Free to Stream Horror Movie Has the Goriest Werewolf Transformation You’ll Ever See
Ask any horror fan to name the best werewolf transformation, and they’ll probably say the one in An American Werewolf in London. I wouldn’t argue with that answer because that transformation is iconic for a reason (I rewatched An American Werewolf in London about a month ago, and yup—it’s still a banger), but there’s another film from the same era that I think has an even more intense transformation scene.
No, it’s not The Howling, but that’s a good one too. This film combines some of the most grotesque body horror with dreamy, fairy-tale whimsy, making it one of the most imaginative werewolf movies ever made. And yet, it’s been mostly forgotten: The Company of Wolves, now streaming on Tubi, Prime Video, Xumo Play, and PLEX.
Released in 1984 and directed by Neil Jordan, The Company of Wolves is an adaptation of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a collection of short stories based on classic fairy tales and folklore, including Little Red Riding Hood and Bluebeard.
The Company of Wolves follows Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), a modern-day teenage girl who drifts into one fairy tale after another in her dreams. Each tale explores desire, romance, danger, and the violent/predatory nature of men. In Tori Potenza’s analysis of the film, she wrote, “Lycanthropy horror has a lot to say about…themes around sex and gender. The stories are rooted in humans succumbing to their baser animal instincts, ones that we often try to separate ourselves from.”
But you’re here because you want to know just how gory these werewolf transformations are, and I’m here to tell you: they’re nasty. These aren’t your typical face-stretching, bone-breaking, fur-covered, stretchy transformations. You think you know where they’re going when the crazed man’s eyes turn amber, then suddenly—boom!—wolf snout out of a human mouth.
Watch the Trailer Below:
“Changing the shape of a human face became a conceptual puzzle, and [Tucker] came up with two very different transformations,” Jordan explained to The Guardian in 2022. “In the first, Stephen Rea’s character tears off his own skin, then you see his musculature change. Later, Micha Bergese’s huntsman has a wolf come out of his mouth, a wonderful idea. But I think one of the most effective moments is when a chopped-off wolf head falls into a vat of milk and bobs up as Stephen Rea’s face. That shot was simple to do but really effective.”
If you’re curious about the whole character-tearing-off-his-own-skin bit, let me just say that it is so gory and so visceral, I actually had to look away from my screen at one point. It reminded me a lot of the claymation nightmare that is the face-peeling scene in Poltergeist, so if you’re into that, you’re going to love The Company of Wolves.
And as always, if you watch, let me know what you think @ashjenexi on Instagram and X.
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