Riffing off of my last post: a request
moonlightalice and I had an interesting, if depressing conversation following our viewing of The Wolfman about werewolves in movies. She, like me, prefers the psychology and pathos of the werewolf/wolfman story to that of the vampire narrative. There is something so much more relatable in the story of the werewolf/wolfman. For one thing, the werewolf is, quite aside from a few days in the year, human. Increasingly, the werewolf's unnatural strength and superhuman senses carry over to the human side, but for the most part, a werewolf is a human with a problem. Versus a vampire who is another creature entirely and is no longer human at all. It is easier to relate to someone who suffers a curse beyond his/her control than it is to relate to an undead creature that stays beautiful and powerful forever.
And yet the vampire story is the more successful one, especially in film. We wracked our brains trying to think of one well-done, well-told, interesting werewolf/wolfman movie. Wolf happens to be a favorite of mine, with the idea that you have to be literally cutthroat to make it ahead in business. But it's barely a werewolf movie for all that posturing. I've seen plenty of werewolf movies, but none of them have been very good or taken the werewolf pathology to a very interesting end. (Books have done better, and Buffy did all right--at first--with its werewolf character.) Werewolf movies of late have depended on a sort of rivalry with vampires to sell them--Twilight, the Underworld series. Where are the examinations of man versus monster, the recognition that man is the monster and that being a werewolf is just something that allows him an outlet for his monstrosity? Why, oh why, did we get An American Werewolf in Paris instead?
Maybe I'm missing out on something good. So here comes the request: I would like anyone who has a suggestion for a good werewolf/wolfman movie to send that title my way. I'm happy to try any and everything. (I am the person who stocks her Netflix queue off of lists of the the worst movies that others can think of, so clearly I am not picky.) Send him here. I'll take 'em all.
And yet the vampire story is the more successful one, especially in film. We wracked our brains trying to think of one well-done, well-told, interesting werewolf/wolfman movie. Wolf happens to be a favorite of mine, with the idea that you have to be literally cutthroat to make it ahead in business. But it's barely a werewolf movie for all that posturing. I've seen plenty of werewolf movies, but none of them have been very good or taken the werewolf pathology to a very interesting end. (Books have done better, and Buffy did all right--at first--with its werewolf character.) Werewolf movies of late have depended on a sort of rivalry with vampires to sell them--Twilight, the Underworld series. Where are the examinations of man versus monster, the recognition that man is the monster and that being a werewolf is just something that allows him an outlet for his monstrosity? Why, oh why, did we get An American Werewolf in Paris instead?
Maybe I'm missing out on something good. So here comes the request: I would like anyone who has a suggestion for a good werewolf/wolfman movie to send that title my way. I'm happy to try any and everything. (I am the person who stocks her Netflix queue off of lists of the the worst movies that others can think of, so clearly I am not picky.) Send him here. I'll take 'em all.