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It was The Wolf Man that introduced the concepts of werewolves being vulnerable to silver (in traditional folklore, it is more effective against vampires) and being marked with a pentagram (a symbol of the occult); the idea of forced shapeshifting by a full moon was carried over from Universal's 1935 film Werewolf of London. These are considered by many as part of the original folklore of the werewolf, even though they were created for the films. Unlike the werewolves of legend, which resemble true wolves, the Universal Wolf Man was an extension of those in Werewolf of London, a hybrid creature unlike the traditional interpretation. The Wolf Man stood erect like a human, but had the fur, teeth and claws and savage impulses attributed to wolves in folklore.

The Wolf Man is the only Universal monster to be played by the same actor in all his 1940s film appearances (save for stunt doubles). Lon Chaney, Jr. was very proud of this, frequently stating in interviews: "He was my baby." Chaney would go on to play a wolf man (if not the Wolf Man) in very similar makeup in the 1959 Mexican film La Casa del Terror and a famous 1962 episode of TV's Route 66 titled Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing, which also starred Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster. Nearly a decade later, even though he was seriously ill at the time, Chaney managed to conjure up his original energetic gestures while masked in a quasi-wolfish rubber mask for one scene in his last (and most unfortunate) film, 1971's Dracula vs. Frankenstein.

The Wolf Man was not Universal's first werewolf film. It was preceded by Werewolf of London (1935), starring noted character actor Henry Hull in a quite different and more subtle werewolf makeup. As noted previously, Hull objected to having his face entirely covered in latex and hair, and a less-hirsute, more devilish version was used in the film. The film was not a huge box office success, probably because audiences of the day thought it too similar in many ways to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for which Fredric March had won an Oscar three years before. Some latter-day critics prefer Jack Pierce's earlier werewolf to Chaney's, which was described in Carlos Clarens's book An Illustrated History of the Horror FIlm as "... looking like a hirsute Cossack."

The Wolf Man is one of three top-tier Universal Studios monsters without a direct literary source. The others are The Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. In the 1970s, novelizations of the original films were issued as paperback originals as part of a series written by "Carl Dreadstone," a house name pseudonym for a several writers, including British horror writer Ramsey Campbell.[citation needed]

Fantasy/horror author Neil Gaiman uses the "Larry Talbot" character in two selections from his short story collection Smoke and Mirrors.

Harlan Ellison's Hugo Award winning "Adrift just off the Islets of Langerhans, latitude 38 degrees, 54' N., longitude 77 degrees, 00' 13' W." uses "Laurence Talbot" as the main character.

Heavy metal band Iced Earth's track "Wolf" from the album Horror Show, has the poem recited in its main chorus with some added words in between.

Similarly, the track "Howl" by Florence + The Machine (from the album Lungs) features a slightly edited version of the poem in the closing verse.

Cradle of Filth used the poem as the intro to their track entitled "Queen of Winter, Throned" on the album V Empire.

The character of Jon Talbain, a werewolf attempting to overcome his curse in the Darkstalkers game series, bears a resemblance to the character of Larry Talbot in name and in characterization, made doubly so by the fact that the series primary characters are all homages to horror movie archetypes.

Signature on Native American bracelet, contemporary.