Can Werewolves still be scary?

[Samtemdo8]

Because I feel like when it comes to the classical stock horror monsters. Like Vampires, Zombies, Ghosts, and Werewolves.

The first 3 still kinda beats Werewolves in terms of pure horror/dread.

Dracula when made scary and creepy can still work (Coppola's Dracula)

Zombies can be, I site Resident Evil 1 Remake as an example with the use of the Crimson Heads, and the idea of how can you kill something that refuses to die.

Ghosts DEFINITELY can be scary what with with how they excel at "Fear of the Unknown" and how creative hauntings can be.

I feel like the Werewolf doesn't have the same edge other then being a monstrous brutish animal-man that hunts in the night.

 

[happyninja42]

I feel like the Werewolf doesn't have the same edge other then being a monstrous brutish animal-man that hunts in the night.

I find it strange that you forget an aspect of, well basically all of these creatures, but a point you specifically cited about zombies (the not dying thing), when it comes to werewolves. One of their biggest traits is they are basically unkillable unless you have access to silver. Which frankly most people don't, and if they do, it's probably not much, or is in the form of a tea kettle or something, not a claymore. They MIGHT have a little kitchen knife which...yeah ok good luck taking on a 10ft tall, 1000lbs wall of muscle and claws with that.

Also, you seem to kind of just handwaved away Dracula with "when made scary" can work. Well, ANYTHING can work "when made scary" that's..kind of the point. But yes, there is nothing fundamentally lacking in "giant force of death and destruction" in werewolf form, when all the other examples you gave, are basically just different flavors of the same concept.

Supernatural
Extremely hard to kill (though I would say zombies are pretty easy to kill, they just have swarm numbers on their side)
Prey on humans
Most mundane methods of protection a human might readily have, do nothing to them. (though again, zombies would be the most hindered by mundane defenses, as evidenced many many times)

Why do you think they somehow are incapable of being made scary? Because I'm frankly baffled by this idea.

I mean vampires boil down to "monstrous dude (likely an aristocrat noble and thus foppish and arrogant) that hunts in the night. How is that somehow more intrinsically scary?

 

[Samtemdo8]

I find it strange that you forget an aspect of, well basically all of these creatures, but a point you specifically cited about zombies (the not dying thing), when it comes to werewolves. One of their biggest traits is they are basically unkillable unless you have access to silver. Which frankly most people don't, and if they do, it's probably not much, or is in the form of a tea kettle or something, not a claymore. They MIGHT have a little kitchen knife which...yeah ok good luck taking on a 10ft tall, 1000lbs wall of muscle and claws with that.

Also, you seem to kind of just handwaved away Dracula with "when made scary" can work. Well, ANYTHING can work "when made scary" that's..kind of the point. But yes, there is nothing fundamentally lacking in "giant force of death and destruction" in werewolf form, when all the other examples you gave, are basically just different flavors of the same concept.

Supernatural
Extremely hard to kill (though I would say zombies are pretty easy to kill, they just have swarm numbers on their side)
Prey on humans
Most mundane methods of protection a human might readily have, do nothing to them. (though again, zombies would be the most hindered by mundane defenses, as evidenced many many times)

Why do you think they somehow are incapable of being made scary? Because I'm frankly baffled by this idea.

I mean vampires boil down to "monstrous dude (likely an aristocrat noble and thus foppish and arrogant) that hunts in the night. How is that somehow more intrinsically scary?

Well I am at a loss forwards on how to respond to this then.

 

[Bedinsis]

I've heard it said that the true horror of the werewolf was that your loved ones can suddenly turn into a violent monster, and therefore was a metaphor for domestic abuse. That is something that sadly remains relevant to this day, and it has actually been explored in this fashion in the point-and-click video game by the name of Resonance.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If a regular wolf can be made to appear scary, then so can a werewolf. With the right lighting, editing, and sound design there's very little that CAN'T be made to appear scary. Heck, just look at David Lynch's work.

 

[happyninja42]

Well I am at a loss forwards on how to respond to this then.

I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, I'm genuinely confused why you think the traits that you list as "why these things work in horror" that equally can apply to werewolves, but for you at least, you don't think werewolves are scary.

I've heard it said that the true horror of the werewolf was that your loved ones can suddenly turn into a violent monster, and therefore was a metaphor for domestic abuse. That is something that sadly remains relevant to this day, and it has actually been explored in this fashion in the point-and-click video game by the name of Resonance.

Yeah, it's usually banking on the whole "something uncontrollable in me, that might injure those I love." angle for horror. But there is also just the "terrifying monster in the darkness, that might literally eat me if I go out at night." angle. Which I think they explored pretty well in the first season of Hemlock Grove

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Can't think of a single scary werewolf movie. The overreliance on special effects usually dates them pretty fast, for one thing. And maybe they're a little too far away from the uncanny valley to be all that inherently disturbing, at least compared to vampires and zombies.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

If a regular wolf can be made to appear scary, then so can a werewolf.

I'd argue that regular wolves aren't "made" scary, they already are. The Grey is more terrifying than any werewolf movie I've ever seen.

 

[happyninja42]

Can't think of a single scary werewolf movie. The overreliance on special effects usually dates them pretty fast, for one thing. And maybe they're a little too far away from the uncanny valley to be all that inherently disturbing, at least compared to vampires and zombies.

*shrugs* I can't think of any scary zombie films or vampires. Vampires especially, as they've evolved into little more than an allegory for kinky, sexy times....oh yeah and I guess I'm scary or something, but you're probably too busy getting turned on by my sexual overtones to really find me scary but...yeah...blood blood, children of the niiiight, yes yes, can you get naked and let me eat you now please?

Zombies are so over-saturated that they're just background dressing in most zombie related stories. As they tend to focus on the humanity element, and simply reduce the zombies to something akin to a force of nature, like a high tide or a powerful storm you avoid, or take shelter from.

I think it mostly depends on the script, and how they portray the predator, and yes, I'd say few movies even bother using werewolves at all, and when they do, they're usually not framed as bad. More like avatars of nature or whatever. So there is no intention to make them scary, just dangerous.

 

[SilentPony]

I think a lot of these older monsters were a LOT scarier back when the water wheel was cutting edge and getting a papercut and not dying was a significant accomplishment.
Once you introduce reality and science to these monsters they're really goofy, and clearly the work of ancient people who didn't understand either what they were seeing or the science behind the world.
Vampires can't exist in sunlight, but moonlight works fine. Even though the moon doesn't produce light and is reflecting sunlight. Same with werewolves coming out during a full moon because a full moon's light is not only different to all the other phases of the moon, but is different than sunlight.
Zombies are reanimated corpses and somehow achieve movement without blood flow, oxygen or brain function. And also never get sick. You ever notice Zombies, despite not having functioning marrow to produce white blood cells, never catch a cold or flu. They're basically walking immune compromised rotting bags of shit and are as healthy as a horse. 'cause they're from civilizations that didn't know about immune systems, blood creation or synapse in the brain.
Same with ocean monsters and leviathans, ghosts, the flying Dutchman, Bermuda triangle, all these great horror tropes are really just people not understanding science. And more often than not people who need glasses not wearing them trying to describe what they saw.
That's another thing no one considers when trying to modernize ancient horrors. Even the earliest examples of glasses we have were little more than a crystal you look through and was used by the most preeminent scientists of the time, not the average fisherman who saw a shape surface and is convinced its the ancient fish God NatKarLarGarGar, 'cause fucking duh.

Also why do ghosts get to keep their clothes? Why do they wear pants? What, did the pants have a soul and they're doomed to wander the Earth forever? Do Ghosts get a wardrobe? Why do they only come out at night? Wouldn't a ghost in broad daylight in the town square be creepy enough? And how come they're only ever malicious? Where's the kind ghost that makes sure your keys are in your pocket and the oven is always off?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

*shrugs* I can't think of any scary zombie films or vampires. Vampires especially, as they've evolved into little more than an allegory for kinky, sexy times....oh yeah and I guess I'm scary or something, but you're probably too busy getting turned on by my sexual overtones to really find me scary but...yeah...blood blood, children of the niiiight, yes yes, can you get naked and let me eat you now please?

Zombies are so over-saturated that they're just background dressing in most zombie related stories. As they tend to focus on the humanity element, and simply reduce the zombies to something akin to a force of nature, like a high tide or a powerful storm you avoid, or take shelter from.

I think it mostly depends on the script, and how they portray the predator, and yes, I'd say few movies even bother using werewolves at all, and when they do, they're usually not framed as bad. More like avatars of nature or whatever. So there is no intention to make them scary, just dangerous.

I don't disagree with your observations about Twilight or market saturation but that still doesn't make werewolves scary.

 

[Worgen]

I think most of the classic monsters horror has been ruined by people really wanting to fuck them.

I think thats why zombies still kinda work. There isn't a majority of people wanting to fuck them.

 

[happyninja42]

I don't disagree with your observations about Twilight or market saturation but that still doesn't make werewolves scary.

I didn't say it did, I was simply pointing out that the same points you made about why werewolves aren't scary, can be equally applied to vamps and zombies. Your statement was regarding "uncanny valley" being the crux of them being scary. And the farther werewolves get from that, the less scary they are. I see the same thing happening, long before Twilight, with vampires. They've been humanized to the point of being nothing more than mopey, emo dudes with a blood disorder, or sexy vampy sex chicks, that always move like they are constantly having an orgasm from some remote control vibing egg or something.

And zombies are literally background dressing in their own genre, 95% of the time. Most conflict in those stories, are based around human vs human conflict. The zombies are just extra spices for raising the stakes.

So none of them are really "scary" in the majority of the iterations we see them in. Plus what you find scary is subjective, so it's even harder to pin that down.

You seem to feel that vamps and zombies haven't been pushed beyond uncanny valley, at least not as far as werewolves. I would say the opposite has happened, due to over-saturation, and the humanization to make them a relatable protagonist.

 

[Samtemdo8]

I think most of the classic monsters horror has been ruined by people really wanting to fuck them.



I think thats why zombies still kinda work. There isn't a majority of people wanting to fuck them.

Vampires can get away with that since sexuality is a highly relevant theme to them.

Vampire the seductive blood sucking predator and such.

 

[Bedinsis]

My understanding is that zombies originally(as in within the Voodoo religion on Haiti) was scary because it was being robbed of your will and becoming under the control of the witch doctor*. For a people for whom slavery was a real memory becoming a creature under servitude even in death must've been a manifestation of the fear of returning to that state. Then somewhere along the line this got mixed up until zombies just became a walking corpse.

*might be the wrong term.

...and now I see that Wikipedia says that I am not entirely right.

 

[Asita]

I find it strange that you forget an aspect of, well basically all of these creatures, but a point you specifically cited about zombies (the not dying thing), when it comes to werewolves. One of their biggest traits is they are basically unkillable unless you have access to silver. Which frankly most people don't, and if they do, it's probably not much, or is in the form of a tea kettle or something, not a claymore. They MIGHT have a little kitchen knife which...yeah ok good luck taking on a 10ft tall, 1000lbs wall of muscle and claws with that.

Dresden Files actually took it a step further. Setting aside the not-werewolf variants, the one that was the closest to the classic horror werewolf (transforming and going berserk on the full moon) was the Loup-Garou, which was supernaturally strong, fast, and ferocious, practically immune to poisons, magic, and almost instantly regenerated from almost any kind of damage, with the major asterisk being inherited silver. Let me reemphasize that: Your only chance of even hurting these things was if you specifically had silver inherited from a family member and could actually wield it as a deadly weapon, and that just turns an otherwise unstoppable murder machine into a technically stoppable murder machine.

 

[Baffle]

You ever been chased by a dog that really meant it?

 

[BrawlMan]

Vampires can get away with that since sexuality is a highly relevant theme to them.

Vampire the seductive blood sucking predator and such.

Sexuality became thing with werewolves in the late 70s and early 80s. Sure, it's more bestial, primal, animalistic, and "letting yourself go/unleashing the beast", but it still counts.

Plenty of scary werewolf movies exist:

• Silver Bullet
• The Howling - Mainly the original. The sequels, not so much.
• Dog Soldiers
• An American Werewolf in London
• Trick R Treat

Resident Evil 8 just came out and seems to be making werewolves and gothic horror popular again.

 

[BrawlMan]

My understanding is that zombies originally(as in within the Voodoo religion on Haiti) was scary because it was being robbed of your will and becoming under the control of the witch doctor*. For a people for whom slavery was a real memory becoming a creature under servitude even in death must've been a manifestation of the fear of returning to that state. Then somewhere along the line this got mixed up until zombies just became a walking corpse.

*might be the wrong term.

...and now I see that Wikipedia says that I am not entirely right.

Check this out. I was just talking about this in the film discussion thread. Some interesting trivia.

​

 

[Piscian]

People are generally scared of two things - the unknown and losing control. Anything can be scary put in the right context. It doesn't really matter what it is. With Werewolves its all about perception. If you show a big werewolf in broad day light chasing people around it's boring, not scary. That's true of any monster. The werewolf movies that have done it right are the ones that use practical effects, use light and shadow to evoke mystery and only reveal the werewolf at such a time and in such a way that the audience has reach a level of empathy with the actor on screen that they squirm in their seat feeling the impending doom or dread.

Something being unkillable doesn't make it scary in film, unkillable is the wrong word to use. It's more like when a thing is beyond the scope of ones ability to comprehend or accept as part of normal reality. When you think of jason vorhees it's less about his unkillable nature and more that stalking sound and the feeling that he could be any where or when you think you're reasonably safe and smashes a hand through the wall and grabs you.

I think it's more understandable to declare werewolves not scary because no ones done much with them in a while.