Werewolf News

I tried reading Bitten back when there were rumours that it was going to be adapted into a feature film starring Angelina Jolie. I stopped after the first dozen pages or so. I don’t remember why, although I think I remember being irritated by something happening in an orchard or forest. My point is, I don’t know enough about Kelley Armstrong‘s writing to have a defensible opinion about Bitten the book, or the other 12 books in the series. My point is that Syfy’s upcoming TV series based on Bitten looks bad.

It looks really, really bad. Execrable.

This is terrible on two levels. First, as a fan of werewolves and horror, I don’t care about the following werewolf tropes, which are present in abundance:

• Werewolves that are just big wolves
• People transforming for the first time in a cage while an aloof mastermind watches and narrates
• Quick close-ups of CG wolves cut to pitch-dropped audio of a lion snarling
• Supernatural predjuice against humans manifesting as catty scorn
• Low phlegmy breathing presented as animalistic and primal
• Wolf pack dynamics forced onto a group of humans who are clearly all selfish assholes (bonus garbage-points for making “Pack” a proper noun)
• Male werewolves in human form asserting their alpha dominance

Secondly, as an alive person who watches TV, I absolutely don’t give a shit about:

• Plots wherein two secret underground societies wage a secret war against each other while keeping their secrets safe from the world at large, a world that could never understand their secrets
• Plots wherein the second act ends with someone saying the words “we need to strike back”
• Dramatic exposition dumps between two stone-faced characters wearing coats while standing in a cemetery or park
• Sex scenes on a rug in front of a fire
• Female actors making sexy-sex faces (but not TOO sexy) for the sake of audience titillation
• Male actors removing their too-tight shirts for the sake of audience titillation
• Paper-thin portrayals of female empowerment
• Any show where the line “someone is turning psychotic murders into werewolves” is delivered with all the seriousness of a guest star detective on an episode of Law & Order: SVU

I try to stay positive on Werewolf News, but this trailer (and its poster, below) have made it clear that Bitten is going to be a terrible show on all levels, and everyone involved with it should feel ashamed of what they’ve done. It’s possible to make a fun, scary, loveably cheeseball TV series about supernatural topics – Syfy’s even done it – but I have no expectations that Bitten will be any of those things. It has all the markings of a bad TV series that celebrates boring werewolf mythos, and I don’t know which offence bums me out more.

The show airs on Syfy and Space sometime next year. If you still want to watch it after reading this, go ahead and Google for more details, because I can’t help you.

Music and video by Kevin Kopacka. The music and lyrics are dreamy/heartbreaking, and I like how well Kevin’s original footage cuts together with clips from other werewolf films to create something that’s simultaneously nostalgic and menacing. Bonus points for nail polish.

Wer is an upcoming horror film by William Brent Bell and Matthew Peterman. Bell and Peterman previously collaborated on The Devil Inside, which is maybe not the best portfolio showcase, but from what I’ve heard, Devil was pretty gimmicky, and Wer seems very straightforward. You’ve got a grisly double murder, a maybe-not-so-gentle giant of a suspect, a lot of people in suits earnestly seeking justice, and a SWAT team that’s totally not going to survive the climax. Those aren’t complicated ingredients, but if used in the right proportions, I think they can make a satisfying meal. And despite all the blather about porphyria at the trailer’s beginning, it’s clear that this is a werewolf movie – there’s transformation footage, some very lupine jaws, and someone comes right out and authoritatively says “werewolf” by the end.

It stars A.J. Cook (who’s tied with Matthew Grey Gubler for second place on my list of favourite Criminal Minds actors, right after my one and only celebrity crush Kirsten Vangsness) and Sebastian Roché, who’s no stranger to acting with monsters on Grimm, Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries. There’s no release date, but if they’ve got a trailer and a poster, it’s a safe bet it’ll be early 2014.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Following the brutal slaying of an American family vacationing in rural France, a peculiar man living near the crime scene is blindly charged with their murders. Believing her client is innocent, expatriate American defense attorney Kate Moore [Cook] and her team decide to take a scientific approach in order to prove his physical incapability to local authorities. As she delves into his enigmatic family history, she uncovers evidence that suggests the rebirth of an unexpected legend. When a bloodbath ensues, Kate must do whatever she can to survive the surrounding terror and prevent the chaos from spreading.

And below is the poster. What do you think – is this gonna be a straightforward action/horror werewolf film, or will it turn out that Cook’s “suspect” was actually a bear all along, and she was the only person who saw him as a man because of a repressed childhood trauma involving a tragic incident at the zoo?