Howling at the Moon
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together as a pack during the full moon, focused only on the kill. However, as
often encountered in other werewolf fictions, silver also plays a part in
dispatching the family in Dog Soldiers. Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd), the
surviving unit member, discovers during the film’s climax that penetration by
the metal removes the werewolves’ immortality. This find permits him to kill
the remaining wolf with nothing more exotic than a standard bullet.
Stephen Sommers’ Van Helsing (2004), the director’s attempt to create
a contemporary Universal “monster rally,” once again finds a major character,
Velkan Valerious (Will Kemp), being bitten by an extant werewolf. In this
multiple storyline potboiler that elevates scene chewing to new heights, the
film’s initial wolf man is unleashed upon the countryside by Count Dracula
(Richard Roxburgh) for the vampire king’s own nefarious purposes. Velkan
eventually passes his condition onto the film’s title hero (Hugh Jackman), biting
the monster hunter during one of the director’s typical special effects-dominated
fight scenes. Doubling as the film’s scriptwriter, Sommers’ contributions to
werewolf lore include two original conceits. The first lies with the unwieldy
suggestion that the werewolf is only hirsute when the rays of the full moon are
unencumbered by clouds or other such atmospheric phenomena. Thus, several
scenes depict Velkan and Van Helsing painfully alternating between being
themselves or their werewolf incarnations, depending on whether the full moon
is obscured at any particular moment. In addition to this revisionist folklore, we
are also told that it takes a werewolf to defeat Count Dracula, a plot device that
comes into play during the film’s climax when the newly lycanthropic Van
Helsing and the Count confront each other.
Another four films {The Curse o f the Werewolf Silver Bullet, The
Undying Monster, and Cry o f the Werewolf) find a main character the victim of
a curse that results in the person becoming a werewolf sometime during his or
her life. Hammer Studio’s The Curse o f the Werewolf (1961) features Oliver
Reed in his onscreen breakthrough as Leon, whose mother was raped by a
bestial beggar kept incarcerated for years by the sinister Marquis who rules the
land. According to the local priest, Leon’s soul is corrupted due to the
circumstances of his conception, and the young m