The Werewolves are Coming! The Werewolves are Coming!
Vampires have ruled the supernatural roost for many years now – both in genre fiction and in pop culture. There are literally hundreds of examples of contemporary vampiric icons: the Twilight saga’s sparkly Edward Cullen, Anne Rice’s cast of bloodsuckers in her Vampire Chronicles, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Jean Claude, the villains from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood’s Bill Compton, Underworld’s Selene, Sesame Street’s Count Von Count….
But with the release of the blockbuster motion picture The Wolfman (starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving) quickly approaching – it opens February 12th – it looks like 2010 may very well belong to the werewolves.
In the next few months there are several werewolf-powered novels and anthologies scheduled for release: Jonathan Maberry’s The Wolfman novelization, of course; Full Moon City, a collection of 15 never-before-published werewolf stories featuring works from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Peter S. Beagle, Carrie Vaughn, Tanith Lee, and Gene Wolfe; Mario Acevedo’s latest Felix Gomez novel, Werewolf Smackdown; Curse of the Full Moon: A Werewolf Anthology featuring stories from Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock, George R.R. Martin, and Charles de Lint; and Little Women and Werewolves, a literary mash-up that throws bloodthirsty werewolves into the Louisa May Alcott classic, to name just a few.
MTV is even remaking the cult classic 1985 flick Teen Wolf. (Legendary writer/director Russell Mulcahy will reportedly director the pilot.)
So, aside from the forthcoming movie – and aside from Taylor Lautner’s abs – what exactly has dragged werewolves back into the consciousness of mainstream America?
Is it our dark enthrallment with animal magnetism and/or animalistic lust? Where vampires can be refined and sublimely sexy, werewolves seem to resonate with us on a more primal level. Here’s an excerpt from the fifth novel in Frewin Jones’ popular young adult Faerie Path series, The Enchanted Quest, which clearly exemplifies the animalism of the lycanthrope:
“He was on top of her; and he was a werewolf, huge and shaggy and stinking, but still with a face that was half wolf and half [man]. The monster fought her wildly as she tried to defend herself, its bared fangs striking against her cheek, its open maw spraying foul spittle over her face…”
Or does our fascination with werewolves deal with the concept of transformation, the transcendent ability to recreate or redefine ourselves? In an article posted on NPR’s website last summer (“You Sexy Beast: Our Fascination With Werewolves” by Linton Weeks), Charlotte Otten – author of A Lycanthropy Reader and The Literary Werewolf – attributed the present pop-culture fascination with lycanthropes to “our continuing interest in metamorphosis.”
She said that some of the struggles in the history of metamorphosis can be traced to “uncertainty about the nature of a human being and his/her relationship to the animal kingdom” and that in werecreatures “ultimately, we find ambiguities and mysteries.”
So, consider this a public service announcement of sorts. Don’t be alarmed if you run across a sudden deluge of werewolf novels and short story collections in the months to come. Or if old movies like The Howling or Wolfen or I Was a Teenage Werewolf are put into heavy rotation on cable movie channels. Or if you inexplicably find yourself craving for a steak – done really rare. And, ladies, don’t panic if you suddenly find wild-eyed, excessively hairy men in desperate need of a manicure and a bath suddenly hypnotically appealing.
Look at the months ahead as a time to embrace your inner monster. Just beware the moors…… 
(Cue Zevon’s “Werewolves of London!”)
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand,
walking through the streets of Soho in the rain.
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fooks,
gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein…
This is fun for me on so many levels. Maberry is a bud so he killed me in the book. He let the Wolfman kill me. THE Wolfman. I picked up the book at B&N last Thusday at a meeting of the Philly Liars club, where I overheard Maberry and LA Banks develop a collaborative project with intent to publish. Banks 6 book Crimson Moon series out of St. Martin's Press has a military/werewolf pedigree.
HI Paul!
The preview of The Wolfman seems more grisly than any werewolf movie I've ever seen. Of course, I attribute that to the times and better makeup. It just seems as times change, so has the werewolves and monsters in movies in general. There used to be a romantic element to them, but not anymore. Just blood and guts. I remember all of those old movies that you mentioned and from the previews of The Wolfman, those movies aren't as scary as this one's going to be.
As for the werewolf in romantic fiction, I like him very much. As long as he's written with some kind of human qualities. Let's face it. Once the full moon is out and the beast is upon him, the human male or female in the movies turns not into a sexy beast, but a beast out for blood. There's no kind of romance there. Only fright! The only werewolf movie I ever saw where there was any kind of human trait retained, was in The Howling. I actually felt her pain in that movie.
In books, there's a totally different type of werewolf. Sexy, loving and caring. He can control his human and his wolf side. That's what I like. Vane Kattalakis in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Night Play is a were that any woman would want. Refined and with all of the above qualifications, but with the Big Bad Wolf just waiting to take care of business if need be.
I still like the weres in movies. But as far as I'm concerned, the vampire still exudes romance in the movies and in books. He's seen more as a romantic character and the werewolf is still a monster in movies to me. 
melissas
on
I have always preferred werewolves to vampires, though my reason is probably different than most. Since childhood, I've have an obsession with all things canine. Of course, books like Sharp Teeth, Shiver, and the Twilight saga have only imbedded a love of werewolves into that canine fascination. The Wolfman looks like a sure-fire bet, especially with Benecio del Toro playing the creature in question.
