boys, Salem’s Lot, and dozens of others to a theater near you (or a TV really near you). In the 90’s, Buffy and the Blade and Underworld trilogies gave us some pulpy stuff to sink our collective chompers into. And blood splattered stand-alones like 30 Days of Night, Vampires, Coppola’s Dracula, and of course Interview With a Vampire (Tom and Braa-ad, sittin’ in a tree, s-u-c-k-i-n-g) kept the incisor-endowed fiends at number one in our hearts, as far as popular ghouls go. And now the whole damn thing has started again with the Twilight series, giving scads of confused, horny tweens something to nip at, without actually breaking the skin. Go, horny tweens!

But Benicio Del Toro’s turn as the vamp’s underappreciated, less sexy, and far furrier cousin, in The Wolfman, may give us a new beast to burden our budgets for a while. With this excellent actor about to do the howl-n-growl (like ’shake-n-bake,’ but with slobber), perhaps it’s time to take a look over our shoulders, across the misty moors, at a few normal guys who, thanks to an ancient curse, grow out their hair, let their nails nails go nuts, and get down on all fours for some pretty wild nights.

Nudity in the poster. So European!

David Naughton.
An American Werewolf in London. 1981.

Though David “I’m a pepper” Naughton’s easy-going performance keeps AWL galloping along at a clip, the biggest howls belong to Griffin Dunne for his inspired take on David’s undead pal. The man (and the whole concept, really) was bloody brilliant, and John Landis deserves kudos for delivering a total success in a rare and difficult genre: the comedic-horror hybrid. (On a personal note, I’d like to thank Jenny Agutter (nurse sexpot) for her shower scene. I was at a pretty formative age when I saw AWL and those few damp moments helped a lot). Much fuss was made at the time about the stellar effects. David’s man-to-beast transfo was, for its time, pretty great. Now? Not so much. But that’s the way it goes with this thing called t-t-time. But the man behind those cutting edge effects was called Rick Baker, and the man behind Benicio’s upcoming morph? Rick Baker. The man’s got legs. Four of them. AWL is bloody, cheesy fun and doesn’t scrimp on the horror thrills. A classic.

Howl Index: 5 out of 5.
Hair Index: 1 out of 5.

Not just a beast in the bedroom.

Jack Nicholson.
Wolf.
1994.

By the 90’s, the werewolf flick had gone out of popularity (thanks a lot, vampires!). Really, only one wolfy film “owned” the decade (and probably had something to do with why, afterwards, the genre virtually disappeared for ten years). That film was Wolf. Oscar winners Mike Nichols, Jack Nicholson, and Michelle Pfeiffer dipped a toe into the tepid waters of wolf lore, with largely awful results. But one thing can’t be denied: their casting was inspired. Just ask Scorsese; Jack Nicholson was born to play a beast. And Pfeiffer, at the time, was a hell of a sexy thing to chew on. It’s a pity that Wolf was such a clunker, with lots of slo-mo jumping to and fro (insert ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ sound here). But Nicholson was given a free pass to chew the scenery, and chew it he did.

Howl Index: 1 out of 5. Yawn.
Hair index: 3 out of 5.

Blue moon.

Michael Sheen.
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.
2009

Sheen, like Nicholson, is a great actor. And with the help of some stick-on hair, a bunch of tight fitting leather, and a big heavy (looking) sword, he really brought some gravitas to, basically, an action flick on ‘roids. In ROTL, Sheen plays Lucian, a Lycan (werewolf) enslaved to the ruling vampire King (played by Bill Nighy; under all the makeup and CG, Underworld is crawling with amazing Brit talent), and caught in the middle between the vamps and the wolfies. But a wolfdude can’t sit on the fence all his life, it wouldn’t be too comfy, and Lucian eventually makes a choice. The fact that he knocked up the Vampire King’s daughter has nothing to do with his decision. Big, loud, pretty in a dirty sort of way, Saturday afternoon fun.

Howl Index: 3 out of 5.
Hair Index: 2 out of 5.

Great poster. Bad movie.

Michael Landon.
I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
1957.

A sort of Rebel Without a Cause meets Psycho with hair, IWATW finds Landon playing the very Deansian (as in “James”) Tony Rivers. It’s dated as can be, but in a pretty funny “look how far we’ve come” Mad Men sorta way. Tony tries to get help for his “anger issues” by seeing a hypnotherapist. Turns out, the doc’s the mad one. Eschewing all actual werewolf lore in favor of then-current psyhcobabble mumbo jumbo, the doc hypnotizes Tony into “regressing” to an all-fours form. Seriously. That’s all there is to it. You are getting… very… hairy… done. What happens when the 50 minutes is over? I’m glad you asked. This movie dropped five years before the original Manchurian Candidate, but the idea’s pretty much the same. When Tony hears a certain sound, he turns wolfish, kills, and then, if he hears ringing (the dinner bell, this new fangled thing called the tel-o-phone), he returns to normal (that is, the still quite hairy Michael Landon) and goes, “Say… what gives?” or “Holy smokes” or “Gee willackers, I just ate a cheerleader!” This movie was a box office smash, raking in two million bucks a week at the start of its initial run (in today’s dollars that’s like a ka-zillion).

Howl Index: 2 out of 5.
Hair Index: 5 out of 5.

Original recipe.

Lon Chaney Jr.
The Wolf Man.
1941.

The original. The classic. This is the film that Benicio and co. remade and, if the trailer tells us anything, they seem to have been pretty faithful (perhaps embarrassingly so; does anyone actually buy Anthony Hopkins as Benicio’s pop?). The Wolf Man (it was two words back then; they had more time to read) follows the classic tale to a T. After the death of his brother, Larry (Chaney) returns home to face his father (Claude Rains). He kinda accidentally falls for his dead brother’s girl, and one night they go visit a gypsy camp. You know, for kicks. Gypsies! They’re so entertaining! Anyway, while there, a gypsy werewolf (Bela Lugosi) attacks her. Larry defends the lass but gets nipped in the process, and you know where it goes from there. Werewolves and zombies. You pretty much wanna avoid the teeth of either. With Lon Chaney (“The Mummy” etc), Bela Lugosi (“Dracula” etc.), and  Claude Rains (“Casablanca,” etc.) on board, this B-movie had a hellish amount of talent in it.

Howl Index: 4 out of 5.
Hair Index: 4 out of 5.

And the “Are The Casting Directors Asleep?” Award goes to: Robin Williams.

Everything but the silver bullet.