Best Werewolf Movies on Blu-ray?

[jc480]

Originally Posted by menaceuk

Do you have it ?

Cause a 2 for Picture is pretty damn terrible.If you have it do you agree with the review ?

I wouldn't put it at a 2...maybe a 3? out of 5 anyway.

But some of the picture quality is, I think, intentional and lends itself well to the gritty story.

It's a good premise and a film with decent re playability. I think I picked it up on sale for $6.99 or w/e....worth every penny. It was a very pleasant blind buy. AWIL is probably the Godzilla of the WW genre...this flick is a great addition...the other top film (not on BD yet) is "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf"...a campy but great WW flick from the 70s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAhe7G1fnv8&

[menaceuk]

Originally Posted by jc480

I wouldn't put it at a 2...maybe a 3? out of 5 anyway.

But some of the picture quality is, I think, intentional and lends itself well to the gritty story.

It's a good premise and a film with decent re playability. I think I picked it up on sale for $6.99 or w/e....worth every penny. It was a very pleasant blind buy. AWIL is probably the Godzilla of the WW genre...this flick is a great addition...the other top film (not on BD yet) is "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf"...a campy but great WW flick from the 70s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAhe7G1fnv8&

Yeah the picture quality was never going to be demo worthy as like the review says it isn't meant to be a glossy,pretty movie.but they talk about EE being pretty bad and little detail upgrade .

I am in the UK though so this would only cost me like £5 imported from USA.so I will likely import it.

[psicon]

Originally Posted by menaceuk

Yeah the picture quality was never going to be demo worthy as like the review says it isn't meant to be a glossy,pretty movie.but they talk about EE being pretty bad and little detail upgrade .

I am in the UK though so this would only cost me like £5 imported from USA.so I will likely import it.

I compared it against the UK DVD and there is a picture quality upgrade. There is more detail, but it is still pretty bad. Worth 5 quid, but you'll want to keep the UK dvd for the extras, though.

[DEF!]

What with my obsession with creating the ultimate Slasher movie collection I feel like I'm starting to neglect other sub genres. So a fair bit of time has gone by since this thread was started so I expect there's a better landscape out there for the Werewolf movie on BD. In fact I know there is because last week I realised I only had the amazing American Werewolf in London and the awful Strippers Vs Werewolves on BD in collection and went shopping on Amazon. In the post today I received

13hrs - UK
Attack of the Werewolves - UK
The Company of Wolves -UK
The Howling - US
The Howling Reborn - UK
Werewolf The Beast Among Us - UK

All complete blind buys so I'm expecting one or two stinkers but hopefully even the stinkers are at least be fun.

So the question is what am I missing? I'm not afraid to import from anywhere as long as its a good transfer and decent flick. I know there is Howling triple feature knocking about but is it a worthy upgrade with all 3 films presumably on one disc? What else is out there? Just so I'm clear I'm talking about Werewolf Horror movies not Action stuff like Underworld or Romantic Comedies like Twilight.

[bigdaddyhorse]

While this one leans a lot towards comedy, it also is the most unique werewolf movie I can recall. No silent killer or who is it here. From the opening it's known who the wolf is, and he's a shit-talking (even in wolf form!), nasty horny rapist. Looks like a French BD exists, I only have the US dvd.

Sad fact: there just aren't many good werewolf movies in existence, and even less available on blu.

[The Great Owl]

For the win.

This is still my favorite werewolf movie across the board, and Universal stepped up to the plate with a solid restoration considering the source material. This restoration of The Wolf Man is not quite up to par with the restorations of Dracula and Frankenstein in the Universal Monsters set, but it's still downright incredible to see what they did.

As far as the movie itself is concerned, The Wolf Man is pure gold. Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot is a tragic character, Claude Rains is magnificent as the father, Evelyn Ankers is one of classic cinema's true beauties, and Maria Ouspenskaya is awesomely eerie as the gypsy woman. The makeup effects in The Wolf Man are unparalleled even by today's movies.

[Rich1983]

The Wolf Man (1941 & 2010)
An American Werewolf in London
The Monster Squad

[pi2loc]

When I was a kid I used to love this movie:

[EvilAshLives]

Originally Posted by bigdaddyhorse

Sad fact: there just aren't many good werewolf movies in existence, and even less available on blu.

So true. And why has Ginger Snaps not been released on bd yet??? Would love to see the entire trilogy get a release, but I'd definitely settle for just the first film.

EvilAshLives

[pedromc69]

The Howling for sure.

[darylfoot]

+ 1 on Ginger Snaps. This would be great to see in HD

[j2raymond]

Naschy's "Night of the Werewolf" is a lot of fun. OOP, and dodgy video, but well worth seeking out

[ultlife2013]

What about An American werewolf in London?

[Mandalorian]

Damn, there's more activity in this thread today than when I created it three years ago.

Werewolves are still THEE most badass movie monsters.

[xxBachelor1981xx]

The Howling but I sure wish we could get Silver Bullet on bluray..

[hagios]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

For the win.

This is still my favorite werewolf movie across the board, and Universal stepped up to the plate with a solid restoration considering the source material. This restoration of The Wolf Man is not quite up to par with the restorations of Dracula and Frankenstein in the Universal Monsters set, but it's still downright incredible to see what they did.

As far as the movie itself is concerned, The Wolf Man is pure gold. Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot is a tragic character, Claude Rains is magnificent as the father, Evelyn Ankers is one of classic cinema's true beauties, and Maria Ouspenskaya is awesomely eerie as the gypsy woman. The makeup effects in The Wolf Man are unparalleled even by today's movies.

The Wolf Man (1941)

2 for me! I could not agree more!! An absolute classic, far above any Wolf Man movie for me, I wish they would make more classics like this!!!

I have this version:

THE WOLFMAN Blu-ray Bonus Clip -- The Wolf Man (1941) - YouTube

The Legacy of Lon Chaney, Jr. and "The Wolf Man" - YouTube

Synopsis:




Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns home to the family mansion and the welcome of his father Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains), and immediately is attracted to local girl Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers). But he's bitten by a wolf while defending Gwen's friend Jenny (Fay Helm) and falls unconscious. When he wakes Larry is told that he beat to death not a wolf but a gypsy fortune teller named Bela (Bela Lugosi). Bela's mother Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) clues him in to what all the locals already know: he's going to become a werewolf.




"Lycanthrope! Lycanthrope!
You know, it gives a person paws ..."
Sung to the tune of Camelot.


The Wolf Man character was Universal's first big horror success with a monster almost completely invented in-house. Inventive writer Curt Siodmak spun his own ersatz mythology around the generic shape-shifting werewolf lore complete with demonic origin, talismans that foretell the future and strict rules as to the lupine monster's weaknesses. Just as the 40s sequels to The Mummy trimmed Egyptology and ancient curses down to one priest with a Fistful of Tana Leaves, Siodmak engineered his werewolf to be easily understood by every popcorn-eating kid in 1941 America.

WereWolf of London (included in this set) is the better movie in every respect, with a truly strange story and an odd semi-human monster in Henry Hull. By contrast, The Wolf Man is every bit a 40s Universal chiller - it's short, cleanly shot and delivers a monster that lives up to the picture on the poster. It's Lon Chaney Jr's finest monster role; he's not a natural but he's likeable and sympathetic as an ordinary Joe with a curse on his head. Evelyn Ankers is an attractive love interest and the gypsy babble-talk has a great saleswoman in Maria Ouspenskaya, easily the best thing in the picture. The movie sticks with the lycanthropy plot and soft-peddles all the other content, including the jealous gamekeeper Patric Knowles (who returned rather confusingly as a mad doctor in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man) and local gossip against Larry and Gwen.

Claude Rains is relaxed in the role of Larry's father; although Larry's been gone fifteen years over a family dispute there's not a hint of rancor between them. So there's not much chance of interpreting Larry's hairy condition beyond black magic and cruel fate. Siodmak's original script wanted to imply that Larry's feral dilemma might be all in his mind; Universal was having none of that psychobabble and insisted on a monster without a complicated origin.

Perhaps to work with Rains, to complete contractual obligations, or (who knows?) to be first in what might be a rebirth of the horror craze, well-known faces Warren William and Ralph Bellamy take sheriff and doctor roles of little or no interest. The effect is to bolster Lon Jr. somewhat and lend the show a class not seen in the previous year's The Mummy's Hand. Universal was seemingly trying to position him as a successor to Lugosi and Karloff.

I've never been a real fan of the Wolf Man's makeup (he looks more like an exotic breed of lapdog) but he moves well and his snarling attacks are pretty exciting, especially for 1941. The lap-dissolve transformations are no longer particularly impressive; Henry Hull's metamorphosis was much more challenging. Larry's legs start sprouting hair while he's wearing a sleeveless tee shirt, leaving us to picture him putting his nice black shirt on after the transformation: The snarling monster buttoning all the buttons with his clawed hands.

The Wolf Man's foggy grove of trees and the uncredited music of the stalwart Universal composers set a mood that would carry Universal for the next five years. Joe Valentine's photography gets the most from the meagre resources of hand-me-down sets and backlot storefronts, and gives us some great angles on Larry as he prowls and attacks. Uni's charismatic monster inspired a handful of sequels and joined the classic pantheon to sell a million Aurora plastic models. His success inspired the creation of Val Lewton's competing horror B unit over at RKO, a challenge Lewton accepted by introducing new kinds of horror under titles even more salacious than Universal's: The Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie.

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Universal's deluxe DVD box The Wolf Man: The Legacy Collection packs a lot of value onto two discs. One good thing about this set is that the quality of the shows has not visibly diminished; putting four relatively short features on two discs doesn't mean a low bit rate.

The first disc has The Wolf Man, its sequel Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and a commercially-oriented short subject by New Wave. It's hosted by "horror expert" Stephen Sommers and betrays the whole reason for the deluxe treatment of Uni's horror canon - to promote the expensive Van Helsing movie. A superficial piece about werewolves soon segues into a promo emphasizing the shapeshifting monster in the new movie; there are similar pieces on the other Legacy collections for Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster. Van Helsing looks like another awful pastiche with heroines in leather bustier-corsets and a werewolf like a Marvel superhero. The actor involved talks about his getting into the character, and then we're mostly shown a CGI animated werewolf. Savant's lack of interest is the unmistakeable sign that Van Helsing will be a bigger hit than Uni's Mummy series.

Disc two is a flipper with She Wolf on London on side one and Werewolf of London on side two. As I've already reviewed these features, I'll just direct you to their original notices:



Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man;
She-Wolf of London & WereWolf of London.


The best thing about the 1999 Uni monster releases were the astute and exhaustive docus compiled by film author David J. Skal; you have to go to the back of the set to find it, but Monster by Moonlight is there, hosted by John Landis and featuring input from Curt Siodmak and makeup whiz Rick Baker. Although I've been told some viewers have experienced problems, my copy played all the way through without a hitch. 1

Back on disc one is a great commentary track from film biographer Tom Weaver. It's an academic track filled with facts. Weaver has a engagingly friendly delivery and is a pleasure to listen to. The clever box art creates a really handsome Wolf Man portrait on the cover, with a sleeve with a partially printed window ... ah, you'll understand when you see it.

I'm not holding my breath, but Universal may release collection-oriented Legacy boxed sets for more of its multitude of horror and Sci fi thrillers, the ones that moved a lot of laserdiscs in the 90s. It would be great to get the three Creature movies all together with Skal's terrific documentary. All I would ask is that two of their best be remastered. They haven't been seen in good versions on VHS or DVD. This Island Earth needs a quality widescreen presentation to show off its original Technicolor, and Universal's best Sci Fi feature The Incredible Shrinking Man deserves a transfer in its full width as well. 2

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On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Wolf Man rates:
Movie: Very Good
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements: Promo, David J. Skal Docu, trailer, Tom Weaver commentary, bonus features Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man, She-Wolf of London, WereWolf of London.
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: May 2, 2004

[Dickieduvet]

A trio that aren't on BD that need to be are:

Silver Bullet
Bad Moon
Wolfen

[hagios]

Originally Posted by ultlife2013

What about An American werewolf in London?

Right after The Wolf Man(Lon Chaney Jr.) & any films associated w/him as the Wolf Man(Frankenstein meets The Wolf Man, etc.) An American Werewolf in London is right there w/me!

An American Werewolf in London Trailer - YouTube

[Duncan Idaho]

Originally Posted by Dickieduvet

A trio that aren't on BD that need to be are:

Silver Bullet
Bad Moon
Wolfen

Silver Bullet is my favorite Werewolf movie would love a blu ray.

[sukraj]

An American Werewolf in London is my fav.