The Wolf Girl Starter Pack

As viewers of my YouTube videos likely know by now, in the past few months I’ve fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole (or wolf den, if you will) of werewolf-related media. This began innocently enough with a rewatch of MTV’s adapted series Teen Wolf, but quickly snowballed into a more thorough investigation of werewolfery as both cinematic motif and cultural myth.

Throughout all of this, I was working on my undergraduate film thesis paper, which involved the curation of a vast collection of literature on gender in the horror film. In doing so much active research, in the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: What academic presence might exist already for the humble werewolf?

With that in mind, I’ve compiled a bit of a reading/watching list of academic writing and relevant film and television works, many of which I myself have yet to explore. Werewolf spelunking can be a lonely sport. Enter the cave alongside me if you dare.

Literature

Books

Gender and Werewolf Cinema by Jason Barr (2020, McFarland)

The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within by Chantal Bourgault du Coudray (2006, I.B. Tauris)

Men Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover (1993, Princeton University Press)

The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film by Barry Keith Grant (Editor) (1976, University of Texas Press)

Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film by Craig Ian Mann (2020, Edinburgh University Press)

Articles

‘Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification in the Horror Film’ by Aviva Briefel

‘The Origin Story in Werewolf Cinema of the 1930s and ’40s’ by J. Robert Craig

‘Little Red Riding Hood Meets the Werewolf: Genre and Gender Tensions in Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves’ by Sara Martin

‘Howling at the Machine: A Bed-Time Story’ by David Mcintosh

‘Strange Botany in Werewolf of London’ by Robert Spadoni

Cinema

Werewolf of London (Stuart Walker, 1935)

The Wolf Man (Geoge Waggner, 1941)

I Was a Teenage Werewolf (Gene Fowler Jr., 1957)

The Curse of the Werewolf (Terence Fisher (1961)

The Beast Must Die (Paul Annett, 1974)

Curse of the Devil (Carlos Aured, 1977)

The Howling (Joe Dante, 1981)

An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)

Full Moon High (Larry Cohen, 1981)

Wolfen (Michael Wadleigh, 1981)

The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984)

Silver Bullet (Dan Attias, 1985)

Teen Wolf (Rod Daniel, 1985)

Teen Wolf Too (Christopher Leitch, 1987)

My Mom’s a Werewolf (Michael Fischa, 1989)

Bad Moon (Eric Red, 1996)

Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000)

Television

She-Wolf of London (1990-1991)

Big Wolf on Campus (1999-2002)

Teen Wolf (2011-2017)

Wolfblood (2012-2017)

Bitten (2014-2016)