10 Amazing Nordic Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die

Lycanthropy might be a popular subject matter in horror but to be honest, good werewolf films are few and far between. The old Universal Monsters werewolf flicks are far more camp than scary and despite a respectable revival in the early ‘80s with films like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, there hadn’t been a really good werewolf movie since Ginger Snaps.

That changed in 2014 with the release of Danish director Jonas Alexander Arnby’s debut feature When Animals Dream. Set in a remote fishing village, the film focuses on teenager Marie who lives with her overprotective father and catatonic, wheelchair-bound mother and starts to experience strange physical symptoms. You know the drill: excessive hair growth, sharper teeth, violent outbursts and the like.

As Marie discovers what she’s becoming and that it’s been a long-held secret within her family and hometown, she decides to embrace her fate rather than recoil from it. Like Ginger Snaps before it, it’s a coming of age tale with a feminist edge and a hauntingly dreamy Danish twist on the she-wolf premise.