My Top 5 Werewolf Movies

I’d say my favourite horror movies would be zombie movies but werewolf movies come a quick second.  American Werewolf in London was a movie that had the biggest impact on me as a child and I think it gave me a love of horror movies for life.  This is the reason I’m going to list my top five Werewolf movies.  I love other werewolf movies but these would be my top five I think, although that could change.

5.Dog Soldiers
To me Dog Soldiers is one of the best horror movies to come from the last decade.  Using a mixture of buddy movie, Evil Dead style cabin in the woods style and adding some badass werewolves into the mix we got an awesome movie.  Everything worked for this movie from the awesomeness of Sean Pertwee and his tattoo monologue to the nice touch of comedy this movie is a must see.

4.The Howling
This movie came out around the same time as American Werewolf in London and strangely enough I saw it around the same time.  Although this movie is good American Werewolf will always be better.  The Howling could have been at number two for me quite easily but the next two are two classics that can not be forgotten.

3.The Curse of the Werewolf
Three things worked for this movie.  The first is that it’s a Hammer Horror, second it was a good re-imagining of the werewolf story that worked very well and the third was Oliver Reed.  Reed is one of the best actors to ever come out of England and in this movie he really is on top form.  I’m sure any Hammer fan will have seen this movie and agree with me when I rate it as one of the best movies to come from them.

2.The Wolfman
Everybody who makes such a list as this should have The Wolfman in their list.  This is the movie that started it all and would influence just about all werewolf movies that came after it.  All fans of horror should have seen this, it’s a part of movie history.  (although I say this movie started it all I do know that Werewolf of London was in fact the first werewolf movie, but the Wolfman was more popular.  Just felt I had to note that).

1.American Werewolf in London.
One of my favourite movies of all time, there is no argument for me that this movie will always be number one in my werewolf top five.  The level of comedy is perfect as these are the types of movies that Landis does best and the gore is set at a perfect level for all you gore hounds.  This movie also has the best human to werewolf transformation that you will ever see and no CGI was used.  A must see on blu ray which also comes with an excellent documentary about how it was made (Beware the Moon).

Movies that should be in this list but did not make it: Wolf with Jack Nicholson, Wolfen, Underworld (the werewolves were arguably quite impressive).  I’m sure I left some out so leave some comments and I’ll apologise maybe.

Thanks to @mattscutt on Twitter for pointing out that I missed out some very important movies here.  The Ginger Snaps trilogy.  Although they did not make my top five (I’d put Ginger Snaps at number six) they are three good movies that deserve to be mentioned.  They are an excellent re-imagining in the werewolf genre that have to be recognised for how smart and inventive they are.