One of the delightful details of Marvel’s Werewolf by Night 'special presentation' in 2022 was its homage to the monster movies of yesteryear. Not only was it desaturated to a grayscale in order to mimic the black-and-white medium of early film and television, its deliberate style choices in the script, sets, and acting were also fun tips of the hat to the classic thrillers that scared audiences going all the way back to the era of silent films at the start of the 20th century. But while Werewolf by Night pleasingly wears the skin of the earliest monster movies, its soul is entirely different from the classic films that it honors.

The History of the Werewolf in Film

The Wolf Man 1941
Universal Pictures

Although the film industry is more than a century old, film is not where the idea of stories about monsters originated. For the most part, the earliest monster movies were following the lead of popular Victorian-era novels. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1816, and it was first brought to film in 1910 by Edison Studios, and then more famously produced by Universal Pictures in 1931 with Boris Karloff starring as the monster. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897, which inspired the German silent film Nosferatu in 1922, and eventually was also produced by Universal Pictures in 1931 as Dracula, with Bela Lugosi as the titular vampire.

The stories of werewolves, or wolf men, go back much farther than the Victorian era. In the first century, the Roman poet Ovid captured the Greek myth of Lycaon in his poem titled Metamorphoses. The narrative describes King Lycaon’s attempt to test Zeus by trying to feed him human flesh, and his bizarre impulse is punished by Zeus, who destroys the King’s palace and drives him into the wilderness, where his strange lust for slaughter and appetite for blood transforms him into a creature that is more wolf than man. This ancient story is where the word lycanthrope comes from.

Werewolf of London 1935 movie
Universal Pictures

But the Victorian era had plenty of its own werewolf stories as well. In 1839, Frederick Marryat’s novel The Phantom Ship ended with an encounter with a woman who would transform into a white wolf to kill and devour people. In 1864, popular Scottish author George MacDonald wrote a short story about a young woman on the moors who would transform into The Gray Wolf to attack animals and men. In 1891, Rudyard Kipling wrote The Mark of the Beast, a short story about a man cursed to become wolf-like until cured. And in 1896, Clemence Houseman wrote The Were-Wolf, in which an enchanted twin goes on a killing spree as a wolf before being killed.

Perhaps inspired by these novels, or in combination with the Navajo legend of skinwalkers, the first known werewolf story to be put on film came in 1913, titled, The Werewolf, a short, silent film in which an Indigenous woman enchants her daughter to become a wolf for purposes of revenge. This short film was lost in a fire at Universal Studios in 1924, but in 1935, Universal Pictures added a werewolf to its growing catalog of Universal monsters, titled Werewolf of London. Six years after that, they also released The Wolf Man, and since those first black-and-white classics, there have been dozens of films that have carried on the fascinating tradition of telling stories about people destined to transform into terrifying, inhuman wolf creatures.

The Problem With Being a Werewolf

American Werewolf In London
Universal Pictures

Something that traditional werewolf stories had in common was that they were universally tragic stories. The idea of people changing into wolf-like monsters that would slaughter and eat even the ones they loved was unspeakably horrifying and wrong. In just a few uncontrollable moments of moonlight, everything that makes a man or woman human is taken away and replaced with an insatiable lust for bloodshed, and the savage power to be nearly unstoppable. Whether explained naturally or supernaturally, lycanthropy was the kind of curse that defied all decency and humanity.

Related: The Most Underrated Werewolf Movies

The heroic part of a traditional werewolf story was the sacrifice that had to be made by the werewolf, or someone who loved (and was loved by) the werewolf: The curse must be ended at all costs. It may not have been saving the entire world, but it was saving lives, and maybe even the soul of the werewolf. When The Wolf Man is beaten to death with a silver-headed cane by his own father, everyone in the audience is shocked and grieved, but at the same time understands — it had to happen. This traditional outcome was inevitable in film, even in more contemporary werewolf films like the groundbreaking 1981 John Landis horror classic, An American Werewolf in London.

Rewriting the Rules of Being a Werewolf

Underworld Lycans
Screen Gems

But things have changed for the myth of the lycanthrope over the last few decades. In the traditional monster movies, not only was being a werewolf an extremely tragic curse, it was also an extremely rare affliction that was impossible to control or hide. In 1981, An American Werewolf in London upheld this tradition in spectacular fashion, but that same year, another great werewolf movie broke the traditional mold. In the film The Howling, based on the 1977 novel by Gary Brandner, we find not only werewolves that can shape-shift at will, but dozens that live together undetected in their own, disturbing werewolf community. Being a werewolf is still wrong, but it’s now more insidious, devious, and powerful.

Another 1980s film that introduced a significant change to the werewolf premise was not a horror film at all, but a tongue-in-cheek comedy. In 1985’s Teen Wolf, starring Michael J. Fox (in the very same year he starred in the Robert Zemeckis classic Back to the Future), lycanthropy isn’t a curse someone is afflicted with — it turns out to be a genetic trait. And not only is it an understandable, inherent condition, there’s also nothing particularly evil about it. If high school bullies are stopped and basketball games won by using werewolf power, it’s not just a blemish to keep hidden, it’s a good and inspiring thing, one to be proud of.

Michael J Fox in Teen Wolf 1985
Atlantic Releasing

These subtle changes in the '80s opened the door for a new breed of werewolf. Audiences no longer looked at lycanthropy as a simple, tragic curse. Slick new horror franchises like Interview with the Vampire, Underworld, and Twilight gave audiences a new class of monsters that were the equivalent of real-world races, with their own politics, heroes, and villains. The time-honored idea of monsters being evil themselves, or being under an evil curse, had gone up in smoke like a traditional vampire in sunlight.

Even when these new monstrous characters themselves reference this traditional thinking, as the vampire Edward Cullen does briefly in the the Twilight saga, no one in the audience believes that hell is his inevitable destination. They’ve already been convinced: Not only is there nothing wrong with being a vampire, they admire the monsters more than the humans and, like Bella, would jump at the chance of becoming one.

The Parallel Evolution of Werewolf by Night

Werewolf By Night Comic
Marvel Comics

This same evolution can be seen in the story of Marvel Comics character Jack Russell, the original Werewolf by Night. When the comic series launched in 1972, it, like all werewolf stories, subscribed to the traditional view that lycanthropy was a tragic curse. Consequently, Jack’s story over the early years is mostly a convoluted struggle of survival against the good and the bad, with the secondary goal of finding a cure. Along the way he battles enemies like Dracula and the HYDRA organization, and makes alliances with characters like Iron Man, Ghost Rider, and the Man-Thing.

Related: Man-Thing: Where This Lovable Monster Should Show Up Next in the MCU

But by 1990, the story of the character changes when Jack gains control of his lycanthropy. With the ability to make his own choices, even when in monster form, he can now use the inhuman strength of his lycanthropy for good. Although there are times he later wrestles with his newfound control, from that point on, the Jack Russell of Marvel Comics is no longer a lost and afflicted soul whose curse is used by others. In the comics, he has actually become a superhero.

What’s Wrong with Being a Werewolf by Night?

Jack and Ted in Werewolf by Night
Marvel Studios
Disney

Ironically, the newest generations of viewers who fell in love with the werewolf Jack Russell and the Man-Thing, Ted, in Marvel’s Werewolf by Night television movie were probably confused by the apparent danger Jack posed to Elsa Bloodstone. Why would Jack harm Elsa with his superpowers? It would be as absurd as Pepper Potts being genuinely afraid of Tony Stark whenever he wore his Iron Man armor. The lack of control brought on by transforming into a werewolf no longer makes sense, and no one, not even older generations who understand and appreciate the traditional werewolf view, really believed Elsa was in any danger in 2022.

One of the things that made actor Gael García Bernal such an inspired choice to play Jack Russell in Werewolf by Night is his off-the-charts nice-guy charisma. But again, the irony is probably lost. Instead of monsters, culture is mostly interested in entertaining stories about people lucky enough to be able to fly, or to heal instantly, or to lift mountains, or to tear bad guys limb from limb. What makes them superhuman, or how they became superhuman, is often incoherently developed, or simply unimportant. The only thing that matters is that they use their superpowers for good (whatever that is).

Werewolf by Night on Disney+ in the MCU
Disney Platform Distribution

Although Marvel’s television movie Werewolf by Night wears the cloak of classic monster movies, it’s an entirely different creature underneath. The fun of its black-and-white appearance and dramatic scenes that include open coffins, flickering lights, and zealous monster hunters can’t hide the fact that it’s not really a horror movie. It does have suspense, a few jump scares, and gruesome deaths in good measure, but deep down, it is a retelling of The Hulk, not The Wolf Man.

But that doesn’t make Werewolf by Night any less exciting and enjoyable. That it’s an antiqued superhero movie in no way hurts it; audiences are going to want more. Much more. Hopefully, Marvel takes these amazing, unapologetic characters even further, and it should be a wonderful ride.