Nosferatu, Wolf Man and Hollywood’s Quest to Make Monsters Relevant Again [Video]

Dracula. The Frankenstein Monster. The Invisible Man. The Mummy. And oh yes, don’t forget the Wolf Man.
These classic monsters have grown and morphed over the decades to transcend any single interpretation of them, even while they’ve scared audiences again and again across multiple generations. Heck, we just got another Dracula – albeit in Nosferatu form – from Robert Eggers, Guillermo del Toro is making a new Frankenstein, and now we have writer-director Leigh Whannell’s take on the Wolf Man.
But just how does a filmmaker like Whannell make modern audiences care about another werewolf movie, let alone the Wolf Man as a character? How do any of these filmmakers make the classic monsters scary and relevant again?
Well, grab your torches, pick your wolfsbane, and ready your stakes – and your ability to read into the metaphors behind monster stories – because we spoke to Whannell about the influences of classic monster movies on his work, how to revive beloved creatures like the Wolf Man in 2025, and why you should care!
While werewolf movies go back as far as the Silent Era, the first cinematic werewolf film as we know the genre today came with 1934’s Werewolf of London. Starring Henry Hull as a botanist turned lycanthrope, the Universal Pictures production features a fairly human-like werewolf, or at least a less hairy Wolf Man than Lon Chaney, Jr.’s version of the monster which would follow in 1941’s The Wolf Man.
Chaney, Jr. stars as Lawrence “Larry” Talbot, a big old lovable lug of a guy who has the misfortune of being bitten by Bela Lugosi and turning into a werewolf. This more sympathetic take on the Wolf Man character was a hit, and Talbot would return for several monster mash sequels alongside his fellow creatures. Indeed, it was this version of the traditional Wolf Man character that has proved to be the most enduring in the decades since.
But still, Wolf Man director Leigh Whannell knew that he needed more than just a guy covered in fur if he was going to update this particular monster.
Watch the full video to hear Whannell’s thoughts on updating the classic monsters like Nosferatu, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, and Wolf Man!