FrightFest Guide to Werewolf Movies (The Dark Heart of Cinema, 4)

The crimson eyes of the werewolf still glare at us from the midnight depths of our ancient roots deep in primordial forest. From the halls of Ancient Greek kings and from Roman horror stories, to medieval law courts and modern crime scenes, the lycanthrope has stalked us across the centuries.

In the contemporary world of the concrete jungle we may feel masters of our bestial ancestry, but the werewolf reminds us that our teeth were evolved to tear living – perhaps even human – flesh, that our place atop the food chain remains precarious.

We are now most familiar with the wolfman courtesy of Hollywood. Over the past century, a diverse pack of lycanthropes has manifest on the silver screen – in big-bucks blockbusters and zero-budget B-movies – each revealing a little more of the nature of the beast.

Within these colorful pages we will encounter reluctant wolfmen and shapeshifting sadists, Nazi werewolves and werewolf nuns, big bad fairytale wolves and lycanthropic nymphomaniacs.

Your guide is acclaimed author, broadcaster, occult historian – and lifelong werewolf obsessive – Gavin Baddeley. By finding fresh perspectives on established classics, uncovering neglected gems, and even examining a few howlers among the definitive selection of werewolf movies reviewed, Baddeley shows how the myth has adapted and transformed: whereby werewolves become analogies for alcoholism or adolescence, or ciphers for sexual awakening or serial murder.

Providing our foreword is the award-winning director, writer and producer Neil Marshall, whose brilliant debut feature DOG SOLDIERS reinvigorated the werewolf movie for the 21st Century.

So, the moon is full, the wolfsbane is in bloom… Time to brave the fogbound moors to find out who – or what – is responsible for that baleful howling… all is revealed in the FrightFest Guide to Werewolf Movies.