Cover Story - Top 15 Werewolf By Night Covers

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Earlier in the week I mused on the way vampires didn’t truly survive their popular peak during the transition years from the 2000s to the 2010s.  I considered making a similar opening but about werewolves but when you get down to it, I can’t say werewolves were ever as popular as vampires.  The biggest standard bearer for the werewolf genre in the modern era is probably Teen Wolf and good though that show is I had to check to make sure it was still ongoing.  My point is that it didn’t come with the same impactful popularity as Twilight/True Blood/Vampire Diaries. 

No, the true last hurrah for the werewolf was the ‘70s, when films like American Werewolf in London were redefining the subgenre.  In that spirit and because I want to double cash-in on Underworld: Blood Wars, I’m taking a look at Marvel’s big hit werewolf book of the era- Werewolf By Night.  This was seriously one of Marvel’s most successful horror comics alongside Tomb of Dracula, running about half the decade and spawning characters that persist to this day like Moon Knight.  It’s a fun dive into the weird blend of comic book spookiness, early horror-xploitation aesthetics, and superhero storytelling that we’re going to honor here today. 

Comics Rainbow - Vampires

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Vampires; there’s a trend that really didn’t manage to survive the decade.  I’m not saying we don’t have vampire stories anymore, in fact, the upcoming release of the 5^th Underworld film is the entire reason I elected to dedicate this article to the subject.  But in a much more pointed way vampires just aren’t the cultural draw they were in that window of transition from 2007-2010.  

You can probably blame Twilight for that, as it both catalyzed vampires as a popular craze while also poisoning the well for all future vampire stories- hence why most of the Twilight imitators gravitated towards young adult fiction than vampires.  Still, the undead probably won’t be going away entirely given that they’ve been a staple of pop culture since Nosferatu, to the point they’ve thoroughly colonized comics as well as movies, TV, and books.  So let’s get the full spectrum on comic book vampires.

Movie Monthly - Project Almanac

Previously in Movie Monthly I’ve stated my serious affection for found footage films.  However, I do realize this particular claim needs a bit of clarity.  When I say I like found footage films what I really mean is that I like found footage horror movies, mainly because the horror genre has a lot of interesting and engaging subgenre and elements that rarely get explored because they aren’t considered profitable.  So, if dressing up your Bigfoot horror movie in the clothes of a found footage flick both as a cost cutting measure and a way to convince investors and audiences this is a film worth their time I’m all for it (don’t worry, we’ll get to the Bigfoot films another time.)  However, I am aware that found footage horror isn’t the only aspect of this particular formatting tool in existence, there’s also the far less often employed Sci-Fi found footage film like Chronicle or today’s offering Project Almanac.  

Nosferatu Remake Finds Director

Something that’s become abundantly clear in recent years is that remakes, reboots, reimaginings, and all other sundry manner of “RE” terms for bringing back old recognizable franchises, aren’t just a passing trend but a full on cultural force.  For the most part it’s not a surprising shift as the Internet age has helped a lot of older media franchises persist in public memory without really exposing newer generations to the originals, allowing for cheap retreads of classics to seem fresh and new while also milking lucrative nostalgia dollars from completionists fans.  It’s a viscous cycle to be sure but sometimes the system works as with the sequel/reboot Mad Max: Fury Road, the rebooted Hannibal show on NBC, or the highly underrated remake of The Crazies.  My point is that revisitation seems to work best for works of horror which is why I’m kind of on board with the recently announced remake/reboot of Nosferatu.