October Horror Challenge 2023 #35: "The Wolf Man"

I always say that this is my favorite of the Universal Pictures monster movies. It has the most tragic backstory (a man is cursed to turn into a wolf every full moon and slaughter innocent people, and there's no way to escape his fate) and it always seems more somber than the others to me. That fits the sad, eerie mood I like to experience in my movies this time of year. The wolf man always seems sadder to me than the other Universal monsters. He didn't choose his fste, he was cursed with this wolf thing, and in the beginning of the movie a Romani woman tries to warn him of what is going to happen, but he doesn't listen. Like most characters in horror movies, he thinks he knows best. Let's get together and watch him be wrong.

A young man who has been estranged comes back home after his brother dies in a hunting accident. This allows him to rebuild his relationship with his father, but somethingsinister is brewing. He tries to flirt with a local shopkeeper and she tells him about the legend of the wolf man, but he'stoo busy gazing lovingly into her eyes to notice. He buys a silver cane that displaysthe mark of the werewolf. Soon after that, he'sattacked by a wolf and he kills the animal with his cane, only to find out from the local fortuneteller that the wolf was her son, that he was a werewolf, and thatLarry is now a werewolf too, since he was bitten by her son. Larry tries to fight his urges to kill people, but it'sinevitablethat he lose becausethere'sno fighting the curse. Will Larry find a way to get rid of the werewolf curse or will it consume him and take his soul?

I like how this movie begins by showing all the actors and giving their names, because I spend most of my time watching movies trying to figure out who played what character and where I've seen them before. I wish more movies wouuld do this. I've seen this movie several times and I can never figure out why they think the thing that attacks Larry in the woods is a wolf when it is clearly a very hairy man. And of course no one believes his story after Bela the fortune teller is found bludgeoned to death with a blunt object and his cane is found right there at the scene of the crime. I don't know why the police don't arrest him, and I also don'tknow why werewolves in this movie are supposed to be so scary when they can be killed by hitting them with a cane (even though it does have a silver handle). Most werewolf movies require a silver bullet (which Stephen King insists isn't real because silver can't hold up to being melted and made into bullets. Who knows). I still like this movie, though, and it probably is still my favorite of the Universal monster movies.