8 Underrated Werewolf Movies You Need To Watch Right Now

There are few werewolf movies with as much emotional investment as Good Manners. Written and directed by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra, this Brazilian film follows the lives of a housekeeper, her pregnant employer, and the employer’s cursed child.

When Clara (Isabél Zuaa) is hired by the lonely Ana (Marjorie Estiano) as her future nanny, the two fall into an unlikely romance, one that is cut tragically short by the gory birth of Ana’s baby. Clara decides to raise the child, Joel, but his strange condition proves too volatile for her to handle on her own.

Good Manners is beautiful, emotionally devastating and truly shocking. One moment the protagonists are sharing a surprisingly sensual exchange in the dim light of the refrigerator (eerily reminiscent of a certain scene from Jennifer’s Body), and before you know it, someone is drenched in blood.

This mesmerizing emotional roller coaster is about love, through and through, but audiences are just as likely to remember the movie’s insatiable bloodlust. You can watch Good Manners on Tubi and Plex.

Director Josh Ruben’s sophomore sensation, Werewolves Within, sets a new standard in werewolf horror comedy. Co-written by Mishna Wolff and based on the video game of the same name, the movie takes the game’s Mafia-style premise and drops it into a more modern setting. Finn (Sam Richardson) is the new forest ranger in the small Vermont town of Beaverfield. Soon after his arrival, bodies begin to pile up, and—due to Beaverfield’s political tensions—everyone is a suspect.

Isolated and snow-stricken, this and-then-there-were-none-style mystery has all the fast-paced comedic sensibilities of an Edgar Wright film. Infectious and hilarious with killer performances by Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, and scream king Harvey Guillén, to name a few, Werewolves Within is a modern horror comedy classic with oodles of rewatchability. You can stream Werewolves Within on Shudder.

And speaking of murder mysteries, how about another hair-raising twist on the premise? In The Beast Must Die, eccentric millionaire and big game hunter Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) has invited a handful of people to his mansion. He announces to them that he has reason to believe one of them is a werewolf, and he intends to kill the beast at any cost.

This movie is an easy sell for audiences with more eclectic tastes: 1970s Blaxploitation meets murder mystery and werewolf horror. Throw in scream royalty like Marlene Clark, Peter Cushing and Charles Gray, and you have a recipe for a good time.

Despite the intriguing premise, the film tends to idle for too long during certain scenes and struggles to maintain a sense of true tension. The Beast Must Die is perhaps best enjoyed with a crowd and best appreciated for the true novelty that it is. You can watch The Beast Must Die on Tubi and Prime Video.

1981 could not have offered stiffer competition in the league of werewolf movies. An American Werewolf in London and The Howling were both released the same year, and are still considered top of their class in the werewolf subgenre. However, a third film, which also came out in the year of the wolf, deserves its fair share of accolades.

Directed by Michael Wadleigh, Wolfen is a cryptic horror movie exploring social intrigue and ancient hunger. When the jaded former cop Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is brought onto a high-profile homicide case, he suspects there may be more at play than just political terrorism.

Wolfen is a clear tonal shift from its 1980s werewolf cousins. This pseudo crime procedural, steeped in urban decay and late twentieth-century politics, often subverts expectations and stereotypes. The movie is also known for its trademark infrared-like vision for certain scenes, similar to the look later used in the Predator films.

If you’re interested in a werewolf story with cunning, nuance, and a protagonist who looks like he fought his way out of a wet paper bag, try Wolfen, which is available to stream on Tubi.

Fans of gory British horror movies of the early 2000s, like 28 Days Later, will surely appreciate director Neil Marshall’s absolute shredder of a werewolf entry. In Dog Soldiers, a squad of British soldiers find themselves trapped on all sides by a murderous werewolf pack, forced to shelter in a rural home in the Scottish Highlands. Tensions rise, and blood flies as the soldiers struggle to survive until sunrise.

The werewolves in Dog Soldiers are not to be trifled with: giant, hulking, and merciless. But the military protagonists spare no firepower in their fight to escape, dual-wielding guns and detonating explosives while trying to hold their guts in place.

Claustrophobic and heart-pounding, Dog Soldiers is sure to please anyone with a serious thirst for blood and action. And while it seems unlikely this film will ever see a direct sequel, it’s comforting to know that Marshall hasn’t totally given up on werewolves. Dog Soldiers is available to stream on Tubi, Prime, and AMC+.

While the application of the term “werewolf” might be most liberal with this entry, this Chilean stop motion film is a visual feast not to be slept on. Inspired by the cruelties of Colonia Dignidad, The Wolf House tells a fairytale-like story of a little girl named María who has escaped to an isolated home in the woods where she lives with two pigs. The Wolf, however, has tracked her down and intends to take her back to an ominous place called the Colony.

This isn’t your dad’s claymation movie! Nothing moves or acts the way you would expect. Cristobal León and Joaquín Cociña’s nightmare world is diorama-like, using a variety of mediums to bring their eerie vision to life. From the morphing canvas of María’s home to the ghastly whispers pervading the soundscape, The Wolf House stays with you in all the most uncomfortable ways. This is an easy pick for fans of Phil Tippett’s Mad God. You can watch The Wolf House on Plex.

In 2000, Ginger Snaps taught audiences how puberty can be synonymous with monstrous metamorphoses. When Animals Dream presents the same premise with a distinctly Scandinavian style.

This Danish film, directed by Jonas Alexander Arnby, follows Marie (Sonia Suhl), an adolescent girl struggling both at home and at work while her body undergoes bizarre changes. Empowered by her inner beast, Marie rails against the men in her life to preserve her sense of identity and to break the same cycles of oppression that doomed her mother.

When Animals Dream is a bleak, understated, and unsettling story about control. The tension is often dense enough to cut with a knife, and the small fishing town where the story takes place feels as hostile as the monster growing inside Marie. This slow-burn coming-of-age story is great for fans of Raw or Let the Right One In. When Animals Dream is available on Tubi and Plex.

If there’s any trend as prevalent in ‘80s genre films as a good werewolf transformation, it’s the “dark fantasy” aesthetic, best known for entries such as Labyrinth, Legend, and The Dark Crystal. In this fashion, The Company of Wolves assumes a fantastical and glamorous visage, made all the more alluring by the gruesome predators at its center.

The protagonist, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), is transported to a fairytale world where her grandmother (Angela Lansbury) warns her of the dangers of wolves, men, and romance.

Directed by Neil Jordan and co-written by the incomparable Angela Carter, this story-within-a-story fairy tale anthology also weaves major feminist themes into its tapestry. The film uses the werewolf as a vehicle for sexuality, abuse, and classism all in one intoxicating swing.

Fans of good practical effects will also relish in the movie’s truly iconic transformation sequences. Both salacious and terrifying, The Company of Wolves is a perfect fit for audiences who have feared, fallen for, and identified with the beast. You can watch The Company of Wolves on YouTube and Prime.