The Wolf Man

I think I saw this movie when I was a kid, or at least I have a dim recollection of it, but I wanted to watch it as an adult and see how it fared with my grown-up sensibilities.  It winds up being as much fun as I remember.

You all know the story.  Larry Talbot returns to his father's estate after he learns that his brother was killed in a hunting accident.  Larry is kind of a doofus, but a nice enough guy, and he falls for a local girl named Gwen (too bad she's already engaged to another man - oh scandal!)  One night Larry and Gwen go to a local carnival to have their fortunes read by a Gypsy (sigh) when a friend of Gwen's is attacked by an animal.  Larry fights off the animal and kills it, but it bites him, and the animal is a wolf, and so we all know Larry is in trouble now.  There's a lot of folklore behind the story, explaining how werewolves come to be, how they select their next victims, and how to kill them.  The movie is dated, but it winds up being good spooky fun anyway, and Larry is an engaging enough character to keep me interested in his story as it plays out.  This would be a fun movie to introduce the kids to horror during the Halloween season.