Werewolf links, news, and reviews
Believe it or not, there are werewolf movies other than “An American Werewolf in London”.
Werewolves: The Dark Survivors (originally titled We’rewolves) is airing tonight on Animal Planet. It’s a two-hour special shot in a faux-documentary style that examines what the world would be like if werewolves really existed. If you miss it tonight, don’t worry– it’s airing six times in total before the end of the month. It sure sounds like an interesting concept! If you see it, leave a comment below to let your fellow werewolf fans know what you think!
“Wolf” wrote in with a reminder that the History Channel is running two werewolf-related shows on Wednesday, October 28th.
08:00 PM MonsterQuest: American Werewolf
The werewolf is a centuries-old legend based on myth, not a real animal. However, local eyewitnesses in Wisconsin and Michigan report seeing a dogman–a tall hairy man-beast. Professional hunters and trackers armed with tranquilizer guns will be deployed in an area of recent sightings to find this creature. For the first time polygraphs and hypnosis will be used on eyewitnesses with astonishing results. One-part history, one-part science and one part monster, discover the truth behind legendary monsters.
09:00 PM The Real Wolfman
Follow veteran criminal profiler George Deuchar and renowned cryptozoologist, Ken Gerhardt as they investigate the legend of the notorious Wolfman. Between the years of 1764 and 1767, the small French hamlet of Gevaudan was plagued by a mysterious beast that attacked and killed 102 villagers. The victims (mostly women and children) were all maliciously mauled and decapitated. All bore the bite marks of a non-human creature, and even more bizarre, many victims were found undressed and sexually assaulted. For centuries, the true identify of this mysterious “wolfman” has remained a mystery. Digging deeply into the mythology of Werewolves, they uncover reported paranormal transformations, diseases that make men look and act like animals, strange but true stories of children raised by wolves, and the truth about wolfsbane and silver bullets. Their modern-day forensic investigation leads them to the horrific truth behind the Werewolf murders.
Cirque du Freak, the recently-released film starring John C. Reilly, has a wolfman in it, and it’s… well… they obviously chose to design it for the screen like that– the production values of the film are too high for this goofy-looking thing to be the result of low-budget ineptitude. Here’s a Youtube clip of the wolfman (graciously linked by Viergacht) just in case the photo above doesn’t do it for you. The question is, “why does he look like that?” The wolfman on the cover of The Vampire’s Assistant (one of the book in the series that inspired the film) looks like an actual wolfman. What you see in the film is the werewolf equivalent of a guy who wears his underpants over top of his jeans because he’s not paying attention. What do you think?
Also, while I love John C. Reilly, to me he will always be Dr. Steve Brule. For your health!
A friend sent this to me, assuming that I would enjoy seeing a dapper stop-motion wolf dismantling a psychotic stop-motion pig. His assumption was correct; now I’m sharing it with you. If you like explicit stop-motion gore and mildly sexual situations, you will like this. If you do not like those things, please leave the Internet right away.
This is just the right thing for a Friday afternoon.
HOMG amazing transformation shots. That is all.
I’ll bet you can think of nine movie werewolves lamer than Taylor Lautner’s CGI husky in New Moon. So can Movieline! I don’t agree with all of their calls (I still really like the Underworld Lycans), but from Michael Landon to Van Helsing, there are definitely some stinky screen werewolves out there. Anyone care to share their own worst werewolf (that wasn’t on the list)? Personally, I just can’t get behind the slimy pink were-boar of the original Ginger Snaps.
We need to coin a new term, werewolf fans… a word that we can use to describe something that is simultaneously terrible and great. Something like Kung Pow‘s “badong“. It would take such a world to describe Rambo V: The Savage Hunt, in which Sylvester Stallone’s army-of-one takes on the escaped product of a covert genetic engineering experiement run by the US government. This experiment is a “nearly indestructible creature of incredible cunning and savagery“– a creature that looks an awful lot like a werewolf, according to this hastily-Photoshopped-but-official one-sheet. Thanks to Viergacht for the info!
So… “good-bad”… goobad?
Werewolf News reader and blogger extraordinaire Mac loves werewolves so much that she’s got spreadsheets to prove it. As someone who once used a ClarisWorks database to catalog all of my werewolf memorabilia, I cannot fault her, especially not after witnessing the product of her lycanthropic neurosis: she has compiled a micro-review of every werewolf movie she’s ever seen. The current total is 65. Here are some choice samples:
10 Dark Wolf
I honestly don’t remember much. There was a werewolf, and some sex, and some major movie fail. 1 out of 5
36 Scream of the Wolf
It’s really sad when I don’t even remember what happened in the movie. Guess I’ll have to re-watch it. ? out of 5
46 The Werewolf Reborn!
Pretty much a kid flick. Probably didn’t need to be reborn. 3 out of 5
59 Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman
This movie is known by seven different names. Unfortunately changing the name doesn’t make it any better. 1 out of 5
Check out the rest here!
Werewolf News reader Leon Kruse sent me a link to this music video for “She’s a Genius” by Jet, from their album Shaka Rock.
“In the interview that Video Hits had with Jet,” writes Leon, “they said that the werewolf in the video is meant to be a cross between teenwolf and chewbacca, and the original video idea came from a 60s bike safety video were all the people were wearing animal masks.” I’ve seen that bike safety video (“One Got Fat“) and I’ve seen Star Wars, and I don’t recall Chewbacca being as big an instigator as this leonine werewolf girl. That poor guy’s ice cream! Thanks for the link, Leon.
Thanks to HorrorMovies.ca, the details of Watchmen co-writer David Hayter‘s werewolf picture Slaughter Road have been revealed.
The film is the story of a 17 year old teen who wakes up one day to find his entire family slaughtered and flees only to find animals and people turning up dead left and right around him.
Either this boy has been taking Lunesta or he’s a werewolf. Given that the alternate (or perhaps sub-) title for Slaughter Road is The Werewolf Chronicles, I’m going to guess the latter. According to HorrorMovies.ca, the film starts shooting in Toronto this month, and stars Thomas Dekker as the beleaguered boy.
