What's the point of being a werewolf anyway?

Hmmm...

Well, for one thing, real wolves don't really compare to humans in their capacity for violence. I doubt there are many wolves that rape or murder their own just for the pleasure of it. That's a human trait, unfortunately.

Werewolves are terrible, viloent creatures because they're meant to depict the dual nature of human beings. Between moons, the werewolf is rational and might be the type of guy who would claim not to hurt a fly. But, as everyone knows, any human is capable of great violence if the right buttons are pushed, and for a werewolf that "button" is the full moon.

The physical change into something shaggy and clawed and fanged is the representation of the wild side we all possess, a side that is covered over by a thin veneer of civilization but can easily break free under the right conditions.

And a werewolf movie would be boring if the werewolf crocheted by a cozy fire with his (hairy) feet up on a hassock, wouldn't it?




Time of your life, huh, kid?

I would agree that it is a curse. At least in the Wolf Man movies. Unfortunately this movie doesn't go much into the morality of the curse, like the old black and white version did. Pretty much if you weren't a good peasant and spend time outside at night until of at your house, then you could be bitten by a werewolf and become one. It is like getting a disease that turns you violent and in this movie there is no cure for it. But I think in other werewolf myths there are cures.

I also think the werewolf doesn't want to be a werewolf. In most of the myths either you are bitten or you are in a line where werewolves exist. It isn't a choice, like ho-hum, I guess I'll become a werewolf today and eat/kill some stuff. You just become a beast that has supernatural powers and the worse part of man's drive towards violence rolled into one.

Well, they don't really explore this theme in the remake, in fact they completely drop it (Anthony Hopkins's character being the proof) but in the original, lycanthropy and the whole idea of being a werewolf is that the werewolf is the beastly, savage and literally evil side of humans. Here they sortof tried to do the 'everybody's bad, but who's REALLY bad' thing but it doesn't really work.

[deleted]

Like most traditional movie monsters (or indeed literary ones), the werewolf is a metaphor. It's a symbol fo the savagery that man is capable of. It's not a real thing and not thought out to be an animal with legitimate motivations. It's a ravenous killing beast, period.


"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

the point of the movie was that the creature was not a real wolf, it was a curse of pure evil. Btw- evil stuff IS pretty gory at times :)

10/10

LOL...your message really entertained me, especially the "tossing stones" part.

that being said, i want to say that if we go by that kind of chase, there will never be a need for a villain or antagonist in a movie ever. after all, a drug dealer will go on selling them till all men would die using his fare. same can be applied for everybody and anybody.

Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?

Some interesting responses here, and some of them I think hit the mark rather well. As others have said, a creature such as a werewolf is a metaphor for the violence and bestiality of human beings when the social restraints (or internal censor) are ignored or missing. Nowhere is this more evident than in Guy Endore's classic (though problematic) novel, The Werewolf of Paris... some ideas of which seem to have been incorporated into this remake of the 1940s film. There (the novel) the story was set against the background of the Paris Communes and the rioting and social upheaval of that period, thus presenting the contrast between even such a bestial figure as the lycanthrope -- who was, after all, a single being -- and the general mayhem and murder which was taking place all around him... thereby making him a symbol of the entire society, as it were. (This metaphor was carried even further by the use of cannibalism and sexual violence in the novel.)

In older tales, a werewolf was often a person who had made a bargain with a demon (or the devil) in order to obtain certain abilities or powers, or to escape from a life-threatening situation (and sometimes, as in G. W. M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-wolf, to regain youth); the savagery was, in effect, the price a person paid for gaining these powers -- and, along with the eventual damnation of the person making the deal -- brought joy to the infernal agent who struck the bargain. Sometimes, as with a vampire, the lycanthrope was a suicide, who was given such an unholy existence as punishment for self-murder (a rejection of the precious gift of life, according to various orthodox traditions).

In more modern takes on the idea, the person is generally a relative innocent who finds him- or herself saddled with this condition as the result of an inadvertent act... or, as in the original film, even due to performing an heroic act (attempting to rescue a victim from another werewolf and being bitten). Hence our sympathies for one who finds himself in such an horrific situation through no fault of his own; something Curt Siodmak (scenarist of the 1940s film) fully intended to emphasize through Talbot's tragedy.

Basically, it all depends on which version of the legends you look at; but the "point" could vary from gaining supernatural strength (as well as other powers) to simply being a victim of circumstance... which is why the image of the werewolf still remains a valid metaphor for various writers even today....


(For one of the more unusual handlings of this figure -- and, in fact, of Lawrence Talbot himself -- you might want to look up Harlan Ellison's award-winning story, "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W", in his collection, Deathbird Stories....)