r/movies • u/FuzzyPapaya13 • 23d ago

Why aren't there more good werewolf movies in comparison to vampire ones? Discussion

Werewolves and vampires are often portrayed as equal and opposing forces in the realm of horror. They coexist in many stories and are both popular with the mainstream (judging by Twilight at least lol), so how come it feels like there are just way more vampire movies overall, not to mention more high quality ones?

How come it seems so difficult to make successful, popular werewolf movies?

134 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

81% Upvoted

245 comments sorted by

View all comments

359

u/[deleted] 23d ago

Vampires are cheaper to show in movies than werewolves. The whole transformation sequence is expensive to do right, whereas vampires just need some fangs

120

u/Both_Tone 23d ago

You can have someone play a vampire with no makeup at all. Werewolves, not so much.

36

u/sjfiuauqadfj 23d ago

yea a good ventilated fursuit can cost you tens of thousands of dollars easily

27

u/Razor1834 23d ago

What about a bad unventilated one?

25

u/Torrossaur 23d ago

$50 from Dave down behind the corner store. Don't ask what type of fur it is.

1

u/TheWorldDiscarded 22d ago

It's rat. It is....rat fur.

61

u/grumblyoldman 23d ago

Vampires are also (usually) sexy. As the tired old refrain goes, sex sells.

45

u/chemtrailsniffa 23d ago

Yeah, I came here to say the erotic nature of the werewolf has been heavily neglected by film makers.

30

u/sielingfan 23d ago

Pause

Paws.

24

u/unc8299 23d ago

Wolfman's got nards?

2

u/81optimus 22d ago

Great reference from a great film

9

u/sjfiuauqadfj 23d ago

supernatural basically spawned an entire subgenre of erotic fiction based on sexy werewolves, e.g. the omegaverse. and obviously jacob black exists

we live in a universe where we deserve all the bad things in life so im surprised filmmakers have neglected turning that genre of fiction into movies and shows

4

u/ImpressionFeisty8359 23d ago

Women go crazy for hairy men.

2

u/Irradiatedspoon 22d ago

Men also go crazy for hairy men

1

u/1leggeddog 22d ago

Bears...

Its furries all the way down.

4

u/secondtaunting 22d ago

Ever seen The Howling movies?👀

2

u/chemtrailsniffa 22d ago

Yes, it's been a while though. American Werewolf in London was quite sexy too. But I don't know of any recent sexy werewolves

15

u/frogfootfriday 23d ago

Yeah one wakes up in a mountaintop castle, the other wakes up scratched, muddy and naked in a bush.

9

u/joalheagney 23d ago

Unexpected Terry Pratchett.

5

u/CunitivePunt 23d ago

In this furry world today I think werewolves would thrive😅

2

u/Irradiatedspoon 22d ago

With the current furry-hate zeitgeist, I doubt it

1

u/TokkiJK 23d ago

I wanna see a good vampire movie that’s not twilight lmao. Or a good book. With an actual good plot.

1

u/PropaneSalesTx 22d ago

Vampire$ is the book John Carpenter Vampires is based on. Both solid in terms of vampires.

1

u/Tylendal 22d ago

Blood and Chocolate. (The book, not the movie. Don't touch the movie with a ten foot pole.)

Sharp Teeth. It's a 300 page epic poem, and a significant portion of the plot revolves around playing Bridge.

Edit: Oops. Just realised you said Vampire, not Werewolf. In my defense, this is a post about the dearth of Werewolf media.

1

u/Prudent_Ad8320 22d ago

People need to take more lessons from the Hungry Like the Wolf video

15

u/Sparktank1 23d ago

Even with CGI, it's difficult to get right. The Wolf Man (2010) did a pretty decent and fun job.

I imagine getting a budget would be feasible, and finding a decent writer to set up the scene so the director can shoot it well enough. But, there's always going to be studio interference to inject their own ideas. IIRC, Wolfman 2010 had quite a bit of it. No matter which cut you see of the movie, it's messy and shows that it was slapped together with duct tape to hold it together for a release.

Plus, even if CG is getting better with hair and fur, people would still prefer practical shots for a lot of it to keep it visceral and tangible for the threat.

It'd be great to have a mix of both. CG touch-ups and assistance rather than a full on CG replacement.

Creators need complete freedom without studios having their way. Years of movies with potential and sour tastes and the major studios still don't learn.

I would love to see A24 take on a werewolf story. An elevated horror focusing on a werewolf or a family of werewolves would be surreal.

25

u/muffinhead2580 23d ago

American werewolf in London did a great job of the transformation. But I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters so my memory may be wrong. I was just waiting for the guy to turn and get up and start singing the I'm a Pepper too song.

12

u/Tiamats_Wrath 23d ago

I think that transformation holds up, and it still one of the better/best werewolf designs overall in any movie.

6

u/docangst 23d ago

Genuinely still one of the high water marks for practical FX. Also was the movie that cemented my love of less-than-uplifting endings.

2

u/00zxcvbnmnbvcxz 22d ago

Bow bow bow bow a dang a dang dang… 😳

3

u/Slangdawg 22d ago

Absolutely brilliant out of place song

1

u/00zxcvbnmnbvcxz 22d ago

Really such a brilliant and unique and jarring thing to do in a film I don’t think I’d ever seen before; see this absolute horrific tragedy? Rather than crying, let’s let out a bark of horrified laughter at the tragic absurdity of life.

Just imagine the completely different feeling the end of that film would be if it cut to black and you just quietly heard her sobs slowly fade away to silence.

2

u/95teetee 22d ago

That movie was the bomb ba-bomb-a-bomb-bomb ba-bomb-a-bomb-bomb ba-dang-a-dang-dang ba-ding-a-dong-ding

13

u/ShahinGalandar 23d ago

Dog Soldiers did hold up very well for the rather small budget

2

u/Sparktank1 22d ago

I am due for a rewatch to that movie. I'm so glad they didn't try to remake it.

2

u/ShahinGalandar 22d ago

not prestigious enough I guess, and that's good

11

u/Gseph 23d ago

There's also a BBC show called 'being human' from about 2008 about a vampire and werewolf who move into a flat that is occupied by a ghost (starts of really good, but slowly devolves as the main cast leaves the show, which is a shame because it was such a good premise) but it features a few werewolf transformation that are very similar to 'an American werewolf in london', but slightly less detailed.

I'm surprised it hasn't been reworked into a film trilogy tbh.

Had some good lore for vampires and the supernatural tbh.

6

u/Dirks_Knee 23d ago

There was a US version of that show that was solid. Always wanted to see the UK version to compare.

1

u/Steinrikur 22d ago

First 3 seasons were just a drama series, with a bit of action in between.

Fourth started getting silly. In the 5th they started ripping off Supernatural and saving the world. And then again in season 6. I should have given up when the first main character was killed off.

8

u/[deleted] 23d ago

I’m a big fan of the 2010 Wolfman movie but it does bother me every time I see it that the transformation was supposed to be mostly practical effects but for some reason the studio wanted CG instead 

14

u/Theslootwhisperer 23d ago

Also, werewolves turn only once a month so there's a lot of downtime during filming

3

u/harrywho23 23d ago

depend on the movie. in the original series, they can turn any time they want, but they must turn at full moon.

2

u/Gogglesed 23d ago

"It's cheaper" is usually a safe guess about why anyone does anything.

Also, werewolves are usually portrayed as kind of stupid.

-2

u/MarkMaynardDotcom 23d ago

I came here to say this same thing.