The Universal Monsters Movies - Ranked From Worst To Best

5. The Wolf Man

Played by: Lon Chaney Jr. (The Wolf Man, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein) Who is he? Universal's second attempt at a werewolf story, following 1935's Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man's Lawrence Talbot proved a more enduring creation. Largely this is down to Lon Chaney Jr. As stated above Chaney, the son of Universal's original monster star, played various Universal monsters at different times, but he was also unique in playing the Wolf Man in every one of his original sequels (the only Universal monster to retain the same actor). Chaney, who starred in the first film opposite fellow Universal stalwarts Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi, underwent hours of having yak hair glued to his face by make up artist Jack Pierce, but it did create the best werewolf look on screen until the 1980s. Another tragic monster, Talbot's wolf-ism is more of a curse than anything in a movie packed with gypsy mumbo jumbo, but notably lacking in full moons or a complete man-to-werewolf transformation scene. These elements were added for Talbot's later appearances, when a full moon brings him back to life. Unusually for an iconic monster, the Wolf Man had no solo sequels. Instead he made his return in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, ushering in the somewhat lesser era of crossover movies that made up the latter years of the monster cycle. After the classic era: Van Helsing bizarrely decided that the only thing that could kill Dracula was a werewolf, so he for some reason liked to keep them around. Although marketed as Universal's Wolf Man, the film character was not Lawrence Talbot but rather an original creation, Velkan Valerious played by Will Kemp, who has little to do with the final plot. After a troubled production that saw director Mark Romanek replaced with Joe Johnston, Talbot finally returned in 2009's The Wolfman. American Werewolf's Rick Baker provided Benicio del Toro with a make up look and creature design that impressively updated Pierce's original style. Unfortunately the movie was strong in atmosphere but lacking in much plot or character elements.