The Hollywood Reporter and every other film news site / blog are suddenly all very excited that Kate Beckinsale will have a role in the fourth Underworld film, despite the fact having been reported over a month ago. No other information has been released, so I’m not sure what triggered the hubbub, but here we are. Production starts here in Vancouver next March, with a theatrical release tentatively slated for January 2012.
Victoria Justice on being a werewolf for Nickelodeon
Reader ArcLight sent me this link about upcoming Nickelodeon film “The Boy Who Cried Werewolf” and actress Victoria Justice yesterday. I’m going to quote his email because it does the job nicely:
Hey…remember that Brooke Shields werewolf thing for Nickelodeon? I didn’t either but apparently it’s airing this October. Here’s a short bit with one of the actresses.
If you have an aversion to clicking on links or the New York Post web site, here’s the pertinent text:
“I got to do most of the prosthetic work and the transformation [into a werewolf] was all me,” Justice says, adding that she had to spend three hours in the makeup chair to get the werewolf prosthetics glued onto her face. “The cool thing about it is that I don’t look pretty at all, I look disgusting — like a beast.
“There’s a werewolf suit that somebody [else] had to operate,” she admits. “I’m 105 pounds, so there’s no way [she could’ve worn it]. I would’ve passed out from heat stroke.”
Some people have all the luck. You can see Justice as a “disgusting beast” when the movie airs on October 22nd.
Exclusive Q&A With the Creators of “Feeding Ground”
I recently had a chance to email some questions to the creators of the werewolf comic Feeding Ground, and writers Swifty Lang and Chris Mangun were kind enough to respond in detail. Read on for a deeper look at the care and detail that’s gone into constructing the world, characters and mythos of Feeding Ground.
Andrew: Feeding Ground is influenced by the imagery of Mexico’s Día de los Muertos and the aesthetics of EC horror comics. EC’s Tales from the Crypt comics were loaded with zombies, vampires and other “classic” American monsters, and Mexico’s myths are about creatures like the duende, the culebre and everyone’s favourite, the chupacabra. When putting together the story for Feeding Ground, what was it about the werewolf that stood out against such a diverse array of monsters?
Of all the monsters and myths, both of Latin origin and of the EC horror ilk, none carry the capacity like the werewolf to act as a kind of metaphor for the human will of the people pitted against the pressures of this politically charged region. Inherent in the character of our werewolves is this complex transformative struggle between the powerless and the powerful… between the solitude of choice and the need for pack “belonging.” In this harsh landscape, men are forced to change themselves, to join gangs, leave their family, and even kill to survive. The werewolf only amplifies this in a way that makes this human transformation more visible. A zombie couldn’t hold up in this device, it’s just not a social monster or a “thing” consciously dealing with the depth of human choice and consequence. The story of FEEDING GROUND traverses the experience of a broken down society, one that has failed to provide for basic human needs and continues to wrong those that live within its borders. Where our story and monsters hopefully takes the reader is where our characters must go within themselves, through brush and beast, in order to move their lives, forget all their belongings, cross harsh terrain only to belong to a society that may or may not treat them better.
The modern superstitions surrounding Mexico’s were-coyote-like nagual seem to be a mixture of pre-Columbian Aztecan myths and European werewolf myths introduced by the influx of Spanish culture during the Colonial Period. How did these pre-existing myths, ancient or modern, influence the writing for Feeding Ground?
While our comic acknowledges a rich back-story of the historic collision of pre-Columbian and European myths present in this region our comic is set firmly in the present. It deals more with modern themes such as Capitalism, which has created new circumstances for both the rich and the poor and thus requires new acts of rebellion, new kinds of myths. But, at the same time, Pre-modern myths were an outgrowth of slave economics and created very specific desires, most importantly freedom and the promise that the oppressed could one day live a better life. Our story is influenced by this struggle, not only to believe in this myth, but be the driving fuel behind why ordinary men and women leave everything behind, to walk towards what history has called the “Promise land.” The idea, for those that there is no greater freedom than the ability to transform one’s circumstances (or body), to have a will stronger than the modern man, or even wreak havoc on the town that wronged you or someone you love is very appealing.
A few months ago, Swifty mentioned that werewolves were “the least represented monster” during the “Horror Renaissance” of the previous decade. There was certainly a lack of compelling werewolf stories and movies during that time. Why do you suppose that was? Is it harder to tell an interesting story about werewolves than it is to write about other horror creatures?
Swifty: Werewolves have been beholden to specific rules of transmogrify that are limiting as opposed to liberating. The conception of the moon as catalyst and silver bullets and wolf’s bane as destructive agents have created a lumbering monster that is at best horrified by its own existence and at worst has stripped the agent of free will completely. Without the choice of transformation there is an absence of moral questioning. That is an insipid beast. This has also led to individuation of the creature that is frankly clumsy. This beast seemed to fall out of fashion because it had been marginalized as a creature with both limited ability and visual inventiveness. Something like the Predator was frankly way cooler. A werewolf never appeared sillier than Jack Nicholson leaping from window sills in Mike Leigh’s Wolf.
I think an equally fair question is why was horror marginalized to a fringe between the mid-eighties and mid-nineties? The werewolf has worked in a comedic context (American Werewolf in London) and also as a metaphor for puberty (Ginger Snaps) but with the destruction of the concept of the pack, family loyalty, obligation you are no longer exploring what is most fascinating about a group dynamic; the basic need for individuation among a mass and culpability. This conceit is something wrought with drama. The pack versus the individual was tackled with incredible success in my mind in the book Sharp Teeth. Obligation to a group and the need for security amongst the huddled is something so primal and universal that it transcends being human, and is linked directly to the animal world. This is a horrible thought in its own right. The werewolf presents the opportunity to reflect the neediness of existence, and the compromises we make to belong.
It really depends on what one finds interesting. If one is out to create senseless splatter, which is the norm among most horror, a horror of the body, as opposed to exploring monstrosity and internalizing the effect of change, the task becomes more difficult. Axe wielding, brain chomping, teeth gnashing, they can all be conveyed in a very visceral manner. What one has to be more delicate about is maintaining that shred of humanity amidst the ability to cause so much destruction. Establishing a believable pecking order and flushing out all the politics of group dynamics is probably the greatest challenge. Think how difficult it is to get any human group to communicate effectively and portraying that dynamic with honesty. Now add unmitigated primal urges.
Werewolves are commonly used in storytelling to represent the dangers of indulging in man’s baser instincts (whether we’re talking about “man” as a species separated from its origins in nature, or “man” as the biological sex generally more prone to violence and “animal” behavior). You’ve said that with Feeding Ground you’ve “created a new werewolf mythology that specifically relates to gender (our women kick ass)”. Without giving any spoilers, can you explain a little more about your werewolf mythology’s basis in gender? Señora Busqueda definitely has some kick-ass strength, whether she’s defending herself or doing what’s necessary to keep her family safe… it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see her as a mama wolf protecting what’s hers.
Swifty: The current role of the female wolf in werewolf mythology is a reflection of both the natural order and Patriarchal thinking. ‘She’ is the property of the Alpha, and it is her as a possession that signifies status amongst the pack. While this does exist in the animal kingdom and the concept of ‘arm candy’ is definitely prevalent among human beings, FEEDING GROUND allows us to really explore and explode that conception. Women’s cycles are clearly linked to the moon, and throw in the werewolf and you are left with a hapless creature that is victim of both biology and circumstance. She-wolves, in some sense, are less powerful than the princess in the tower. So the opportunity arises to examine what makes women unique and stronger than men. Without giving too much away, choice is power and it is a direct affront to victimhood. But even more so, restraint reveals true mastery of one’s world.
Thanks for your time, guys! Issue one of Feeding Ground comes out September 29th. Check it out– I’ve read it and it’s fantastic.
I cannot endorse this well-drawn, reasonably-priced “Swedish Bikini Werewolf Destruction Unit” T-shirt on Threadless
This shocking (but well-rendered) display of species-ist violence (and gratuitous lesbian smoochin’) is available for purchase as a t-shirt or hoodie from Threadless. I am appalled that Threadless would permit such an image on their site, and will be registering my outrage by waiting at least a day before purchasing it. A day at least. The responsible parties are Dick Firestorm and Peter Kramar, both terrible men with no decorum and excellent senses of humour. In closing, all I’m gonna say is that I’ve been to Sweden, and I don’t think they’d treat werewolves like that.
Hat tip: ArcLight
Werewolf, Vampire, Mummy & other monsters to throw down in Monster Brawl’s pay-per-view wrestling match
“Monster Brawl” is an upcoming Canadian horror-comedy film in which eight wrestlers fight to the death in a Pay-Per-View tournament held in an abandoned and cursed graveyard. The competitors? A vampire, a witch, a mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, a zombie, a werewolf, a swamp creature, and Cyclops. I think Dread Central said it best: “the title and the concept sound like the basis for an old NES video game.” I would have added the words “awesome” and “kick-ass” in there somewhere, but, you know. I’m excitable.
My Google-fu couldn’t produce much more about this film besides that Dread Central post and some local news articles (Ready for the Monster Brawl? and Zombie for a day), but the few details are tantalizing: Lance Henriksen and Dave Foley have roles, as do WWF / WCW manager Jimmy Hart, MMA ass-kicker/ref Herb Dean and a number of other wrestling stars from the 90’s. It’s being produced by Ontario’s Foresight Features and should be out next year, hopefully accompanied by a downloadable 8-bit style wrestling game.
“Feeding Ground” – Of Werewolves, Coyotes and the Mexico-Arizona Border
I’m going to get right down to business, friends. Here are three things you should know about the upcoming werewolf comic Feeding Ground:
- it’s a six-part series from Archaia Comics,
- it’s the product of three friends working their asses off to tell a good story about important topics, and
- based on what I’ve seen of the first issue, it’s a series you’re gonna want to pay close attention to.
Swifty Lang, Michael Lapinski and Chris Mangun have combined their writing and illustration talents to tell a story about the Busqueda family and the brutal Mexico-Arizona border territory they call home. The first issue hits the stands on September 29th, but these guys were kind enough to share the first issue with me in advance. Here’s the premise:
A famine caused by Blackwell Industries drives Diego Busqueda, a noble “coyote,” to lead a band of Mexican border crossers across the unforgiving Devil’s Highway, a desert cursed with blistering days and deadly nights. Back home, Diego’s daughter Flaca discovers that something hungrier prowls the factory fields. Stalked and persecuted, can the Busqueda family maintain their dreams of immigration or will the horrors of the desert tear them apart?
It’s too early to answer that question only one issue in, but I’m hooked. The Wrong Night in Texas told its werewolves-in-the-desert story with manic energy, but every panel of Feeding Ground is a slow burn. The heat, desperation and simmering violence of the Busqueda family’s world is evident in every stroke of Lapinski’s artwork and word of Lang’s writing. One of Lang’s posts on the Blacklight Comics blog articulates the passion these three have invested in the project:
In the summer of 2007, a friend of mine, Thomas Peyton, an incredible documentary filmmaker recently completed a film on the harrowing journey of a man crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona. His story was riveting and I could not shake it. We also had a conversation on the least represented monster during the Oughts Horror Renaissance. We agreed on the werewolf. He had a great idea for a werewolf story at the time, and again, his words were indelible. The origin of this story is without a doubt based on our conversations.
I’ll be posting a lengthy Q&A with Mangun, Lang and Lapinski in a day or two. In the meantime, dig on this artwork, which includes cover art and panels from Issue 1.
Book Review: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849
I’ve been a fan of werewolves since I was old enough to pronounce the word, and I’ve been bored with the “classic” werewolf stories of old for nearly as long. My elementary school library had two books about werewolves, both of them mainly concerned with Peter Stumpp and La Bête du Gévaudan. Those were not interesting subjects for a young werewolf fan who had just watched “An American Werewolf in London”. I learned to associate werewolf legends and tales from before 1930 with tedious history lessons, crazy guys with beards and religious persecution, and only recently have I unlearned that narrow point of view, thanks largely to the classic werewolf anthology The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849, edited and introduced by Andrew Barger.
I think this is a great little book, and you’ll probably feel the same way if you agree that reading and knowledge are awesome. The five stories in this anthology contain the seeds of werewolf myths we accept (and in some cases defend) as canon today, so I’m not in a position to review their contents as I would modern fiction. That would be like a gaming site reviewing the original Pacman or Donkey Kong according to today’s standards, and like Tycho, I’m more inclined to take off my hat in reverence than scrutinize the seemingly rudimentary nature of the work. It comes as a relief, though, that these five tales are entertaining and interesting on the merits of the storytelling alone.
My favourite story of the lot is also the first: “Hugues the Wer-Wolf” by Sutherland Menzies. According to Barger’s introduction, this is the first known werewolf story in which the now-classic “cut off a werewolf’s paw and look for a human missing a hand the next day” gambit is used, although the titular werewolf fakes his way through the limb-counting in a way that I’d never heard of before. “The Man-Wolf” by Leitch Ritchie is the toughest read of the book if you’re not wearing your 19-century glasses, but it was also the most fun, with some truly likable characters and subtle deadpan humour. Catherine Crowe’s “A Story of a Weir-Wolf” is a beautifully-described tale about love, jealousy, treachery and a young woman who performs a redemptive act so hardcore she makes San look like a trembling waif. The last two stories, “The Wehr-Wolf: A Legend of the Limousin” and “The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains”, were also good, although the former was a bit chaotic and tended to spin its wheels a bit, while the latter concerned an antagonist whose lycanthropy wasn’t strictly integral to the tale. Still, there’s virtually no filler, which makes “Short Stories” a short but satisfyingly dense and rewarding read.
Each story is introduced with a summary of Barger’s research concerning the tale’s history and literary background. These intros serve as bumpers and set the proper context for each story– without them, the varied styles and tones of the stories would make for a disjointed reading experience. Barger’s enthusiasm for the material is evident on every page: the commentary and the depth of the research which informs it makes it clear that he isn’t publishing this anthology simply to cash in on the current werewolf / monster craze. He posits that these stories have value, both as examples of writing from a nascent period of horror fiction and as the genesis of the ideas that form our modern vision of the werewolf. I agree with him. The lesson here? Don’t let your seven-year-old self dictate your reading list.
Buy, borrow or skip?
Buy if you’re a literary scholar, a student or a book geek like me and you have an interest in the history of werewolves. This is required reading.
Borrow if you found this web site while Googling “Warcraft Cataclysm worgen” or “werewolf costume” and you read all the way to the end of this review– we’ll make a book nerd of you yet.
Available from Amazon. Visit Andrew’s web site for more info.
Mark Romanek Explains Why He Bailed From “The Wolfman”: The Producers Were Idiots
In a recent FirstShowing.net interview to promote his latest film “Never Let Me Go”, director Mark Romanek explains why he walked away from “The Wolfman” with only three weeks of pre-production left.
And then I got involved in The Wolfman which was exciting because I was going to work with Benicio Del Toro. And I wanted to reinvent that genre and make this dark, rich, intelligent Jungian kind of piece that I was hoping could totally work as populist entertainment and yet be legitimate, like be an intelligent film that might even be critically well-received. And I just could never get on the same page with the producers about what it should be. I think they were scared of doing it the way I was suggesting. There was so much money involved that I ultimately couldn’t convince them of my idea of the film.
Read more at FirstShowing.net — the bit about The Wolfman is roughly halfway down the page.
Mark’s comments are very much in line with what Rick Baker had to say about the producers meddling and waffling on the werewolf design. Mark’s a great director, but with such spineless people in charge, had he stayed on I doubt he could have done much better than Joe Johnston did. What a shame. If only Bill Carraro, Ryan Kavanaugh and Jon Mone had trusted the people they hired.
“Teen Wolf” pilot analysis & transformation photo
This is a month old, but interesting nevertheless. TheTorchOnline.com has an in-depth analysis of the pilot of MTV’s “Teen Wolf” remake, including quotes from executive producer / writer Jeff Davis and lead actor Tyler Posey. There’s also a rather boring photo of Posey’s transformation. One of the most telling quotes is from Davis, regarding the design of the show’s werewolves. Apparently there will be three kinds of werewolves– Alpha, Beta and Omega, with the Alpha being the most monstrous and the Omega looking like a straight-up wolf. And what’s the driving force behind the werewolf designs?
“The way we like to put it is, the other werewolf shows and movies have werewolves you can pet,” Davis said. “We wanted to have one you could kiss.”
Oh super. I think MTV and werewolf fans like you and I have different ways of assessing a werewolf’s kissability.
Read the whole post for more information.
Hat tip: Jason
“The Howling” Werewolf, The Way You Want To See It
This is too cool to just post on Fuzzy Camera. Horror artist Dan Harding has evidently been commissioned to paint a new cover for the re-issue of The Howling (which I didn’t know was happening, but cool). This, my friends, is a werewolf. Brilliant work, Dan!
Hat tip: Viergacht