Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) arrives at his ancestral castle, falls in love via telescope, and buys a new walking stick. Yep, everything is wonderful! Uh oh! Gypsies roll into town, and the mysterious Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya) and her son, Bela (Bela Lugosi) have the inside track on the spirit world! If that's not bad enough, Bela's got a terrible secret that plays right into an old Talbot family curse! Soon enough, someone is killed and Larry starts getting hairy! THE WOLF MAN is, of course, a classic horror / monster film. It's also quite an enjoyable ball of -lupine- yarn. This movie still has that unique Universal look and atmosphere, which started to fade into the realm of "monsters-on-the-loose" cheeeze, as the 1940's wore on. Claude Rains is believable as Sir John Talbot, whose love for his son is tested to the utmost. Ralph Belamy (ROSEMARY'S BABY) and Evelyn Ankers (SON OF DRACULA) are also quite good in their roles. A Halloween staple...

I've recently been binge watching "The Twilight Zone" and I noticed something. Every time I watch a black and white horror or sci-fi film, it just feels like I'm watching a long episode of "The Twilight Zone". I'm glad to understand all the pop culture references to this film now. I recognize that episode of "Dinosaurs" as being a direct parody of this film. I recall how it was featured in "The Sandlot". Anyway, the movie's great on its own.The best parts are probably the philosophical talks these characters have. I especially love hearing about how the mind affects the body. It's a very clear looking film and the makeup effects are quite nice. I was afraid it would end at an hour in. Something 70 minutes long has to have good pacing. Bela Lugosi only played Dracula twice, but he was in a lot of other horror movies at this time, like here. ***1/2

Despite Universal's release of Stuart Walker's Werewolf Of London six years earlier, George Waggner's The Wolf Man would become Hollywood's archetypal werewolf film.It stars Lon Chaney, who gets bitten and turned into a into a wolf man by a gypsy fortune teller/werewolf.He beats the wolf to death with his silver cane- only to find out it was actually a man, when he wakes up in the morning.Really, he just wanted to woo the local jeweller's daughter. Now, he finds himself stricken with an ancient curse.And he's turning into a full blown werewolf.He promptly kills the gravedigger, and is followed back to his home by the police- where he tries to cover up his tracks.But he fears he might attack the woman he has eyes for...and he's starting to question everything he has ever believed.Nonetheless, he succumbs to the curse of the werewolf, and gets his comeuppance (which I personally think he deserves, because he's kind of a douche).This is a pretty solid, straight forward, film. And it sets a standard for what would become one of today's most well known sub-genres of horror.The werewolf makeup is pretty sweet...and that last transformation from werewolf back to human is pretty awesome! Though, a bit dated, this is still a classic film that needs to be seen.Definitely check it out.6.5 out of 10.

Returning to his ancestral homeland, a young man becomes increasingly convinced he's become the vicious wolf man running rampant across the countryside and tries to find a way of stopping the deadly curse from forcing him to hurt those around him.For the most part, this here is quite the deserving classic that has a lot to really like here. One of the better elements here is in how well this one lays out his coming to terms with his condition, as there are some great storytelling tactics to buy into what's going on. The constant nagging about the town's legend of the werewolf and it's tie-ins to the gypsies starts this off well, then once it brings up the attack on the couple in the woods that causes him to get the curse and all the really fun investigations going over the incident gives this some of the best parts of the film where they start going in on his experience which has no evidence to back it up. These scenes here are all built together with the towns' hysteria and his growing paranoia feeds into this one's storyline about his growing resentment at becoming this creature that it really sells the idea, and it all comes together so well that there's very little about this that doesn't come off as wholly appealing. To tie that all into the storyline is fun enough while managing to really overwhelm on the action scenes which are quite fun overall, from the first attack on the girl in the woods where he gets bitten, his first attack where he goes after the workers along the moors which is quite chilling with the suspenseful amount of fog rolling through the area and his later attacks prowling through the night which makes for some nice action in the later half where we get a lot of great looks at the werewolf makeup in action. As well, the fantastic finale really works quite well in generating the kind of exciting action required to leave on a high-note where the stalking of the girl through the swamp is quite a creepy setup leading so well into the scenes of the villagers chasing after him in the darkness with their pitchforks and torches while the big battle here gives this one the kind of rousing high-energy confrontation needed once it got there and ends this on a somewhat somber note. Given that this one really sets the standard for the genre's clichés and patterns into the setup, these are the film's main positives while there's a minor flaw here. This is that the amount of time spent here on the werewolf makeup show it off in a rather disheartening light by showing off just mounds of fur and hair glued all over which doesn't look best and really stands out here. Otherwise, there's not much really wrong here.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.