The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves (24 page)

The Monster Squad
was a film released in 1987 as part of the popular “kid-venture” genre of the 1980s.

When the diary of legendary vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing was discovered in a spooky house on Shadowbrook Road, it ended up as part of a garage sale and was sold to a woman who gave it to her monster-obsessed son, Shawn, as a present. Shawn (played by Andre Gower) was thrilled by the gift but was disappointed to discover that it was written entirely in German. He showed the diary to his friends, who together were members of a “Monster Club.” When strange things started happening in his town, which Shawn learned by eavesdropping on his father (a police detective), he concluded that monsters were responsible and dubbed the group “The Monster Squad.”

 

They took the diary to the neighborhood “scary German guy,” who translated it for them. They learned that on the next night, at the stroke of midnight, Dracula and his monstrous companions would open a hole in limbo and destroy the world. Among these monsters was, of course, a werewolf. Unlike the other monsters, however, the werewolf was an involuntary pawn being controlled by Dracula’s wolf-headed silver cane.

 

The primary reason that this movie is mentioned here is because it spawned one of the most highly quoted movie lines regarding werewolves. The boys had a long-standing debate as to whether or not werewolves had “nards.” When confronted by the werewolf in Dracula’s mansion, Shawn commanded his friend, “Kick him in the nards!” To which his friend replied, “He doesn’t have nards!” “Do it! Do it!” The young man kicked the werewolf in the groin, and the creature doubled over in pain. The awestruck kid stood there for a moment and quietly commented, “Wolf-man’s got nards.” A classic line … no question about it.

The 2002 British film
Dog Soldiers
was written and directed by Neil Marshall. It starred Sean Pertwee as the rough and tumble Sgt. Harry G. Wells, along with a very large cast of actors from the United Kingdom. This movie is probably the most well-known werewolf film to be produced by British cinema.

 

The movie is about a squad of British soldiers who were in the wilderness of the Scottish highlands on a routine training exercise. The first night, however, they heard something moving in the woods. Suddenly, a dead rabbit was thrown into their campsite. It gave the men a scare, but they dismissed it … until the next day when they found an entire unit of Royal Special Forces soldiers torn to pieces. They inspected the weapons of the dead to find that they were carrying live rounds. Knowing something wasn’t right, they armed up and prepared to get the heck out of dodge. They discovered one survivor, a man that one member of the squad recognized as a British black ops agent. They questioned the man, who only rambled on that, “There was only supposed to be one of them.” They were ambushed by werewolves, and several squad members were ripped apart.

Eventually, the soldiers were rescued by a mysterious woman with a truck. She took them to an abandoned cabin, where they tried to radio for help. The radio, however, was hit by a round during the battle and was now useless. The men fortified the house and successfully fended off wave after wave of werewolves. With a dead radio and a destroyed truck, however, all avenues for an escape were soon totally cut off. For how much longer would the soldiers be able to survive? What happened to the Special Forces unit? And exactly what was this woman doing in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere?

The first part of the
Underworld
film series was released in 2002. Written and directed by Len Wiseman, this film series is among the most popular werewolf films of recent years. What’s more, it has provided moviegoers with an entirely new portrayal of werewolves.

The
Underworld
series involves a centuries-old war that has raged between werewolves (called “lycans” in the films) and vampires. In the first movie, it was learned that the vampires had nearly won, and that only a handful of the most powerful werewolves now survived. Among the vampires, a group of warriors, called “death-dealers,” was responsible for hunting down and eradicating the few remaining lycans on Earth. When a female death-dealer named Selene discovered that the lycans were tracking a specific human named Michael Corvin, she investigated further and learned that his blood was the key to creating a powerful hybrid that was both werewolf and vampire. She soon developed feelings for Michael Corvin, who she learned was the last descendent of the first immortal being who a forgotten legend said spawned both of the immortal races—a man named Corvinis. Eventually, Selene had to choose between her allegiance to her own kind and her love for Michael.

The interesting Romeo-and-Juliet-like film,
Blood and Chocolate,
was released in 2007. The film was directed by Katja von Garnier and was based on the screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Christopher Landon. Set in Bucharest, Romania,
Blood and Chocolate
follows an American comic artist named Aiden who came to do research on a graphic novel he was creating about werewolves. While there, he met a girl named Vivian and was rather taken with her. Little did Aiden know, however, that Vivian was descended from an ancient werewolf bloodline.

Vivian was an orphan, her parents killed by human hunters in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. As a result, she was sent to Romania to be raised by her aunt. Vivian was betrothed to the pack’s alpha male, Gabriel. So when she developed feelings for Aiden, it threw a wrench into things. Gabriel, enraged with jealousy, brought the two lovers before the other werewolves on the night of the full moon to face the justice of the hunt. Would the two star-crossed lovers be able to survive?

 

Chapter 12

Werewolves in Art and Comics

The visual arts have long attempted to create portrayals of werewolves to suit their fantastic images within human imaginations. Even in the ancient past, humans imagined such figures and fashioned images that displayed spectacular integrations of human and animal traits. In recent decades, lycanthropy’s appeal to the imagination has led to the widespread inclusion of werewolf-themed characters in the pop culture realms of cartoon art, animation, comic books, and graphic novels.

In the ancient world, the most common use of
anthropomorphism
was in the depictions of divine and supernatural beings such as gods or spirits. Artifacts displaying such depictions are especially common from ancient cultures that practiced polytheistic nature religions, where gods were often associated with animals and forces of nature.