Hark! A Vagrant

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, I'm pretty sure nothing werewolfy has happened in the last 3 years.

Stoopid werewolf movies

The fake werewolf cliche is that they can be killed by silver bullets. The real cliche is the 90% of werewolf movies where at some point a character says "Silver bullets?!? What do you think this is...Hollywood?"
In the last year or so, I think I've seen just about 90% of werewolf movies that Hollywood has made, and for your entertainment, here are my quick thoughts:

American Werewolf in London
Now a classic. See! A man tormented after a vicious attack in England's moors! See! A man come to grips with the beast within him! There's a bad moon on the rise...

American Werewolf in Paris
I think this was the sequel, can't remember much about it, but they made a daring choice in using the oft-neglected Paris location of the Eiffel Tower as a set piece.

Cursed/aka Wes Craven's: Cursed/aka Wes Craven actually stopped making movies 15 years ago
It's funny how the kid starts inexplicably eating raw meat, and how the bully comes out to him after he calls him gay. It's not too funny how this movie was made despite being steamrolled by several writers.

Ginger Snaps
The hot one got hotter but the ugly one stayed true to herself. An interesting take on the genre and great analogy between puberty and werewolfishness.

Ginger Snaps 2
But they had to make a sequel. And they had to keep the ugly one instead of the hot one. Not much going on here, especially compared to the cleverness of the first one. Although the group button-thumbing session hallucination, the murse who trades drugs for bj's, and the creepy little girl who burns mommies almost makes up for it.

Ginger Snaps 3
What to do when you run out of ideas? If you're Kevin Smith, make an overblown action movie dealing with Catholic Theology starring Chris Rock and Silent Bob. If your Ginger Snaps, do Last of the Mohicans meets werewolves. The hot one is back, back to the future that is! And by future, I mean past. Best part: the dinner scene after the girls first arrive to the fort, where the preacher says grace and basically says in old-timey language "keep it in your pants, guys" during the prayer. And the nude scene.

Mexican Werewolf in Texas
My thoughts on this were addressed in a previous post.

Monster Squad
"I guess they can only be killed by silver bullets!"

Open Country
I couldn't tell if the acting was bad, or it was just hard to understand the thick Scottish accents. I also thought the preacher was one of the Kids in the Hall. Not particularly bad, though as usual, if you don't have the budget, don't spend so much time showing the monster.

Skinwalkers
Sort of interesting idea, and monsters by Stan Winston. A movie always gets points with me when it involves an action sequence that has Granny and an entire town whip out guns and start blasting away. Plus, it starred Sarah Carter:

But it lost steam consistently throughout and ended up another set piece in an abandoned werehouse. I mean, warehouse. Basically Underworld during the day.

Underworld
Confusing as hell, dark, but Kate Beckinsale.


Underworld: Evolution
More confusing than the first, but shots of Kate Beckinsale's groin.

Van Helsing
I forget which one this was and keep confusing it with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Still to see:
Howling
Howling II
Howling III
Howling IV
Howling V
Howling VI
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
Wolf
The Notebook
Therewolf: The Unbitenining

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

This might not stay up for long, since enbeesee clips seem to be removed regularly from youtube, but I'll give it a shot:



In case it's gone, it's Tracy Morgan singing Werewolf Bar Mitzvah:

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
Spooky, scary
Boy becomes man
Man becomes wolf

Happy Horny Werewolf Day

Happy Horny Werewolf Day
Originally uploaded by Spiritus Ex Machina.

And remember, Valentine's Day originally had to do with werewolves. Take that, Hallmark! And, to a lesser extent, Russell Stover's!

Werewolf

Werewolf
Originally uploaded by psd.

A Mexican Werewolf in Texas

...or, I wasted part of my life watching this so you don't have to.



I had wanted to seen this for a while, since I saw it blogged on Cryptomundo. It seemed groovy--an underground pic with loads of potential. Maybe it would be schlocky, or cheesy, or a taut thriller that shirked the conventions of mainstream Hollywood.

It was none of the above.

I'm just glad no one I know has heard of it, and I watched it alone, so I can pretend it never happened.

First of all, it's not about a "werewolf", it's about Chupacabra. The only mention of a werewolf in the movie is in a seriously obtuse bit of dialog where an old man raves "It sounded awful...like a werewolf!"

I'll save you the trouble of watching this and give you my thoughts.

1. Some bad movies seem like the creators watch what comes out of Hollywood and say to themselves "This looks cool, let's do that!" This movie seems like the creators watched high school video productions and said "This looks cool, let's do that!"

2. With a sizeable cast, odds are that at least one person, even a bit player, is a decent actor. That's why I was so surprised when not one of the actors in this did anything closely resembling acting. I've seen better acting in high school plays. And goddamnit, can the lead male character try getting through one scene without smiling? Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh. Martine Hughes, who played Rosie, the lead character's best friend, who finally got the scholarship she needed to get out of town and make something of her life and then died at the end, showed some signs that she's heard of terms like "scene", "script", and "straight face".

3. Speaking of getting out of town, I lost track of the number of times someone said something about how much the town sucked, or how there was nothing to do there. That makes me think there should be a drinking game with this movie. It's called asshole. Play it with your friends instead of watching this movie. The town in question is supposedly a small town in Texas. A sign reads "Population 327". Later, after a significant percentage of the town is killed, they show the sign again. I looked hard to see some sign of creativity, like a big grafitti 'x' over 327 replaced with '316', but all I saw was a blinking "12:00" from where the cameraman forgot to set the camera's time.

4. I wonder if the guy that made the soundtrack did it because he couldn't get a job as a roadie for a local covers band. I'm guessing he didn't even try to go for that job.

5. You know how in movies, both good and bad, you have an inner monologue running, like "Oh, I hope he makes it!" or "Please, he's gonna be attacked, I can see this coming a mile away!"? That doesn't happen with this movie.

6. In my downloading spree, I picked up what looks to be some really cheesy werewolf movies, including "Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory" and a MST3K werewolf movie. I wish I could find "Mexican Werewolf in Texas" but apparently no one has heard of it. And I've never seen it, right everybody?

That's what I thought

Mpumalanga Man Imitates Folklore

This just in from Zimbabwe's Sunday Times...

In the tradition of Tselane and the werewolf, a Barberton man is believed to have changed his voice to imitate a woman’s to gain the confidence of the woman who had previously spurned his affection and gain entry to her house.

Once inside the house the man allegedly attacked the woman on Saturday night.

Principles 04

Principles 04
Originally uploaded by TPOdell.

Bear-dog! Man-bear-wolf!

No, I'm serial guys.
About two weeks ago, there was this whole hubbub up in Washington County, Wisconsin, about a mysterious creature sighting.

Krueger estimates he looked at the creature for about five seconds before flooring the gas pedal. "It had pointy ears, triangular shaped," he said, "and they looked like big wolf ears standing up on end. That was the main feature that made me realize it was not a bear. It had a longer muzzle than a black bear, and its head was more like a wolf than a bear. It almost looked like a very large black bear standing on its feet, if you took a wolf's head and enlarged it and set it on the bear's body." Krueger guessed the creature's height at six to seven feet, but only was able to see it from the chest up. The fur was about two inches long, black, and fairly smooth, he said.

The story has updates all the way up until yesterday, which tells of a sighting two years ago of possibly the same creature:

"It started up over the top of the road, looked at me then kept running across the road in frontof me and into the brush. I see a lot of deer and it seemed the top of its back was as high as a deer's. I could see long tufts of hair coming off its chest and legs but not much of a tail. It had a short snout and pointy ears on top of a round head. The head was round like a pumpkin, but its ears were pointy like a dog's on top of its head pointing straight up. It had to weigh between 150 and 200 pounds."

Over on Scott Maruna's blog, he postulates the creature might be the same or similar to the Whoahaw, seen in Nevada all the way back in 1879. Of course, the Whoahaw is a bear-coyote, rather than a wolfbear.

The whole region round Deeth is dominated by a mysterious beast known locally as the Whoahaw, an animal supposed to be a cross between the grizzly bear and the coyote. As the mule combines the bad qualities of the horse and the ass, so does this hybrid display the courage and ferocity of the grizzly joined to the cunning and treachery of the coyote. The Whoahaw has never been seen by daylight. He roams and ravages only at night. The beast has been known to carry off a horse. Cattle and sheep are often borne away by the monster. Mules he never attacks, for some unexplained reason.

One of the possibilities that keeps getting mentioned as to what this animal might be is the Amphicyon, a prehistoric beardog that roamed North America 20-30 million years ago (or 6000 years ago if you're an IDer).

Cajun werewolves and... David Blaine?

Creole Folks has an article up about werewolves in New Orleans.

Werewolves were usually identified as people who lived in secluded rural areas or villages in France. They usually had a uni-brow or eye brows that ran straight across their foreheads with hairy palms. France had accused no less than 30,000 people, which were brought to trial in the 16th and 17th century and many were executed for being werewolves.
...
The residence of these French country villages, sailed to the New World during colonization, where they were known as the Cajuns instead of just French! Cajuns are direct descendants of the French village people, whom the French rulers thought to be hiding humans who could transform into werewolves.

The author goes on to recall reports of werewolves from his childhood. Fairly standard stuff until the end, when he not only says that he's friends with David Blaine, but that David Blaine might be a werewolf!

Then again, I'm a guy whose circle of friends includes David Blaine the "Magic Man." Not many people know(not even locals) that before he got really famous-he would bum around lower Louisiana. Maybe he's the werewolf! People in New Orleans didn't even know how to get into Plaquemines but David Blaine managed to always be walking on the 1 road that ran through the area along with hidden, out-the-way roads that hugged the river curves. I've been meaning to ask him this question for a long time.

Cause he walks on roads!

Girlie Werewolf Project

Ran across some interesting artwork being done by Jazmina Cininas, called the "Girlie Werewolf Project".

Recently, women on the internet have reinvented the idea of the wolf, using it as a symbol of their both wild and passive natures.

Read an interview with her about the project, and see some more examples.

Is it because I is a Werewolf?

Is it because I is a Werewolf?
Originally uploaded by psd.

Quite possibly sums it all up.

Cynocephaly

Let's take a quick look at the condition of cynocephaly, having the head of a dog.



A Holy Dog and a Dog-Headed Saint tells the stories of St Guinefort and St Christopher among others. Very interesting stuff.

The Cryptid Zoo has a short piece on Cynocephali from a cryptozoological viewpoint. What's interesting of note is that Cynocephalids seem to have sprung from beliefs that other tribes, ie barbarian tribes, were seen as 'monstrous,' and less than human. It was only when Western writers and explorers set these descriptions down literally, rather than figuratively, that we begin to see the birth of these real-life "monsters".



That's, of course, just supposition on my point. However, there is another interesting article titled "Dogs: God's Worst Enemies?" From the abstract:

In a broad survey of negative and hostile attitudes toward canines in pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, the author posits that warm ties between humans and canines have been seen as a threat to the authority of the clergy and indeed, of God. Exploring ancient myth, Biblical and Rabbinical literature, and early and medieval Christianity and Islam, she explores images and prohibitions concerning dogs in the texts of institutionalized, monotheistic religions, and offers possible explanations for these attitudes, including concern over disease.

It's interesting in the realm of werewolfery, as werewolves were heartily punished by the Church in Medieval Europe, seen as agents of Satan or worse. More accurately, those the Church wished to be rid of were declared werewolfs. Wait, there's nothing worse than Satan. In an earlier post here, I quoted Alby Stone on the entymological roots of the word warg:

This is a complex word: it is often used simply to mean 'wolf', but it also denotes an outlaw or the state of outlawry... It would be easy to assume that outlaws were called warg simply because their offences were of an especially savage kind, and that they were likened to wolves, wild, bestial, and uncivilised, as a result.

The end result of all this talk of cynocephaly, religion and werewolfery is this seemingly endless loop between dogs are evil so men who are evil are dogs who are evil who are men... whether there is an actual historic kernel as the basis to this mythology, or what this kernel might be is lost to us. But from a werwolf scholar's point-of-view, it's definitely a path worth pursuing.