Editorials
5 Werewolf Movies That Were One Step Away from Greatness
Werewolves are frustrating. They’re some of the best movie monsters to have ever graced the screen. Legends of humans turning into wolves have persisted for thousands of years. There’s clearly something about them that speaks to us on a deep, primal, even personal level. Werewolves aren’t just snarling creatures that howl at the moon and look really cool. They’re us. They’re the id literally run wild. They reflect humanity, the same way that every great monster does. That’s why they’ve lasted so long and why we’re clearly still so interested in seeing them.
The problem is that unlike vampires or zombies, werewolves require a lot of visual effects work to really pull them off successfully. More than any other monster, great werewolf features can be hindered by creatures that don’t work as well as they should. Conversely, some films can have great looking effects, but just fall apart when it comes to the overall story.
As a fan, it can be so frustrating to get excited for a werewolf movie only to be ultimately disappointed. There are so many little details that are hard to get right. It didn’t help as a kid to have so many preconceived notions of what a werewolf should and should not look like. That’s another thing that really gets people into trouble, everyone goes into a werewolf flick with different expectations.
Not every werewolf movie is destined to be a classic on the level of Wolf Man, Howling or American Werewolf. Most of the enjoyable ones fall into the realm of “pretty good.” Sometimes pretty good is all you need. It certainly suffices for an evening’s entertainment.
But sometimes it’s hard not to look at some of these decent werewolf flicks and think about how easily they could have been on the same level of the classics, had it only been for one or two changes.
Bad Moon
The number one thing Bad Moon has going for it is an absolutely terrific monster. This is one of the best werewolves ever committed to film and, as I’ve pointed out, that’s no easy feat. That’s not to say that the creature is its only strong point. The overall story’s pretty great as well. Bad Moon is basically Fright Night if Charley Brewster was a dog. The set up is the same. Family dog knows that the kind-but-distant uncle who’s moved into a trailer next door is actually a werewolf.
The movie gets a lot of mileage out of the dog’s acting. But there is a bit of a low-budget atmosphere to the whole thing. And really, that’s what it comes down to. The only thing keeping Bad Moon from being a classic is money. With a bit more time to enrich a couple of the performances and get the best out of the locations, it could have been something truly special.
There’s one moment in particular that serves as the only glaring weakness. It’s a transformation sequence. And a bad one. In a movie filled with great practical FX work, bad CGI really stands out. Some more money put into that scene in particular could have made a world of difference.
Cursed
I know, I know. Wes Craven’s Cursed feels several steps away from being a masterpiece. But when you step back and look at it, you’ve got Wes Craven reteaming with Kevin Williamson after the huge success of Scream and Scream 2. You’ve got a great cast including Christina Ricci, Michael Rosenbaum and Jesse Eisenberg in an early role. There’s so much in this film that feels like a recipe for success.
So where was the success? Why did the movie turn out so badly? It kind of comes down to the studio. Cursed was shot beginning-to-end at least twice, with the grand total being something closer to three times before all was said and done. Dimension let Craven and Williamson do whatever they wanted, assuming they were going to get something similar to Scream.
Of course, the writer/director duo didn’t want to retread old ground, so they came up with something totally different and that was what they shot the first time around. How different? The original version was a siege picture and Ricci and Eisenberg’s characters were not even related. I have no doubt that if Dimension had simply let Craven complete the film he’d shot in the first place, Cursed could easily have been something amazing.
The Wolfman (2010)
The problems facing The Wolfman are essentially the same ones that ballooned into the major issues facing monster movies today. There’s a need for spectacle. There’s a need to treat classic horror characters as icons on the same level as Batman and Spider-Man and to turn them into dazzling action franchises. This is Universal’s current model in place for building its cinematic monster universe. It didn’t work for Dracula Untold and the jury’s still out on The Mummy, but it began with The Wolfman.
One of the biggest problems with the movie is that you can see how it turned from a straightforward gothic horror film to a horror/action hybrid through extensive reshoots and editing. But the number one issue, which is an extension of that, is that all of the great practical FX work created for the movie was just tossed aside. We get a few bits here and there, but for the most part the focus is on generic CGI creations.
This was the film that caused Rick Baker’s decision to retire. He’s not shy about admitting that. The man who won the very first Oscar for special makeup FX—for a werewolf movie, no less—got into the business with dreams of one day doing the remake of The Wolfman. When that time came, most of his work was replaced. Had the movie focused on being the FX-driven, moody horror it was designed to be, the results would be much more memorable.
Underworld
Technically, Underworld is also a vampire movie, sure. But it’s a werewolf movie too. For many people, the Underworld series is everything that’s wrong with horror today. It’s big budget, CGI-heavy, defies its indie roots, it’s not attempting to be scary, it’s just loud dumb fun. That doesn’t do much for most fans. But as much as I complained about action/horror, there’s a place for it. There’s a resurgence in campy large-scale action right now that’s kind of great. I think the problem with Underworld, speaking strictly to the original, is actually that it’s not big dumb fun.
Because it’s not any fun at all. A Matrix rip-off centering on a war between vampires and werewolves has all the ingredients for a gleeful, popcorn-munching good time at the movies. But Underworld takes itself so, so seriously. It doesn’t want you to enjoy it. It doesn’t want you to have fun. Sure, it looks cool. But it’s so dark and dreary and the story is just so dense. Levity could have meant everything for Underworld.
A bit of humor or just a simple sense of fun would have balanced out some of the really serious moments and made them work that much better. The twist is honestly kind of brilliant and the main cast is great. If we’d been allowed to have a little fun with it, that would have made all the difference.
Silver Bullet
I’ll admit this right out of the gate: I love Silver Bullet. It’s one of my all-time favorite werewolf films. It’s got a great, surprisingly touching story. Gary Busey gives one of the best performances of his career. Corey Haim is a genuinely likable, sympathetic young lead. He’s a handicapped hero who’s not defined by his handicap. He brings an appreciated wit to a role that could have been too serious in the wrong hands. It had a quaint, small town atmosphere that I related to as a kid. It felt so similar to the town I grew up in.
The movie handled the mystery elements way better than Cursed would wind up doing. Most werewolf flicks stray from a whodunit structure, but it’s always been one of the best things about Silver Bullet for me. It’s a small town slasher where the villain just happens to be a werewolf. So what’s the problem?
Well, it’s the monster. It’s bad. It’s really bad. Frustratingly, it looks great in the quick glimpses we’re treated to throughout the first two thirds. The general shape suggests one of the best werewolves of all time. The silhouette is great. Even the close ups on the teeth, claws and eyes work very well. And then, when it’s revealed in full at the end, it just falls apart. The mystery dies. It’s a shame, because it’s genuinely the only thing holding it back from being one of the all-time greats.
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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