by Henpecked » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:05 pm
Ugh. Underworld is public enemy #1 when it comes to the obvious one-sidedness of how vampires are portrayed in the media vs. werewolves. In the first movie (because I couldn't stand to see the other two), vampires were given sexy nicknames like "Death Dealers", and generally appeared slick, attractive, dignified, and tactically superior to the werewolves, who were shown as being boorish, unwashed, and clumsy.
The big problem is that vampires are comparatively easy to do, because even the most grotesque-looking vampire still appears at least humanoid if not outright human with a couple modifications (fangs, pointed ears, pale skin, etc.) Werewolves, on the other hand, have a completely different form to account for, which not only requires elaborate costuming and hours upon hours of makeup, but also a transformation sequence to plot out, which demands the use of either prosthetics or CGI (and every CGI transformation I've seen thus far has been terrible). Thus, it's just easier to do a movie about vampires than it is about werewolves, and as a result the creative boundaries of how one characterizes vampires have been pushed much further (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Blade, Underworld, Twilight) than we've seen with werewolves (American Werewolf in London and Wolf are pretty much the only two movies I can think of that wasn't just a typical monster movie).