The Werewolf was the first werewolf movie ever made — but the 1913 film is probably lost forever. While this lost footage means that the werewolf sub-genre of horror movies developed in a different direction, it's interesting to consider it as a new source for how these movies could have evolved. Here's what happened to the first werewolf movie, and why it'll likely never re-emerge.

Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941) with Lon Chaney Jr. is often viewed as the studio's first and primary piece of werewolf cinema since it popularized the Larry Talbot version of the monster; however, the studio actually produced another lyncanthropy movie, Werewolf of London, in 1935. Universal actually had another werewolf movie that predates these two, but it has since become unavailable.

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The Werewolf is a 1913 film by Henry MacRae that tells the story of a Navajo witch who bestows her daughter with the power to transform into a wolf to help protect their land from colonialism. The werewolf daughter, Watuma, lives for hundreds of years to enact her revenge. It’s a story that actually sounds similar to Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning. The Werewolf might sound like it has a lengthy, complicated narrative, but it's allegedly only 18 minutes long. Unfortunately, it can’t be watched because all copies of the film have been destroyed on the premises of Universal Studios — here's what happened.

The Wolfman 1941 Fog

It’s devastating when media gets lost forever; this is sadly a common problem for silent films. Movies from that period were made using silver nitrate film, which not only breaks down if not stored correctly but also is highly flammable. As a result, historically, movie warehouses were prone to a number of fires of various degrees of severity. A 1924 fire destroyed the remaining copies of The Werewolf. Universal Studios also liquidated a significant portion of their silent films in 1948, so any remaining copies of the picture likely would have been taken out then.

In some ways, Universal's The Wolf Man reinvigorated the horror genre in the early '40s, after a dip in popularity at the end of the '30s. There were also other silent films from the 1920s like Le Loup Garou and Wolf Blood: A Tale of the Forest that cover comparable material, but it wasn't until The Wolf Man that the werewolf, as though of today, really entered the popular consciousness. The common themes between The Werewolf and The Wolf Man are present, but it's significant to point out that The Werewolf features two female werewolves and makes lycanthropy an extension of witchcraft. If these ideas had persevered, then it's very possible that the werewolf movies that came out of Universal later could have been very different.

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