Hollywood Weres
Jul. 19th, 2007 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomi_jayIn 1941, Lon Chaney Jnr starred in The Wolf Man, not the first cinema appearance for the werewolf, but arguably the most influential. From this black and white picture came a lot of now commonplace werewolf tradition:
· People become werewolves after being scratched or bitten by a werewolf.
· Victims of werewolf attacks transform on the first full moon after their attack.
· Garlic, wolfsbane and silver pentagrams are all effective weapons against werewolves. (And I know what you’re thinking, garlic is a vampire tradition, right? Well if you lived in a coffin six feet underground, surrounded by rotting corpses and maggots, would you notice the smell of garlic?)
· A silver object is the only thing that can kill a werewolf. (The tradition of the silver bullet wasn’t added until Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, 1943.)
I have to admit; I never really got the whole silver thing. Silver is a metal traditionally associated with the moon, and the moon is a huge controlling force on werewolves, so why would they be allergic to it? Although it is also seen as a purifying metal… Anyway, I digress…
Since The Wolf Man, there have been a whole plethora of werewolf films, ranging from the good (An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers) to the mediocre (An American Werewolf in Paris, The Howling) to the plain bad (The Howling III – The Marsupials. Yes, really.)
My personal favourites are Ginger Snaps and The Company of Wolves. The first is the smart, darkly funny and gory story of sisters Ginger and B Fitzgerald. After cynical domineering Ginger is attacked by a mysterious creature one night, she and B are plunged into a nightmare as Ginger slowly transforms into a werewolf. The film makes wickedly clever use of devices such as menstruation, STDs and drug use to put a modern spin on the werewolf legend. What really interests me about it is that Ginger’s transformation appears to be permanent, rather than a full-moon-only gig. Two further films, Ginger Snaps Back and Ginger Snaps Unleashed followed. Ginger Snaps Back is fairly forgettable, but Ginger Snaps Unleashed is awesome.
The Company of Wolves is a gothic fairytale of a film, based on the story of the same name by Angela Carter. It’s a chilling, surreal tale of magic and curses, twisting Little Red Riding Hood into a stunning, nightmarish fantasy. Coming-of-age tales meet treachery and vengeance and Angela Lansbury.
Anyone got any favourites that I’ve missed?
· People become werewolves after being scratched or bitten by a werewolf.
· Victims of werewolf attacks transform on the first full moon after their attack.
· Garlic, wolfsbane and silver pentagrams are all effective weapons against werewolves. (And I know what you’re thinking, garlic is a vampire tradition, right? Well if you lived in a coffin six feet underground, surrounded by rotting corpses and maggots, would you notice the smell of garlic?)
· A silver object is the only thing that can kill a werewolf. (The tradition of the silver bullet wasn’t added until Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man, 1943.)
I have to admit; I never really got the whole silver thing. Silver is a metal traditionally associated with the moon, and the moon is a huge controlling force on werewolves, so why would they be allergic to it? Although it is also seen as a purifying metal… Anyway, I digress…
Since The Wolf Man, there have been a whole plethora of werewolf films, ranging from the good (An American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers) to the mediocre (An American Werewolf in Paris, The Howling) to the plain bad (The Howling III – The Marsupials. Yes, really.)
My personal favourites are Ginger Snaps and The Company of Wolves. The first is the smart, darkly funny and gory story of sisters Ginger and B Fitzgerald. After cynical domineering Ginger is attacked by a mysterious creature one night, she and B are plunged into a nightmare as Ginger slowly transforms into a werewolf. The film makes wickedly clever use of devices such as menstruation, STDs and drug use to put a modern spin on the werewolf legend. What really interests me about it is that Ginger’s transformation appears to be permanent, rather than a full-moon-only gig. Two further films, Ginger Snaps Back and Ginger Snaps Unleashed followed. Ginger Snaps Back is fairly forgettable, but Ginger Snaps Unleashed is awesome.
The Company of Wolves is a gothic fairytale of a film, based on the story of the same name by Angela Carter. It’s a chilling, surreal tale of magic and curses, twisting Little Red Riding Hood into a stunning, nightmarish fantasy. Coming-of-age tales meet treachery and vengeance and Angela Lansbury.
Anyone got any favourites that I’ve missed?
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no subject
on 2007-07-19 04:00 pm (UTC)I'll admit to being a huge Underworld fan (not so much the sequel -- yay for exploding shit and DEREK JACOBI OMG, but...nnnno.), and Van Helsing (cheesey, I know, but the werewolves looked so. very. good. and the whole skin-ripping thing was fantastic), and there was an episode of s2 of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space set in Victorian Scotland with a werewolf (which was an alien microbe that infected someone) and red ninjas. It was defeated by a moonlight laser, made by reflecting light through a telescope and a bigass diamond. Be still my little geeky heart. *flutters*
no subject
on 2007-07-20 07:35 am (UTC)And yeah, I loved the werewolves in Van Helsing, even though they OMGranupthewalls! and defied biology!
no subject
on 2007-07-20 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-21 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-21 05:12 pm (UTC)Why bother with mere physics when you can have metaphysics that defy all the laws of scienceand logic?!
It just proves that LKH is such a mad maverick literary heroine and sticking it to Newton and his goddamned apples. /sarcasm.
The wall thing seems plausible for me, because if you get enough speed and strength (and let's face it, werewolves = strong and fast) you can punch your hands/feet into the wall and propel yourself along before gravity bitchsmacks you back down to earth.
no subject
on 2007-07-21 05:14 pm (UTC)