There Wolf, There Castle

[vovat]

bethje and I watched An American Werewolf in London last night. Neither of us had seen it before, but it was a good movie. It contained a good mix of comedy and horror, and seemed quite fast-paced. John Landis discussed the movie at the last Monster-Mania Convention, and mentioned that there really are no set rules for monster movies. This film mentioned the idea that you need silver bullets to kill a werewolf, but dismissed it. I guess my thought is that you can have a monster or other mythological creature follow any rules you want, as long as you clearly establish them and stick to them. Nods to the better-known rules are nice, though, because they show that the writer knew the mythology behind the idea, but chose to go in a different direction.



Really, the lore that everyone knows about werewolves is pretty recent anyway. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the idea that werewolves are only harmed by silver weapons only dates back to the nineteenth century. Older weaknesses for lycanthropes include rye, mistletoe, mountain ash, and wolfsbane (the latter of which actually was used in the Canadian Ginger Snaps movie series, which I believe also dismissed the silver thing). Also, while modern werewolf stories often focus on people being changed against their will, old European tales tended to be about witches and wizards who voluntarily turned themselves into wolves to carry out the Devil's work. The idea of lycanthropy being contagious also seems to be a more modern development, possibly borrowed from vampire lore.



One classical myth that a few websites mention as a possible source for the werewolf concept is the Greek tale of Lycaon of Arcadia, who presented human flesh to Zeus. Sound familiar? Instead of being tantalized in Tartarus, however, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf. Some versions of the myth say that his children also became wolves, while others simply say that Zeus killed all or most of them with thunderbolts.

Comments

[jadavisofmo.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

When they were planning "Being Human," they realizes that there were so many versions of vampire, werewolf and ghost lore, they could pick and choose what they wanted. So, the werewolves were based partly on "An American Werewolf in London." Here's a video clip with the transformation from episode 2: http://bit.ly/K1kvs (The narrator is actually the vampire Mitchell.)

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

I was an American werewolf in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive...

werewolves on the mind

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I think the idea of werewolves being able to turn at almost any time, rather than just during a full moon, would make for more interesting storytelling -- and so would the idea that silver bullets couldn't hurt them (but people would think they would!) while rye or mistletoe could. I might want to file those ideas away for the future!

Re: werewolves on the mind

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I believe that werewolves in the Discworld series CAN change whenever they want to, but HAVE to at the full moon.

Re: werewolves on the mind

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I've only read a couple of the Discworld books, and that was many years ago. *is ashamed*

Re: werewolves on the mind

[vovat.livejournal.com]

No reason to be ashamed, but I would definitely recommend reading more! Which ones have you read?

Re: werewolves on the mind

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

"Equal Rites" was one -- I can't remember the name of the other. It's been *that* long. And to further confuse me, years ago I read a very good Buffy/Discworld crossover in which the Buffybot ends up in the Night Watch. There were Orcs and a guy named Carrot and the Death of Rats, if I recall.