There comes a point when watching all the best horror movies where I feel compelled to go back to a simpler time. I want to go back to the days when someone went to a movie theater and ran in terror because they saw a train coming at them on the screen. I’m talking about the origins of the horror genre, specifically the Universal Monsters.
I embarked on this journey last year with high expectations, believing that the fact that these creatures have endured the test of time meant the movies they inspired were truly amazing. Hell, there were even glowing Rotten Tomatoes scores to back it up, but I soon found myself disappointed. All this is to say, I watched The Wolf Man expecting to be disappointed, but it actually flew in the face of all I knew about Universal monster movies before this.
Some Universal Monster Movies Have High Ratings Based On Legacy Alone
I started my journey with Frankenstein, which currently has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The history of this movie, the icons attached to it, and the fact that most of what people associate with Frankenstein is tied to this movie have to contribute to that, because it barely qualifies as a movie.
In hindsight, I should’ve seen that coming. It was made in 1931, in an era where feature films were still in relative infancy. A vast majority of this movie is Frankenstein’s monster bumbling around town, and it tends to drag on. That’s saying a lot for a movie that is only seventy minutes long, but man, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Suffice it to say, I have higher hopes for Guillermo Del Toro’s version.
I wasn’t mad; I was disappointed. I imagine it’s the same feeling people get when they see the Mona Lisa in person for the first time. It’s a masterpiece, it’s iconic, but it’s also way smaller than you imagined, and everyone has their phone out, and you can hardly see it from where you’re standing. I figured The Wolf Man would be a similar experience, but I was pleasantly surprised that that wasn’t the case.
The Wolf Man Is Worthy Of Its High Rotten Tomatoes Score
This may come as a shock to anyone who has seen the Wolf Man remake or previous attempts to tell this story via film, but the original 1941 movie, The Wolf Man, is a classic. It’s a wonder what the decade since Frankenstein apparently did for film storytelling, because there’s dialogue, a cohesive story, and characters with depth, all within the same timeframe as that earlier movie.
I can’t help but love the horrendously bad luck that Larry Talbot has in this movie. He’s in town to help bury his brother and reunite with his estranged father. He then gets cursed and ends up being bludgeoned to death by his oblivious father at the movie’s end. It’s far from the most complex plot we’ve seen in horror, but it’s effective and shockingly ahead of the time for when it was made.
I remember complaints about the newest Wolf Man criticizing the lack of werewolves in the movie, but to be completely candid, there aren’t a ton in The Wolf Man either. A vast majority of this movie features Larry in non-wolf form, with only snippets of his wolfy form, mostly shrouded in shadows. I’m assuming that’s to aid the hair and makeup used for creature design, which is also phenomenal for the era.
I thought I was done with classic Universal Monster movies after watching Frankenstein with my Peacock subscription, but The Wolf Man pulled me back in. The legacy of Dracula has me wanting to check it out next, and I can only hope it’s more Wolf Man than Frankenstein when I do.
The Wolf Man is available to stream on Peacock right now, along with a lot of other classic monster movies. Give it a look if you feel so inclined, but maybe don’t look at Rotten Tomatoes scores when it comes to this particular set of movies if you’re trying to figure out which are the best to watch.