WEREWOLVES CURED YOUR MALE PATTERN BALDNESS

Just as Obama Is Your New Bicycle, Werewolves Are The New Vampires.

Peter Stupp, the Werewolf of Bedburg

Peter Stupp was a German farmer who was executed in 1589 for killing and eating fourteen children, along with two pregnant women and their fetuses. He claimed to be a practitioner of black magic and a werewolf. He stated at trial that the devil had given him a belt of wolf-hide that allowed him to transform. The woodcuts of his execution are among the first portrayals of the werewolf in art.

Check it out!

Gingersnaps (2000)

Gingersnaps was directed by John Fawcett and stars Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle.

I really like this movie. It's witty, and really smart in how it uses lycanthrophy as a metaphor for the Other and for Change. The onset of Ginger's werewolf-ism is presented as a parallel for the onset of puberty. I really wish I had seen this one first, rather than the terrible prequel Ginger Snaps Back (reviewed earlier).

The movie centers mostly on the visceral horror of lycanthrophy/puberty, of watching one's self change and being unable to halt the process. Ginger finds her transformation into a wolf bewildering, and the upheaval causes believable tension between Ginger and her sister Brigitte.

What I found most interesting, however, is the fact that, in the end, Ginger does not return to human form. She is a werewolf, irredeemably, and the connotation is that Brigitte is next. The change is unavoidable for Brigitte, and is something she must now face alone.

A

Next up: Cursed (2005)

WEREWOLF WEEKEND!

I return triumphant this weekend with a plethora of reviews! In honor of the new Wolfman (in theatres), I decided to devote this past weekend to Werewolf movies.

Wolfman (2010) Excellent. If you like Gothic fiction, this is most decidedly a movie for you. It has every element: the abandoned castle, the damsel in distress, the underground labyrinth, a curse. It was really fun to see something so modern deal with these classic tropes.

However, I think it would have done better had they stuck even closer to the rules of the Gothic. All the gore felt out of place and forced against the moodiness of the rest of the movie.

Also, Emily Blunt's character is shown wearing a blue bodice just months after her fiance died. If they were sticking true to true Victorian funerary dress, she would have still been in deep mourning, and blue would have been forbidden.

B+


Big Bad Wolf (2006) Terrible, and not in a so-bad-it's-good way. First of all, I feel werewolves in wolf form shouldn't be able to talk. Besides that, the whole movie was just bizarre and deeply misogynistic. Who thought this movie was a good idea? It's just one huge rape joke. Seriously.

F


The Wolves of Kromer (2000) Not Horror, though Netflix bills this as a Horror movie. It's basically a British comedy, which uses Werewolf-ism as a hamfisted and transparent metaphor for homosexuality. The plot swings wildly around, and most of the time I had no idea what was going on.

The only redeeming quality was William Lee, (left) who made quite a cute and endearing wolf-boy.

D+

Stay tuned for even more werewolf movies! I'm making a week of it.

Coming soon: Gingersnaps (2000)