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Underworld (Film)

The Underworld series is a set of Action Horror movies revolving around the conflicts of Werewolves and Vampires, complete with an Ancient Conspiracy, an intricate Backstory, plenty of Dark World imagery, great British actors chewing all the scenery in sight and lots of gratuitous gory action.

The main plot revolves around the struggle between the Lycans (werewolves) and the vampires. After centuries of conflict, the vampires are able to gain the upper hand when Lucian, the leader of the Lycans, is seemingly killed.

In the modern day, Lycans have been "hunted to near extinction", or so the Vampire nobles think, but in reality they are gathering in numbers and planning on wiping out the vampire leadership with a plot to create their own hybrid on the eve of the vampire elders switching power. This is where Michael comes in. He is, among the descendants of the Corvinus clan, the only one with the genetic makeup capable of letting him be turned into a vampire and a werewolf. Normal humans can only be turned into one or the other; trying to "mix" causes death. Selene, a vampire Death Dealer with a personal vendetta against all werewolves, notices the Lycan's botched kidnapping of Michael, and helps him escape capture. Along the way, they begin to fall in love, an issue that gets all the more complicated when he gets bitten and starts turning into a werewolf. Can their love survive their species' natural hatred?

The series consists of five movies:

Underworld: The Eternal War (2004) a top-down shooter video game. Players can control vampires or lycans to complete missions and kill enemies.

Underworld: Blood Enemy (2004) is a non-canon novel (it contradicts several details in Evolution and Rise of the Lycans, which were made after it was written) that shows a different take on the origin of the Lycan rebellion. It then continues to the modern day where a vengeful Lycan named Leyba runs afoul of both Lucian and Selene.

Underworld: Red in Tooth and Claw (2004) is a non-canon comic (it contradicts Rise of the Lycans) that shows a different take on how Raze became a Lycan and Lucian's right hand man.

Underworld: Endless War (2011) is a three part animated film where Selene battles three Lycan brothers in 1890, 1967, and 2012.

Not to be confused with Underworld (1927), The Underworld, that underworld, Ultima Underworld, the band Underworld, or a Metro-Specific Underworld, which it may loosely reference.


The Underworld series contains examples of:

  • Abnormal Ammo: Silver bullets are to be expected, but special liquid silver nitrate bullets are used to prevent the projectiles from being easily removed. The Lycans, for their part, have developed UV rounds for use against the vamps. In fact, the UV rounds came first.
  • Anachronism Stew: The animated shorts have Selene using semi-automatic handguns...in 1890. This isn't AS anachronistic as you may think. Many early semiautomatic pistols, such as the Borchard C93 or the Shonberger-Laumann 1892 began production in the 1890s, perhaps the vampires obtained early prototypes. Selene still has apparently infinite ammo though.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: Both the masquerade setting itself, and within the vampire clan under the noses of its members.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: The vampires are portrayed as rich aristocrats who live in a mansion and dress in fancy clothes, with their own hired armies. This is in contrast to the Lycans, who were previously their slaves, and now live underground.
  • Armed Females, Unarmed Males: Selene and Michael are the primary Battle Couple of the films. Selene uses guns in addition to martial arts while Michael is an Unskilled, but Strong vampire-werewolf hybrid who fights unarmed.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • Selene's automatic pistols. Apart from the required Bottomless Magazines, pistols are too underpowered to reliably stop mere people, inherently inaccurate even when shot one at a time and in Selene's case, don't even produce particularly good results with the in-universe issue of Lycans extracting or pushing out silver bullets. Notable despite Rule of Cool because EVERYONE else uses at least a heavy magnum pistol or submachine gun.
    • The silver whips used by Soren. In the prequel, he whips Lucian, who can't fight back, and then when Raze - who can fight back, and is significantly larger - confronts him in the first movie... Yeah.
  • Badass Longcoat: Vampires and Lycans both wear them, and they have a noted tendency to catch the breeze.
  • Big Bad: Viktor in the first movie and Rise of the Lycans, Marcus in Evolution, Dr. Lane in Awakening, Marius and Semira in Blood Wars.
  • Black-and-Gray Morality: The whole Vampire/Werewolf conflict is more grey and gray or black and black. Rise of The Lycans and Evolution are the only films where the protagonists can be argued to be the more heroic participants in the conflict, rather than the guys with the correct viewpoint.
  • Blessed with Suck: Of the two immortal species, vampires are by far the weaker. UV radiation is almost instantly deadly, most "normal" physical injuries are still dangerous and Lycan fighting usually results in very high casualties including an Elder and most of the senior Death Dealers in the first movie. Their only edge - and presumably the reason they ultimately won in the first place - is that the Lycan weakness to silver is much more easily weaponized. This edge gets significantly dulled when the lycans invent UV rounds for their guns.
  • Boom, Headshot!:
    • When Selene is escaping in Awakening a guard shoots her in the head. It just pisses her off.
    • Lucian is shot in the head (and various other appendages) by Selene in the first movie. It's not much more effective, though it does slow him down a bit while he struggles to force the silver bullets out of his body.
  • Boring, but Practical: In the 600 years she's had as a Death Dealer, Selene has learned a lot of brutal, efficient ways to deal with her enemies. She's not one for using flashy moves to deal with her enemies, and when she goes for the kill, She goes for the Overkill. She makes sure you're not going to get back up, much less intact to regenerate. She's the polar opposite of Michael in these regards, as Michael; having no previous combat training, fights in a very aggressive, very animalistic manner, with no solid, reliable technique. Of course, this works for him considering his speed and strength.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Zig-zagged. Selene's automatic pistols must just be magical, usually roaring with one continuous noise as they spew bullets like water out of a hose. Her infamous Bullet Hole Trap Door is only one example. However, her guns will run out and force her to reload or fight hand-to-hand if it's expedient to the plot.
  • Bullying the Dragon: Viktor essentially created his kind's worst enemy by treating the Lycans in general and Lucian in particular like dirt until they couldn't take it anymore, the final straw being Viktor having his own daughter killed via sunlight and forcing Lucian, her lover, to watch the whole thing.
  • Call-Back: Quite a few between earlier and later films in the series.
    • Viktor punching Sonja in the face from offscreen (Rise of the Lycans) when she attempts to assist Lucian is similar to a scene in Underworld, where he does the same to Selene when she interferes in his fight with Michael.
    • Semira staring in shock and dismay as David flees with Selene into the sunlight (Blood Wars) where she can't follow (or risk being burned alive) resembles a similar scene from Rise of the Lycans, where an incensed Viktor glares impotently while Lucian and a handful of liberated Lycan slaves escape from his castle with dawn's light creeping even closer to him, singeing his knuckles before he finally retreats into the shade.
    • Both Thomas and Semira are killed with by having a sword shoved down their throats (Blood Wars). Lucian delivers a similar fate to Viktor in Rise of the Lycans, but he survives this.
    • Eve tears a transformed Lycan's skull apart with her bare hands in Awakenings, similar to how her father, Michael, did away with William Corvinus, the first of the werewolves, and their ancestor (Evolution).
  • Color Wash: The series is famous for heavily saturating their visuals in Unnaturally Blue Lighting.
  • Continuity Snarl:
    • Tannis explains that Viktor didn't kill William out fear of losing his Lycan slaves. But Rise of the Lycans establishes that the vampires didn't start using Lycans as slaves/daylight guardians until after Lucian was born. Viktor even outright states that Lucian is the first of the Lycans. Although, the fact that he kept the werewolf that became Lucian's mother in captivity may suggest that he was tying to keep them on chains like guard dogs, as Tannis did in "Evolution"
    • Viktor also lies when it's convenient for him and effortlessly. He obviously thought History is Written by the Winners, meaning him. He never thought Selene would go looking for the actual truth instead of just accepting his version of events.
    • The execution scene of Viktor's daughter seen in flashback in the first Underworld film is very different from what we see in Rise of the Lycans. The former was a public execution in an arena, but the latter has just the two of them alone in a room. The 2017 restoration of the first film adds in the execution scene from Rise of the Lycans instead.
  • Costume Porn: Vampires sure have a fondness for fancy outfits. While male civilians in the present-day movies usually have something of a fetish look on them, the ladies almost exclusively wear gorgeous dresses entirely in line with the series' gothic vibes.
  • Creepy Blue Eyes: The vampires and the lycans. The vampires at least only get them when they shift into their "game-face" though.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Selene in general tends to hand these out with increasing frequency the longer the series progresses. From the end of Evolution onwards, she's a nigh-unkillable One-Woman Army who will utterly wreck anything in her path that isn't the current plot's super-powered Big Bad.
  • Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: UV rounds for killing vampires, silver nitrate rounds for killing Lycans. Both are surprisingly effective against armor, considering the liquid cores. That last part is brutally corrected in Blood Wars, much to the vampires' detriment.
  • Did Not Die That Way: Selene believed that a pack of Lycans was responsible for killing her family. Near the end of the first film, it's revealed that the true culprit was Viktor.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Vampires were the oppressors of Lycans, who were their slaves in the past, and treated like animals. Love between the species was forbidden and the war was started when Viktor had his daughter put to death for getting pregnant with Lucian's baby, specifically to prevent 'contamination' of the blood. Writer Kevin Grevioux, who is Black, actually based the Star-Crossed Lovers storyline on his own experiences with interracial dating.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Literally when Lucian leads the Lycan rebellion. Lucian himself runs afoul of it when Kraven kills him.
  • Evil Brit: Seemingly played straight with Lucian in the first film. But then subverted when it turns out he isn't the villain, or at all evil. Viktor on the other hand... And then continued with Marcus in the second film, a Scot with an English accent.
  • Fanservice: Selene's entire wardrobe composes of leather catsuits. The men are lucky — or villains — if they get more than pants. Michael almost always fights shirtless, while in the third film, Lucian shows off just about everything.
  • Fantastic Racism: In Underworld and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, the two races of immortals, vampire and werewolf spend entire centuries killing each other over a grudge. The vampires are more typically racist, calling the Lycans (werewolves) animals and vermin and generally hunting them to the brink of extinction. In the feudal era, the vampires kept the Lycans as slaves and pets to guard them during daylight hours. The lead vampire killed his own daughter because she fell in love with a werewolf and carried his child.
  • Foregone Conclusion: If you watched the movies in production order, there's no way you didn't know how Rise of the Lycans was going to end. Watching them in chronological order, however, takes away the first movie's twist that Kraven didn't kill Lucian as Selene claimed in her Opening Monologue, and that in point of fact Lucian isn't actually the villain. Either way, you will be spoiled — though the chronological order can still work okay if you like internal reveals.
  • Forever War:
    • The Lycans and Vampires have been at war for over eight hundred years by the time of "Underworld". it's even occasionally referred to as the 'Eternal War'.
    • The Vampire-Werewolf war two hundred years prior waged on for six hundred years between the Vampires and the first generation of Werewolves, only ending when William Corvinus, the original and most powerful werewolf, was finally captured.
  • Genetic Memory: Carried in the blood of both werewolves and vampires are the "parent's" memories, which can be accessed by drinking.
  • Greater-Scope Villain:
    • While the Big Bad of Evolution, Marcus Corvinus is this for the series as a whole as he's the first vampire and the one who sired all the rest.
    • Viktor is this to any film which involves the war between vampires and Lycans (including Awakening), as he's the one responsible for setting it off. Blood Wars also features a vampire looking to avenge him as one of the players in its Big Bad Ensemble.
  • Guns Akimbo: Selene wields almost all her guns, in all of the films she appears in, in pairs. Seriously, just have a look at the page image(s). When Cassius finds her discarded pistols in Blood Wars, Varga states outright that Selene has a marked preference for these particular guns.
  • Healing Factor: Both vampires and lycans (except against silver in the latter's case).
    • Best illustrated in the second film, when Selene suffers severe burns from short-term exposure to the sun, which are gone minutes later. Both Lycans and Vampires are capable of accelerating their rate of recovery by consuming blood. Marcus was able to replenish the amount of blood He had used up to accelerate his recovery, by devouring an entire stable full of horses, and Selene was able to heal her head wound and force out a silver bullet, by drinking the blood of an Antigen delivery guard.
    • In Awakening, the uber-Lycan's super-healing factor is abused by Selene, who rips a hole in his stomach and leaves an armed silver nitrate grenade inside it, knowing that the wound will heal before he realizes what she did and the grenade will go off before he is able to claw it out of himself again.
  • Hybridization Plot: A major plot point in the franchise, considering the fact that hybrids there tend to run on Hybrid Power:
    • In the original movie, the major reason why the Lycans want Michael is that being a direct descendant of the common ancestor between the Lycans and Vampires, he is the only person capable of becoming a Lycan-Vampire hybrid, which they intend to weaponize to kill off the vampire leadership.
    • In Evolution, Marcus wanted to turn his werewolf brother William into a hybrid in an attempt to restore his humanity, with plans as well to create a new race of hybrids to rule over alongside his brother, although he is killed before he could do so.
  • Hybrid Monster: Michael Corvin becomes one, specifically the first Half-vampire-half-Lycan. Later, Marcus also becomes one. There's also Subject 2, the daughter of Michael Corvin and Selene. Lucian and Sonja's child would have been a straight Vampire-Lycan hybrid if it had lived. Michael started out as a Lycan with the dormant Corvinus gene who had the vampire DNA added later. Marcus was the other way around. Subject 2, on the other hand, was born from Michael's already-existent hybrid DNA mixing with Selene's vampire DNA which had already mixed with pure immortal DNA from Alexander Corvinus. These different combinations and scenarios could explain the different appearances of the hybrids.
  • Hybrid-Overkill Avoidance: Why there are no hybrids before Michael.
  • Hybrid Power: The overarching story arc of the series is driven by this trope, though only the fourth movie features a child inheriting both parents' powers—other hybridization instances are carried out via vampiric blood absorption/transmission. To boot:
    • Michael Corvin becomes a werewolf-vampire hybrid by getting subsequently bitten by Lucian, a werewolf, and Selene, a vampire.
    • Selene becomes a vampire-Immortal hybrid (among other things, rendering her immune to sunlight) by drinking Alexander Corvinus's blood in the second movie.
    • The fourth movie reveals that Selene's and Michael's daughter inherited both her dad's werewolf strength and her mom's vampiric abilities. Since most of Selene's pregnancy occurred after she became an immortal, it is likely that Eve inherited immortality, as well, making her a triple hybrid.
  • Immortal Procreation Clause: Thoroughly averted.
    • Alexander Corvinus, the first immortal, sired three sons (two of whom inherited his immortality) after becoming immortal.
    • Two of the three Elders had vampire children with other vampires (Viktor having Sonja with his wife, who died in childbirth, and Amelia having David with Thomas, a leader of the Western Coven; in the non-canon Blood Enemy, Marcus also had a vampire son, Nicolae, who was later killed by Lucian).
    • Selene and Michael had a daughter, Eve.
    • Lena, introduced in Blood Wars, is a pure-born.
    • On the Lycan side, Lucian was born to an enslaved werewolf, though whether she was pregnant before being turned or impregnated afterward is unknown. Lucian later sired a child with Sonja, but the unborn hybrid died with her.
  • Immune to Bullets:
    • Not exactly, but they don't seem to be very effective. Older werewolves can just push them out of their flesh (or skull, in Lucian's case), and vampires seem able to survive all sorts of impalements. In the second film, Selene takes a shotgun blast to the torso without visible injury, and Marcus survives five or six such shots in a row and is only slowed down with minor bleeding. Silver bullets do kill Lycans, but they can heal from them. The silver nitrate liquid rounds kill them very quickly; and the UV bullets are similarly effective against vampires. Marcus can shrug them off because he's that tough, and Selene's corset may be bulletproof.
    • The novelizations make mention that even though bullets don't do much harm to Vampires and Lycans under normal circumstances, a lot of bullets will harm and kill them. William would more than likely have died from continuous fire delivered from the machinegun mounted on the Cleaners' helicopter, even with his regenerative abilities and size. As tough as they are and even with their regenerative abilities, they're not impervious to sustained gunfire from either small arms or larger. With this information in mind, it's no wonder humanity was able to nearly drive them to extinction in Awakening.
  • Informed Attribute: Due to his nature as a Hybrid, Michael is supposed to be more powerful than Vampire or Lycan regardless of age. While he does get in a minute of smacking Viktor around, he ultimately ends up being nearly killed by him, requiring Selene to save him. He becomes little more than a minion to Selene in Evolutions, and does virtually nothing of note against Markus. He becomes completely irrelevant in the fourth film and is apparently nowhere to be seen whatsoever in the fifth, rendering the Hybrid a completely pointless piece of the lore. Selene quickly overshadows him to the point he's written entirely out of the series.
  • Invincible Hero: Whether you agree that Selene is the 'hero' in the early parts of the series once you find out she's been doing everything based on disinformation Viktor gave her, she fits the 'invincible character' trope very well, as she rarely takes damage of any kind compared to other characters in the franchise, including Michael, who became superfluous as a character seemingly the very minute after Selene kills Viktor. To the point that he doesn't even appear in the fourth film except in flashback being apparently killed, and then found to be frozen in ice. Selene is unstoppable to begin with, but then she got upgraded to the point that the concern over a Hybrid might as well have been equivalent to being scared of the boogeyman being in your closet when there's an actual armed serial killer loose in your neighborhood.
  • Just a Stupid Accent: In the first film, Viktor's accent is somewhere between Colonel Kurtz and Colonel Sanders. By Rise of the Lycans, it's a pretty standard English sneer.
  • Large Ham: Lots of them, but Viktor takes the cake. Or at least shares it with Kraven. He has his moments in the first, for example coming out of nowhere nasally saying, "What's... this... ruckus?" But in the third, he definitely goes for it. "I whanted to believe your liessss. I KNEW it couldn't be truenotmyowndaughter, how could youuu?"
  • Low Fantasy: The existence of vampires and werewolves is the only supernatural stuff in the franchise, and there's Grey-and-Grey Morality everywhere. The vampires and werewolves do battle with human weapons rather than supernatural powers - with a couple of modifications to target their opponents' weaknesses.
  • Mad Scientist: The lycans have their own mad scientist, complete with German accent, in the first film. Dr. Jacob Lane in Awakening also fits the part.
  • Made of Iron: Even with their Healing Factors, Vampires and Lycans have an innate increased durability towards trauma. This is doubly so for the Elders, Hybrids and Selene. Using their Super-Strength, Lycans like Raze can barrel through thick concrete walls without being fazed by doing so, Death Dealers and Lycans alike can both perform incredible drops and leaps without issue, and Selene herself ignores getting shot multiple times in the back (after drinking Alexander's blood) and multiple impacts that would have killed lesser Vampires. She uses this in conjunction with her Super-Strength to tackle a moving van with enough force to flip it. Of course, despite their Made of Iron capabilities and their Healing Factor, they can still die from dismemberment and other forms of massive physical traumas, such as:
    1. Having their necks cut open, as seen with Sonja fighting against Viktor's elite Death Dealers (not even full-on decapitation) and Selene killing Antigen guards with a scalpel (of course, at that point, any cuts she deals would be equal to being cut open by a full-length sword). Viktor being an Elder, survived having a full-length sword stabbed into his mouth and out the back of his head, an injury that more than likely damaged the top of his spinal column. That's not something you easily walk away from, as proven twice in Blood Wars when both Thomas and Semira succumb to the same treatment with fatal results.)
    2. Being impaled by ballista bolts. (Its highly doubtful that the Lycans who were hit by those during their escape of Castle Corvinus survived.)
    3. Being hit with explosive force. (Yes, Trix and Taylor were killed by a silver grenade, but even taking that into consideration, their bodies and everyone else in the ladder chute were gibbed beyond recognition. That grenade was not only loaded with silver but had more than enough explosives packed into it to render 4, maybe 6, full-grown men into messy chunks. And having an instant Healing Factor won't save you from this either, especially if someone manages to lodge the grenade inside you so that you heal right before it goes off.)
  • Malevolent Masked Men: The Death Dealers in all incarnations whether its full-face medieval helmets or gas masks. The Cleaners employed by Alexander Corvinus also wear gas masks whenever they're conducting their Ops for obvious reasons to avoid contamination and other hazards.
  • The Masquerade: It's revealed in the second film that Alexander Corvinus and his merry men have been following the vampires around and cleaning up their mess. They even mention bribing witnesses to keep their mouths shut. The fact that Marcus kills all of them is probably what led to the Broken Masquerade.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Viktor is surprised when putting someone named Kraven in charge of his household doesn't turn out so well.
    • Selene, which means "moon". It would seem unusual on the initial watch of the first film since she hates the Lycans, but a rewatch provides foreshadowing that she will betray her Coven for the love of one.
    • Viktor likes to win, obviously.
    • Lucian, meaning "light". fitting for a daylight guard
  • Messianic Archetype: Selene is a rather twisted example, as she is viewed as a traitor by fellow Vampires after the first movie. Come Awakening, however, she comes back from being effectively dead, walks in the sunlight, rallies the younger vampires, and goes around resurrecting their dead. Gets eventually exaggerated in Blood Wars.
  • Monogender Monsters: Going by the movies, there was exactly one female Lycan, Lucian's mother, who was infected while pregnant.note  Though presumably the virus is just as contagious to both genders, the use of this trope was justified as the vampires wanting only male Lycan slaves. There are a few distinct mentions of female Lycans within the novels of the movies. This is averted in Blood Wars, which shows a couple of females among the Lycans and fighting side by side with them, but they have no lines or real character.
  • Monster Lord: Viktor and the other Vampire Elders for the vampires, and the intelligent Lycan Lucian for the Lycans.
  • Neck Lift: Once per Episode at the very least. Considering the vampires' and lycans' Super-Strength, it's hardly out of place.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Hybrids are TOUGH.
    • Markus, original vampire, has a magazine emptied into his face (courtesy of Selene) and then crushed between a truck and a cliff-side. He shrugs it off. Selene is only able to kill him after impaling him through the head, with his own razor wing, and throwing him into helicopter blades. Word of God is that while the Helicopter Blender killed him, he would have recovered from the impaled head. Michael is impaled on a pipe, which does seem to kill; only for him to be Only Mostly Dead.
    • Selene, a vampire immortal hybrid, might actually be indestructible. She survived falling through an elevator shaft while the Lycan who tackled her wasn't so fortunate, and she also survived having a grenade go off near her. She also managed to tackle a van with enough force to flip it a couple of times without any long-term damage.
    • Eve, the daughter of Selene and Michael, whom Selene flat-out states will grow to become even more powerful than she is.
  • Obviously Evil: Comes up a lot, really. Even more morally grey characters like Selene and Lucian have nothing on the likes of Kraven and Viktor.
  • The Older Immortal: Alexander Corvinus, the original immortal, who even looks older than the rest.
  • Once an Episode: Someone is going to have their head bisected, vertically, diagonally, or horizontally once per film.
    • (In)famously in the first film, with Viktor's belated demise.
    • In the anime Endless Wars, the second of the lycan brothers to Selene's sword
    • Michael rips the top half of William's head off with his bare hands in Evolution
    • Rise of the Lycans uses this twice with random werewolf mooks in the first and last battles.
    • Eve splits an attacking Lycan's head in half vertically with her bare hands, in Awakening much like her father Michael.
    • David gets in on the action in Blood Wars, taking up several notches by just cutting the poor guy in half.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Shane Brolly is Northern Irish, with the effect that Kraven's American accent slips from scene to scene.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The Vampires are stereotypically pale, blood-drinking, almost completely immortal, and highly athletic, and their assassins/soldiers use plenty of Gun Fu, but the entire condition is supposedly just the result of a mutant virus. They're also not undead and do not require special things to kill them. For example, sunlight will cause them to burst into flame. However, a stake through the heart is unnecessary; sufficient bullet wounds and similar gore will kill them. They do breathe, but it looks like they've got a substantially increased lung capacity since Selene was able to hold her breath underwater during their infiltration of William's prison. She was also resuscitated by Michael, during the first movie, and she was shown out of breath. Vampires are also able to reproduce. Similar to Blade, those born of vampire parents are called "purebloods".
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Caused by the brother strain of the virus, these Weres are large, vaguely humanoid, also immortal, and most can shift at will. Also, there are three different "species" of Werewolf in this series. First there's William; the first one to ever exist, who looks the most Wolf-like. Then there are those who are infected by William, known as "1st Generation" Werewolves. Like William, they are unable to return to their Human form ever again. And then there are the "2nd Generation" Werewolves, otherwise known as Lycans. This breed came about when Lucian's mother was bitten and turned into a "1st Generation" when she was pregnant and gave birth to him whilst imprisoned by Viktor. Lucian was born in his Human form and could change between that and his Werewolf form. And when he grew older, Viktor used him to turn more slaves for the Vampires to use, resulting in the majority of the Lycan population. Awakening features super Lycans, enormous beasts at least twice the size of regular Lycans with commensurately greater strength and stamina. They're also immune to silver.
  • Partial Transformation: Lucian can give himself fangs to bite someone without fully transforming. Even more practically, the beefed-up lycan in Awakening can transform his hand to acquire sharp claws. Michael also did the same as well, and Marcus liked using his wings to stab people and pin them in place. Selene used her glowing blue eyes to intimidate a truck driver into leaving his truck.
  • Plot Hole: The franchise does its best to close these up but they're there if one looks hard enough:
    • William was captured in 1202 A.D. It was nearly 200 years later when his prison was completed and the only person credited with building it was Selene's father; just how did Viktor keep William contained for the better part of two centuries?
    • Markus intended to wipe out all Vampires and Lycans, starting over with William as a super race of hybrids. He has time to bite William and start the transformation but just doesn't.
  • Primal Polymorphs:
    • Downplayed in the case of the Lycans; they're definitely Working-Class Werewolves, occasionally growl in anger, and aren't above the occasional fight for entertainment - prompting Lucian to yell at his underlings for acting like "a pack of rabid dogs" - but otherwise remain largely non-animalistic. They even have a Mad Scientist in their ranks. Most of their true sophistication is ignored by their vampire enemies, who believe that the Lycans aren't smart enough to have developed their own UV bullets and assume that the only reason why Lycans would stalk a human would be for food.
    • By contrast, the original Lycan strain (born from William Corvinus) are little more than animals, rendered entirely feral by the virus that created them, transforming only once before spending the rest of their lives as rampaging monsters.
  • Rule of Cool: The series runs on this. Seriously, what else did you expect from movies with a gorgeous dual-wielding Vampiress clad in skin-tight leather catsuits on one side and handsome, vengeful, ultraviolet bullets-shooting Werewolves on the other? Then there's all the Costume Porn, Stuff Blowing Up, and Large Ham everywhere.
  • Secret War: The Vampires and Lycans have been waging one against each other for centuries, unbeknownst to mankind at large save for the occasional rumor or legend. This is thanks to the Cleaners, human spec-ops hand-picked by Alexander Corvinus to make sure that said war is never exposed to the public. The Cleaners are wiped out in Evolution, soon making it nigh impossible to keep the Secret War hidden.
  • Self-Made Myth: Centuries of immortality has given both sides, but especially the vampires, plenty of time to rewrite history to suit their needs:
    • In the first film, Selene reveres Viktor, the Elder who was tracking the Lycans that killed her family and turned her into an immortal. It's later revealed that Viktor, not the Lycans, killed her parents and siblings.
    • In the second film:
      • Selene looks up Tannis, Viktor's former court historian, who was exiled after his research discovered that Markus, not Viktor, was the first vampire; Markus turned the dying Viktor into an immortal vampire to make use of the latter's army to track down and capture his brother William, the first werewolf.
      • Selene asks, if this is true, why didn't Viktor simply dispose of Markus after William was captured? Because Markus told him that if he died, any of his "get", including Viktor and all of his soldiers, would instantly die too. Tannis wryly says this may have been farfetched, but Viktor was hardly going to take the risk.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Markus, and also Selene, if you consider Viktor, the vampire who infected her, to be considered her "father."
  • Shapeshifter Longevity: Lycans are just as immortal as Vampires since both are the result of mutant viruses infecting members of the Corvinus clan; in fact, this longevity is probably the reason why they were chosen as Viktor's daywalking Slave Race rather than humans. For good measure, Selene notes in the intro that the war between the two species has become even more dangerous in recent years is because older lycans are no longer affected by the full moon and can now transform at will.
  • Shapeshifting Sound: Lycan transformations in the franchise always feature a lot of unpleasant crunching and popping sound effects, likely drawing inspiration from An American Werewolf in London.
  • Single Line of Descent: Subverted, at least partly. Alexander Corvinus, the originator of the virus, had one human son, who did (in fact) produce plenty of modern-day progeny if the wall of Xed-out photos is any indication. But the only one of those people still carries his special genes and happens to also share his last name. Lineage Comes from the Father does seem to ring true, however, as the surnames shown are all variants of "Corvinus", suggesting the Lycans didn't bother tracking the bloodline through any of Alexander's female descendants.
  • Slobs Versus Snobs: Werewolves are the Slobs, living in a derelict industrial complex, wearing earth tones, long hair, Perma-Stubble, and generally being gritty/dirty. Vampires are all pale, wear almost exclusively blacks and reds, are immaculately groomed, beautiful, and live in a decadent Victorian manor... while being arrogant jerkasses. Regular humanity is shown to be generally somewhere in between, though closer to the Lycans in terms of their conventional, everyman aesthetic. Coincidentally, this also explains how the Lycans were able to embed themselves with some relatively ease into human society in Awakening.
  • Super-Speed: If Vampires have one thing that puts them above their Lycan cousins, it's their physical speed. While Lycans are fast, compared to Vampires, they're nowhere near as fleet of foot. In their Human forms, the Lycans are pretty damn quick, but still marginally slower than Vampires. Selene managed to display her Super-Speed abilities by dodging gunfire and quickly reappearing and overpowering her attacker, and she managed to show this off again, in Awakening; by dodging gunfire and slicing the throats of the Antigen Lycan Guards firing at her.
  • Super-Strength:
    • The vampiric Death Dealers routinely display incredible levels of strength, whether it's hitting people with enough force to disable them and throw them like rag dolls, to lifting people up by their necks and leaping all over the place and surviving incredible drops, due to being Made of Iron.
    • Compared to their monstrously strong Lycan cousins, the Death Dealers and most Vampires seem weaker by comparison.
    • Elders and Hybrids have been shown to have incredible levels of strength above that. Markus was able to pull a goddamn helicopter out of the sky with a small amount of effort, Michael was able to rip off William's head as if it was attached with tape, and Viktor was able to go toe to toe with Michael, only surpassing him due to experience and tenacity. Selene herself got into the action, killing two random Vampires with blows to the head (and into a wall with one of them), being able to go toe to toe with Markus and winning (due to being infused with blood from Alexander Corvinus) and tackling a moving van like a linebacker.
    • Subject 2/Eve, who's able to rip a Lycan's head apart with her bare hands, all after having gone who knows how long without feeding properly and suffering a gaping wound in her throat, courtesy of the Lycan.
  • Time Skip: The twelve years between Evolution and Awakening, compared to half a night between the first movie and Evolution.
  • Treasure Chest Cavity: Viktor has one-half of the key to William's prison hidden inside his chest. (The other half is hanging around Lucian's neck, or at least was in the first film.)
  • Urban Fantasy: The series genre, with the notable exception of Rise of the Lycans.
  • Vampire Monarch: Marcus Corvinus is the first of the vampire elders.
  • Vampire Procreation Limit: Vampirism is transferred virally via a bite, though Selene states that most humans who get bitten just die instead because their bodies can't handle the mutation; anyone who wants to become a vampire is taking a gamble. Vampires can conceive 'pure-born' vampires, but it's implied this is quite rare.
  • Vampiric Werewolf: The Hybrids in the series are created from a combination of Vampire strain and Lycan strain viruses due to sharing their unique heritage from the original immortal.
    • Michael Corvin is the first one seen in the series after being bitten by a Lycan and a Vampire on two separate occasions.
    • Markus Corvinus, the second movie's Big Bad, becomes a Hybrid after unwittingly ingesting Lycan's blood, though he looks more like a Chiroptean monster rather than anything vaguely resembling a Wolf.
    • Eve, Michael's and Selene's daughter who's born a Hybrid.
    • Their appearance seems to depend on what order they were turned in. Michael was bitten by a Lycan first and then a Vampire, and he looks like a wolf-man, although more man-like than the Lycans. Marcus was a Vampire first and then ingested Lycan blood, and he became a winged bat-monster, capable of shape-shifting into a human form. Eve, who was born hybrid, looks even more human than her father Michael, as her Vampire and Immortal heritage (both races had human features) seems to take priority in her physical appearance over her Lycan's.
  • Vampires Are Rich: The members of Kraven's vampire clan live in a gigantic mansion, throw extravagant balls, and wear gorgeous costumes.
  • Viral Transformation: The immortal brothers Marcus and William were turned into monsters by two different viruses, which they then spread to other people.
  • Weakened by the Light: Several Vampires (including one very prominent heroine) meet their maker via this trope throughout the series, especially after the Lycans learned to develop artificial UV light as ammunition.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Silver for Lycans, UV light for Vampires.
  • Werewolf Theme Naming: 'Lucian' is a real name with an unrelated etymology but sounds similar to Lycan, which is a shortening of 'Lycanthrope' ('wolf-man' or werewolf).
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The city that the films are set in not only doesn't conform to any one location but the continent that it's on can't even be conclusively determined. Characters speak with a mix of American, British, and European accents, while the city contains a mix of North American and European characteristics in the vehicles (Mercedes police cruisers alongside large Ford sedans) and architecture. The first movie shows German and Hungarian words in Michael's address, the second movie has Hungarian-speaking cops going after Michael (when he tried to eat normal food) as well as several extras speaking French, and the fourth movie seems to be set up in either a Future American City or an Airstrip One Expy. Notice that in all movies, vehicle license plates resemble those used in European Union countries sans the country indicator. The novels try to claim that everything takes place in Budapest and the surrounding area, but this is contradicted the the presence of large bodies of water in Evolution and Awakening. The Russian truck driver in Evolution was driving home after making a delivery. The fifth film gives some context by having its third act explicitly set in Scandinavia, but otherwise does little to clarify the series's central location.
  • Working-Class Werewolves: Lycans were once slaves to the Vampires, living in squalor and wearing rags. After their rebellion, their conditions improved slightly, but they still seem to be stuck living in abandoned buildings or even sewers and have far fewer resources than the vampires, who tend to live in mansions and throw swanky parties. A notable aversion is Underworld: Awakening, where it's revealed that Lycans control Antigen, a wealthy pharmaceutical company.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Aside from Michael, Corvinus, Sebastian, Thomas, and David, just about every male character Selene crosses paths with has no problem with playing this trope straight. Justified, as they're all villains or antagonists.
  • Written by the Winners:
    • Viktor rewrote vampire history to appear as if he was the original vampire, when, in fact, it was another Elder, Markus. While he is quite willing to acknowledge the legend that Vampires and Werewolves came from the brother Corvinus ("One bit by a bat, the other bit by a wolf"), he makes fun of it, probably to diminish the connection between Lycans and Vampires. On the other hand, he's quite willing to rewrite his murder of Selene's entire family. Selene shows signs of being aware of this. She recognizes that Kraven is not enough of a warrior to have actually killed Lucian but is the only survivor who could claim that he did. She also initially comments that the Lycans started the war but then admits that that is what is said anyway. By the second film, she's (accurately) assumed virtually everything Viktor has said is a lie.
    • This is also true for most of the Selene arc as a whole. There are villains and sympathetic characters among both Vampires and Lycans, but since the main protagonist Selene is a Vampire and the entire story is told (and actually narrated) from her perspective, the vampires invariably get off better than the werewolves. It's especially prevalent in Awakening and Blood Wars, both of which feature lycans as the main villains.
  • You Sexy Beast: Vampires are sleek and seductive, dressing in stylish Gothic fashions. Werewolves are brawny, rough-and-tumble men in leather. They have sex. Downplayed with Michael, who's a human-turned-Vampire/Lycan hybrid.
  • Your Head A-Splode:
    • Selene explodes a Lycan's head above the jaw after wrestling one to the ground and emptying her gun into his face.
    • Kraven meets his end with Markus this way.
    • When William gets his head wrenched apart at the jaws by Michael, the result is basically the same as if it had been asploded.
    • What Subject 2 does to the Lycan assaulting her in the van at the beginning of Awakening fits the bill as well.

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