Werewolves

by Paul Byron

Created on: June 20, 2011   Last Updated: June 25, 2011

Just like an omnipresent coffee-house franchise, vampire stories have been gradually saturating the supernatural fiction marketplace over the last few years, and I for one say it’s time for the bubble to burst.  From the tween friendly Twilight Saga to the more edgy fare of True Blood and everything in between, we have for far too long been subjected to never ending legions of white make-up swabbed actors who try to look intense and brooding for the camera, but come off looking more like catalogue models who have just taken a sip of their coffee and realised they forgot to put milk in it.

Ok, so most of the offerings I am talking about also feature werewolf characters, but they are firmly relegated to second billing; they are two dimensional secondary characters only given screen time to flesh out a story line or as a romantic foil to the blood sucking lead character. Yes people, it is time for our fuzzy hero’s to take over and send the pasty faced pouters packing.

So how exactly can the monster paradigm begin to be shifted? Well, we need to start with a decent story.  The last outstanding werewolf offering has to be An American Werewolf in London (No, I’m not counting An American Werewolf in Paris or Teen Wolf or that nonsense with Benicio Del Toro in).  Amazing special effects?  Check.  Tragic lead character?  Check.  Black humour?  Check.  Jenny Agutter in the shower? Check.  What more do you want?  What was that? ‘The Howling was pretty good?’ Well, Ok, but it wasn’t great was it?  And this is where I’m going to surprise you.  There have been some GREAT vampire movies.  Near Dark, An Interview with a Vampire, Let the Right One In, the list goes on and on. But for Werewolf fans, however, there has been a dearth of real quality offerings.

I know what people will say: ‘vampires are much more interesting.  You’ve got the sexiness, the dark allure, the drug dependency allegory, the varied special powers.’  Well, that’s all true of course but there are plenty of great themes to explore through the werewolf legend.  You could examine the tragedy of the curse itself, which can be seen as a metaphor for disease; you’ve also got the whole loosing-control-of-y ourself side to the subject which could evoke the true horror of mental illness.  There’s whole host of things for writers to get their teeth into (excuse the pun).

So come on Hollywood execs, let’s try and see a bit further than ‘Team Jacob’ and get some passable werewolf featured offerings out there.  Let the revolution begin!

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