What's the difference b/n a wolfman and werewolf?
Is there even any?
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Okay. Thanks.
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MovieChat Forums > The Wolf Man (1941) Discussion > What's the difference b/n a wolfman and ...
One of them needs a lawyer the other IS a lawyer.
shareOriginally it was going whether Larry imagined he turned into a werewolf or not which was why the Bela wolf was just a dog.
shareThere is no difference.
Universal called their 1941 film, "The Wolf Man" because that
title had a more interesting sound to it than, The Werewolf.
In The Wolf Man movie, he is called a werewolf by everyone
in the film.
Even in later films, Talbot tells people that when the moon is full
he becomes a werewolf.
I think the only film where Talbot was called the "Wolf Man" was in
"House of Frankenstein"...But he was also called a werewolf in that movie.
What about "The Werewolf of London?"
Henry Hull is portrayed as a man wolf, not a complete wolf.
And the reason Bela Lugosi's wolf man was seen as a complete wolf
was because Universal wanted to save money not having to pay Lugosi
or some stunt man to be made up.
And they also wanted to save that wolfman makeup for Lon Chaney Jr's
transformation.
I just assumed "werewolf" and "wolf man" were synonyms.
There's a light (Over at the Frankenstein place)--The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Savage had it right, they are NOT the same. Wolfman is a man-beast on TWO legs and a werewolf is the canine equivalent on FOUR legs. The rules are virtually the same in both that they die by silver and transform by full moon.
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Savage had it right, they are NOT the same. Wolfman is a man-beast on TWO legs and a werewolf is the canine equivalent on FOUR legs. The rules are virtually the same in both that they die by silver and transform by full moon.
Well no not necessarily. Often the man-beast on two legs is called a werewolf too. In The Wolf Man he was called a werewolf and he was on two legs when he transformed. Most other popular media will also call the two legged man beast a werewolf, Silver Bullet, The Howling, Underworld, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, and others have two legged upright "werewolves."The only movie I can think of that has a werewolf on four legs is American Werewolf in London. I've never heard the four legged beast being called a wolfman so they might only be referred to as werewolves but its not uncommon for the two legged man-beast to also be called a werewolf.
So wolfman might not apply to the four legged beast but werewolf often does apply to the two legged beast. share
To my knowledge, the Wolf Man from the 1941 film The Wolf Man is the only "wolf-man" in that it stands on two feet like a human. Werewolves, aside from being the original legend, are basically wolves on steroids that act like regular wolves except physically larger and can turn others into werewolves.
In the 1931 film Dracula, there are a few scenes where characters say they see what looks like a "huge dog." I remember reading before that supposedly original vampire legends stated that vampires could turn into werewolves/wolves and that bats were largely Hollywood, although nothing about a wolf man. The 1922 Nosferatu also features a werewolf that haunts the mountains, although it looks almost more like a hyena or something. In The Wolf Man, Bela Lugosi's character turns into a werewolf which is similar to an actual wolf, whereas the actual Wolf Man looks more like a man.
More recent movies tend to make werewolves look more like actual "wolf men" though. The British movie Dog Soldiers has the werewolves walk upright, as well as the popular series Underworld which also takes a more wolf man appearance.
These are only the movies I've personally seen so I'm sure there are differences, but it seems like the older iterations of werewolves tended to depict them more like actual wolves whereas modern iterations make the werewolves look more human. As to what the difference is in terms of abilities, I have no idea. Bela was a werewolf, yet when he bites Talbot he becomes a wolf man.
Can't be too careful with all those weirdos running around.
I always figured a "wolf man" was a werewolf that had more human characteristics, like Larry Talbot or the werewolves in Underworld and Dog Soldiers whereas a werewolf was when a person turned into a wolf (sometimes a bigger than average wolf), like Bela.
The only problem is, in most series like Dog Soldiers, Underworld, An American Werewolf in London, etc. when they say "werewolf," usually they mean one or the other. In the Universal Horror films, aside from the title I don't recall any time a character specifies "wolf man," they always seem to say werewolf and yet we see two different kinds without anybody distinguishing between the two.
From my understanding, in old vampire legends the vampire could turn into a wolf/werewolf. In Nosferatu (not a Universal Horror I know), the villagers mention a werewolf that haunts the woods (which is Count Orlock). Aside from being portrayed by a hyena, there is nothing unusual about the creature. In Dracula, a character says "Look at that out on the lawn, it looks like a huge dog!" Aside from the size, there's nothing unusual. Bela in The Wolf Man has been a werewolf for some time, and he turns into an otherwise normal-looking wolf. Yet when Larry Talbot becomes "the wolf man," everyone including the gypsies simply refer to him as a werewolf.
Why is it that the Universal Horror series has one kind of werewolf when every other werewolf is just a regular wolf? I don't know. Like others have said it probably has to do with "The Wolf Man" being a better sounding title and not wanting to waste makeup on someone other than Lon Chaney Jr., but it is odd how within the movies themselves nobody seems to notice the difference between werewolves.
The only in-universe explanation I can think of is that Larry had only been a werewolf for an extremely short time, and that as a person lives with lycanthropy over time they begin to become more wolf-like until the full Moon transformations turns them completely into a wolf. That could be why Bela, someone clearly much older than Larry, totally turned into a wolf while Larry didn't.
Can't be too careful with all those weirdos running around.
I don't know why people keep debating a term made up by Universal. (Wolf Man)
The werewolf, which are not real creatures, as you all know, (I hope so anyway) have taking many shapes throughout the myths from different countries. OK?
So what is the difference between Sasquatch and Bigfoot?
Yeti and an Abominable Snowman?
A Ghost and a Spectre?
A Firefly and a Lightning Bug?
An Alligator and a Crocodile? Well yes, these two are different.
Anyway as I said a couple of years ago in this thread, Universal used the term
"WOLF MAN" for their 1941 film because it was a more catchy title.
In "House of Frankenstein" and "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein,"
Talbot was called both a werewolf and the Wolf Man.
Universal's Werewolf of London had a so called wolf man
The Werewolf from Columbia 1956 was a wolf man.
So was the wolf man in I was a Teenage Werewolf, Curse of the of the Werewolf,
Werewolf in a Girls Dormitory.
Columbia's Cry of the Werewolf used a dog for the werewolf scenes out
of laziness and to save money.
or what's the difference between a werewolf a wolf man and dr. jekyll and mr. hyde, it's the same story, think about it, my guess is they titled this wolf man because a decade earlier universal had released a horror titled werewolf, this is the only werewolf story i've seen titled wolf man instead, and according to me it's the best, maybe cause it was the first one i saw... but how about that 80s movie by john landis, wow, didn't discover that until recently, very rich movie. there's a re occurring question on the universal classic monster's boards about who's the most evil monster, i would agree with most people and say dracula, i have a fondness for the wolf man, here's this regular joe turning into the monster without having done any harm at all for goodness sake, at least dr. jekyll was experimenting in his lab. also i like the friendship he has got with the fortune telling woman who is the only one understanding what he's going through, in that way i even liked some of the sequels, i know the most common monsters are dracula and frankenstein, but probably my favorite of these classic flicks are the wolf man and the invisible man, there's a fun 1992 movie "memoirs of an invisible man" starring chevy chase, there is also a great radio adaptation, the invisible man has a great atmosphere about it.
🐺 🌗
wish to god someone could compare,
since you hardly any more come around here,
find you i crave as im out of tune,
lost on earth without you,
without home without past a better place i long to.
Don't take this the wrong way, but Mr. Hyde is not a werewolf. At least not in the original novel or in the 1930s movie I have seen that won the Oscar for best leading actor for the guy playing the title characters. He's just supposed to be a completely evil person. I admit though I haven't seen every movie adaptation and I know most of them don't tell the same story as the original novel. Actually from what I have looked up on the many film adaptations I know they aren't like the novel since a central character in the novel Dr. Hastie Lanyon isn't even in most of them. In the novel, Mr. Hyde only kills one person and he kills them by beating them to death with a cane. I can understand the confusion though since a lot of the movies give him a werewolf like look. But in the novel he most certainly isn't a werewolf.
shareIn the novel, Hyde's description is not super detailed, but the impression one gets isn't wolflike or even the more Neanderthal look first seen in the 1931 version:
"Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him."
Ultimately, he's just an ugly guy with something very off about him on first sight. The 1920 and 1941 versions seem closer to this description.
I do think the poster, when comparing J&H to the Wolf-Man, was talking more about general plot than appearance though-- a guy transforms into a murderous being, the only difference being that Larry never wanted the transformation while Jekyll did it to himself by trying to sever his evil impulses from himself.
Yeah. I haven't seen more than one adaptation though mainly cause I prefer the book and the fact that most of them like I said don't have Hastie Lanyon in them. Heck, most of them don't even have Gabriel John Utterson and if they do, he's only a small role that isn't as important as in the novel.
shareI've always thought Utterson was displaced in adaptations because of how well-known the central twist is. Everyone knows Jekyll and Hyde are the same guy, even without reading the book or seeing a movie version, due to pop cultural osmosis. Therefore, people adapting the work might find using Utterson as narrator redundant and figure to just have Jekyll/Hyde as the protagonist straight up.
I do enjoy the book a lot as well-- I wish I could have read it as its original audience did, without knowing the twist.
Me too. I admit my first introduction to Jekyll and Hyde was the Pagemaster.
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