Gorgeously shot with some handsomely foggy production design, The Wolf Man rightfully earns its place as one of Universal's more memorable monsters.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 21, 2025

It wastes not a minute, since the running time is barely over an hour, detailing the curse and concluding it in the only way possible for this monumental horror film that would pave the way for so many derivative productions after it.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 17, 2025

The best werewolf movie ever made also gets my vote as the finest film in the entire Universal series (edging out 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein).

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 24, 2023

While The Wolf Man may not have stood the test of time like many of its predecessors, it is a classic film that would lay the groundwork for a continuing cycle of wolves for decades to come.

| Oct 7, 2023

Essential for devising the modern concept of the werewolf, from which nearly every subsequent werewolf film has drawn inspiration, the film uses the guise of a horror yarn to consider the duality of human beings.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 20, 2022

This is a classic horror movie that's showing its age.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 9, 2021

It finds modern sophistication and cultured intellects unprepared to deal with a threat that's already at hand, maybe even under our own skin.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 13, 2020

Ironically, The Wolf Man is stronger and creepier in the scenes without the wolf man.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 13, 2020

The whole thing is nonsensical, but occasionally strangely compelling.

| Apr 13, 2020

Lon Chaney, junior, has his first big role as The Wolf Man, but it would take a genius to "get away" with this role.

| Apr 13, 2020

This vehicle features Lom Chaney, jr., as a rather pathetic, and certainly unawesomely made-up. werewolf as the Thing which severs innocents' jugular veins in the mists of English moors.

| Apr 13, 2020

The Wolf Man serves its horror straight. A very substantial cast undertakes to sell believably a tale of superstitious folklore.

| Apr 7, 2015

The original and only entry in the Wolf Man series that I truly like. Lon Chaney, Jr. was born to play the troubled Larry Talbot, a guy who gets bitten by a werewolf (Bela Lugosi) and openly laments his future as the hairiest man in Europe. Nicely done.

| Original Score: B+ | Oct 26, 2014

Horror movies today rely on gore and as many jump out of your seat moments as they can throw at you. This one relies on old fashioned atmosphere and acting ability and that's all it really needs.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 13, 2014

This Universal classic not only established Lon Chaney Jr as a horror star but also instigated most of the cinematic werewolf lore concerning pentagrams, the Moon and the fatality of silver.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 6, 2013

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Oct 31, 2012

Most horrifying is the potential inability to sway our own innately darker tendencies.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 13, 2010

Chaney may appear to have had a bad run-in with a hair dryer, but he's still the definitive villain as tragic hero.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 10, 2010

A film of sometimes uncertain greatness that is nonetheless the most entertaining and effective Universal monster movie since Bride of Frankenstein.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 26, 2009

The Wolf Man's tantamount pleasures are its economy and speed, its silvery manipulations of light and shadow, and the panache with which the lighting, the story, and the rich cast navigate [its] tone.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 10, 2009