Werewolf horror?

efreysson · Jun 23, 2011

I recently rewatched An American Werewolf in London, and it occurred to me that I've never read a werewolf horror novel.
Does the concept really work as horror in the modern era, what with guns and urbanization, or do all the scary ones take place in ages past?

Well, either way the movie left me hungry for more and I'd love some recommendations, regardless of setting. As long as it isn't paranormal romance.

quicklime · Jun 23, 2011

Cycle of the Werewolf (never read myself) is all that comes to mind, but I see no reason you can't have urban werewolves if you can have vampires/witches/whatever else

efreysson · Jun 23, 2011

quicklime said:
but I see no reason you can't have urban werewolves if you can have vampires/witches/whatever else

Well, vampires and witches wear clothes and talk and can walk down the street without people screaming and running away.

Jess Haines · Jun 23, 2011

There is one I read fairly recently. I'll have to dig it up at some point and come back to post the title. It was very good. That reminds me, I need to check if there is a sequel yet.

quicklime · Jun 23, 2011

efreysson said:
Well, vampires and witches wear clothes and talk and can walk down the street without people screaming and running away.

I read a story with were-rats who shifted at will.

I saw a movie with werewolves who lived in secret.

I wrote a short with an old man who could control the change and hold it at bay.

the mythos are pretty flexible; love 'em or hate 'em, look at the liberties taken with traditional vampire AND werewolf mythos in Twilight.

Make them werewolves from another system, who only shift once every ten years, when THEIR moon is both facing and full. Make them sorcerers or skinwalkers, who shift at will. Make them refugees, quarantined and kept in slums where they fight one another, sort of like District 9 but with werewolves, or a race of sewer-dwellers who hunt the homeless and hide in the labarynth of tunnels belowground. There's limitless possibilities....

leahzero · Jun 23, 2011

Glen Duncan's THE LAST WEREWOLF is on my reading list. It's supposedly literary horror.

Inkstrokes · Jun 23, 2011

I agree, there isn't a lot out there. Not recently, anyways. I think Wolfen was originally a novel.

Also, there's not as much mythos as there is for vampires. At least not that I could find. Stuff that I could use to make it beleivable.

My second novel has a werewolf in it (or two or three) but isn't about werewolves per se. I'm more old school in my approach. They are monsters. Even in human form.

efreysson · Jun 23, 2011

Inkstrokes said:
My second novel has a werewolf in it (or two or three) but isn't about werewolves per se. I'm more old school in my approach. They are monsters. Even in human form.

Yeah. If I ever feature werewolves in my books they are going to be eeevil. I think they make more interesting monsters than protagonists.

yttar · Jun 23, 2011

The main book I think of as werewolf horror is the YA novel Blood and Chocolate by Anette Curtise-Klause. I have another werewolf horror novel sitting on my shelf, but I haven't read it yet. It's Wolf's Trap by W. D. Gaguani. Another novel is Bitten by Kelley Armstrong and her other Elena Micheals books in that series, but they tend to be more urban fantasy than horror.

Yttar

Inkstrokes · Jun 23, 2011

efreysson said:
Yeah. If I ever feature werewolves in my books they are going to be eeevil. I think they make more interesting monsters than protagonists.

Exactly!

Kelley Armstrong's adult series is closer to horror. My daughter is a huge fan. I heard Kelley speak at a Darklit fest.

PEBKAC2 · Jun 23, 2011

I have Lonely Werewilf Girl by Martin Millar. I haven't read it yet, but it's likely more comedy than horror but I suspect it's still very good. Neil Gaiman has high praise for it.

TedTheewen · Jun 23, 2011

I wrote a first draft of a werewolf novel but I cannot go back to it because it just seemed like rubbish. It's missing quite a bit and to be honest, it's just not scary. If I had read it and didn't know it was mine, I'd wonder if the werewolves sparkled.

Werewolves don't scare me because I like the idea of changing into one and letting go.

triceretops · Jun 23, 2011

I took the genome out of a man-eating ice age dire wolf and crossed it with a gray wolf to come up with trio DNA splice that created a hybrid dire/gray, dire/human and fucked up monster. Worked pretty well, although I sure can't call any of them werewolves, 'cause there ain't no silver bullets, full moons or lycanthropy involved. It's a damn strage brew, but a publisher did send me a contract on it.

frimble3 · Jun 23, 2011

There's Kit Whitfield's 'Benighted', set in an alt-universe where 'werewolf' is the default setting, and 'normal' isn't.
And Robert McCammon's 'The Wolf's Hour', set in Russia, pre-WWII, and in WWII.
Neither is 'paranormal romance'. : )

donatos · Jun 25, 2011

Cycle of a werewolf for me was a bit of a letdown.

However, the two best werewolf books I've ever read are from the seventies. The Wolfen and The Howling. Highly recommended. The Wolfen takes place in NYC and shows how well a terror novel about wolves works in an ultra urban environment. The Howling takes place in a little village in Northern California. Then there's Thomas Tessier's Nightwalker which takes place in London.

FOTSGreg · Jun 26, 2011

Cycle of the Werewolf
The Wolfen
The Wolf's Hour
The Wolfman

There are quite a few werewolf horror novels, but the best one's I've read were all short stories or novellas.

There's also,

Track of the Werewolf
The Howling
The Beast of Breyer Road

And many others on DVD. The Hound of the Baskervilles could be said to be a pseudo-werewolf story. There was an old Peter Graves movies (might have been Track of the Werewolf) that's pretty intense in spots. There's also an old movie about a werewolf in a Louisiana Parish that's pretty good (also starring an older actor, probably one of those who died awhile back as I recall).

Do a search for werewolf novels and you get an extensive list on Wikipedia.

Kerr · Jun 26, 2011

Anyone watching the new Teen Wolf series on MTV? It's good.

Jess Haines · Jun 27, 2011

Found it! MANEATER by Thomas Emson was good. Very dark.

Nagneto · Jul 18, 2011

I once toyed around with the idea of werewolves and Native American shamanism. When the insipid Twilight craze exploded I threw it in the trash. It'll be a good ten years before it reputable to write about either vampires or wolves as far as I'm concerned.

backslashbaby · Jul 19, 2011

I love all of these recommendations!

My novel WIP has the MC as a werewolf-like creature from Transilvanian myth. But it's not the same myths we are used to here, so I don't call her a werewolf (poor girl has a lot of stuff going on). It's a dark satirical piece rather than straight horror, too. The big sex scene rocks, though

BigWords · Jul 19, 2011

This may be pedantic (and probably incredibly geeky), but the thing that stops me enjoying a lot of the existing novels is the terminology being misused - a werewolf is a person who changes into a wolf, a wolfman is a person who changes into a bipedal wolf-like creature. The distinction is normally ignored completely in novels, yet is a crucial part of the mythos...

Rhoda Nightingale · Jul 19, 2011

Actually....

The word "werewolf" is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon "were" meaning "man" and "wolf." (Thank you, Professor Snape.) So I reckon the two terms are interchangeable.

That being said, I much prefer the mythos that does the full transformation from man to wolf.

(Now who's being incredibly geeky?)

FOTSGreg · Jul 19, 2011

There's also the French "Loup garou" (sp?). Monster Hunters or some other show did a show that appears to prove the monster, supposedly responsible for killing dozens, was actually a trained hyena and the owner was actually the one who claimed responsibility for killing it (with a silver bullet).

I used to own a book, written entirely in French (which I can't read), called Lycanthropy. It was part of a demonology collection I used to own and which was unfortunately lost in a flood (there were some really old and valuable tomes in that collection).

BigWords · Jul 19, 2011

Rhoda Nightingale said:
The word "werewolf" is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon "were" meaning "man" and "wolf." (Thank you, Professor Snape.) So I reckon the two terms are interchangeable.

Yes. The old European versions tend to be... complicated. Modern usage, however is more or less split between the two distinct versions. It doesn't help that there are anomalies such as wolves (and other were creatures) which vary in color (green, red and black seem to be common colors for some reason), and numbers of tails. It's further diluted with the insertion of Asian myths which aren't really about were-creatures, yet have been folded into the mythology by people who are well-meaning but hopelessly out of their depths. The African legends have to be heard to be believed - were-hyenas, were-elephants and were-whatever-the-hell-is-nearby.

Rhoda Nightingale said:
That being said, I much prefer the mythos that does the full transformation from man to wolf.

Lots of people prefer the literal interpretation. It's one of the reasons the Skinwalkers legends from America have been so thoroughly hashed over in recent years. It's a pity that little of the original context has survived alongside the striking concept, but it's a start, I suppose...

CircusOfCrows · Jul 22, 2011

There's a short in the movie "Trick 'R Treat" which deals with werewolves, and does so quite well. I suggest taking a look at it.

Werewolf horror?

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