From classic Hollywood to Varun Dhawan’s Bhediya trailer, how werewolves have evolved in cinema

Just a few weeks after the Marvel special Werewolf By Night released on Disney+ Hotstar, the official trailer of the Varun Dhawan-starrer Bhediya dropped yesterday (October 19). Irrespective of how the film turns out, it is amusing to note how a classic beast like the werewolf continues existing in mainstream horror. 

Early Hollywood classics: There is a unanimous consensus among film historians that 1913 silent short The Werewolf was the first-ever werewolf film. The plot deals with a Navajo woman who picks up witchcraft and bestows werewolf-like powers upon her daughter to seek revenge from the white settlers of America. Offering a pretty bold socio-political narrative for a horror film in those times, The Werewolf is unfortunately a lost film now with all prints apparently destroyed in a 1924 fire at Universal Studios. 

Two decades later, Werewolf of London proved to be another trendsetter. A 1931 classic, it followed an approach similar to the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde delving into the split personalities of a man and his werewolf alter ego. Given the times, the film starts off with a stereotypical and exoticised depiction of Tibet where the protagonist is bitten by a werewolf, ultimately turning into one himself. 

On the technical front, Werewolf of London was innovative in its sound effects with lead actor Henry Hull’s roars blended with the actual cries of a timber wolf. The equally-convincing makeup for that time was handled by Jack Pierce, the Hollywood maestro who is noted for his makeup on Boris Karloff’s portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein (1931).

Just a decade later, Werewolf of London got overshadowed by the far more superior The Wolf Man, a cult classic by Universal Pictures. Just like many other werewolf and vampire-centric tales, turning into a beast is a communicable act. So, when the protagonist kills what he thinks is a wolf in the jungle, the prey actually turns out to be the werewolf son of a gypsy witch. For his wrongdoings, the curse of the werewolf is passed on to our hero who turns into the titular “Wolfman’’.

The Wolf Man was so popular that it ended up spawning crossovers with other horror icons, the most popular example being 1943’s Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man. Spoiler alert: the duel ends with no clear winner as both get swept away in a flood in the end!

1981, an iconic year for werewolf cinema: Werewolf films continued releasing in the years following The Wolf Man most of which seemed to be its rip-offs. A watershed moment came in the year 1981 that saw the release of The Howling, Wolfen, and An American Werewolf in London. 

The first to release was Joe Dante’s The Howling, a survival tale centering around a traumatised journalist who goes to a cabin in the woods for a getaway. Just like all the bad decisions that white leads make in American horror, she ventures upon secrets that she shouldn’t know, eventually encountering homicidal werewolves.

Having directed the classic B-grade horror Piranha before, Dante’s fame skyrocketed after The Howling prompting Warner Bros to hire him to direct the horror comedy Gremlins. Special make-up effects artist Rob Bottin also drew positive acclaim cementing his status as a horror heavyweight, his gory artwork showing up in other iconic classics like RoboCop, The Thing, and Total Recall. 

Three months later, Michael Wadleigh’s Wolfen hit the screens and proved how werewolves can go way beyond the typical folk horror subgenre. This time around, the story played out as a murder mystery with policemen investigating a pattern of serial killings somehow connected to certain “wolf rituals”. The blend of a cop thriller and werewolf horror drew raves from critics and audiences alike. 

And then, within less than a month, An American Werewolf In London dropped and the werewolf subgenre changed forever. Toying around with the concept of a horror comedy, the John Landis directorial venture deals with two backpackers one of whom gets bitten by a werewolf on their journey to London. Landis became so popular that even Michael Jackson hired him to direct the werewolf-inspired video for Thriller, largely considered to be one of the best music videos of all time. 

More than anything else, the 80s audiences were appalled by the human-to-werewolf transition effects masterminded by the special make-up director Rick Baker. His work turned out to be so influential that the Oscars inaugurated the category of Best Makeup with Baker taking home the first-ever award.

Vampires vs Werewolves: European folklore, English literature, and American cinema has always been fascinated with vampires and werewolves. So, it was high time that both mythical creatures had an ambitious face-off.

The Underworld series kickstarted this trend in the early 2000s dealing with the “blood wars” between vampires and werewolves (who were referred to as Lycans).

Adding a touch of teen romance and literary melodrama, the war between vampires and werewolves also became a driving factor in the Twilight saga with one of the lead characters being the werewolf Jacob. As it is, both species are depicted as sworn enemies and when Jacob gets romantically linked with Bella, the human girl in a relationship with the vampire Edward, further chaos ensues. 

In the post-Twilight era, the battle has been turned into a light-hearted braw with the horror mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows (and its TV series adaptation of the same name). With both the blood-suckers and canines depicted as dim-witted beasts, What We Do In The Shadows parodies their classic horror portrayals. 

For instance, when the vampire Deacon encounters werewolves, he treats them like pet dogs and throws a bundle of sticks for them to fetch. In another moment, the vampires joke how a werewolf might “smell his own crotch” like a dog to which the touchy werewolf says, 

Foreign variations in werewolf cinema: The French and Italians were quite obsessed with werewolves, even sexualising them in some films! Some Italian classics include 1961’s Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory (the title is pretty self-explanatory) and 1976’s Werewolf Woman (again pretty self-explanatory title). Both films are classic “sexploitation” works that focus on showing terrorised skimpily-clad women for shock value, clearly not aging well for modern viewers.

As for French werewolf cinema, the most popular and controversial title was La Bête AKA The Beast, a so-called “erotica” that doubles as what critics called “monster porn”. Yes, this is a movie about explicitly graphic sexual relations between a woman and a werewolf!

When it comes to the neighbouring European country Spain, Paul Naschy is a monumental figure. The horror actor was fascinated with the Wolf Man ever since he watched Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man as a kid. The result was him acting as a werewolf turning character called Count Waldemar Daninsky in 12 films. In this Spanish franchise, Daninsky’s werewolf avatar goes against all sorts of enemies ranging from “Vampire Woman” to a “Yeti”!

Meanwhile, in Asia, Japan took to the lead with its most popular werewolf export being the 1973 film Horror of the Wolf. Doubling as a horror romance and a revenge thriller, the film deals with a recently-turned werewolf man who falls in love with a school teacher and also goes against the Yakuza gang members who killed his parents. Toho, the Japanese studio most renowned for Godzilla, produced and distributed this cult classic.

Talking about Godzilla, a giant-sized werewolf has even gone against the thermonuclear lizard in Japan! The unreleased fan film Legendary Giant Beast Wolfman vs Godzilla, the principal photography began in mid-80s, complete with actors dressed in costumes and fighting in the backdrop of miniature buildings. Unfortunately, the film could never be finished as Toho alleged director Shizuo Nakajima of unlicensed use of Godzilla.

Werewolves become funny with Werewolf By Night, Bhediya and many more: Even in the classic black-and-white era, werewolf comedies were getting popular. However, it was with 80s classics like the aforementioned An American Werewolf In London, Teen Wolf (a 1985 teen comedy that went on to inspire the TV series of the same name), Fright Night and many more that werewolf comedy began to take modern shape.

Marvel’s recent TV special on Disney+ Hotstar, Werewolf By Night, even satirised classic Hollywood horrors with a vintage spooky music score and black-and-white photography. As can be seen even from Bhediya’s trailer, most of the werewolf comedies tend to focus a lot on the evolution process, drawing laughs for how the protagonist adjusts to the change of turning into a furry canine.

Will Bhediya be able to deliver on its laughs and scares, that only time will tell.

Bhediya releases in Indian theatres on November 25.