Stuff: Because owning a silver cross you could maybe melt down into a bullet isn't really "werewolf insurance."

I don't often get the chance to throw a link to an insurance site up on ANTSS, so when it does happen I feel weirdly elated. Term Life Insurance, of all folks, has actually whipped up the following table of super serious, very real threats for you to ponder when you debate just what sort of coverage you need. Click to read the whole thing.

Via: Term Life Insurance

Stuff: The roots of lycanthropy.

Sorry I've been flying under the radar for so long. While I toil away on the next review, here's some quality reading to keep you occupied. First, from the late, great Martin Gardener comes this study of lycanthropy.

This choice bit describes the origins of the term lycanthrope:

The Greeks worshipped the wolfgod, Zeus Lycaeus and there are many stories of ordinary men being transformed into wolves and other creatures. In Graves' translation of Greek myths an account is given of the inhabitants of Parnassus who followed a pack of howling wolves to a mountain top where they established a new city, Lycorea. According to the myth, the Parnassians practiced Lyacaon's Abomination, a ritual where a boy was sacrificed and his guts made into a soup which was eaten by shepherds, one of whom would then turn into a tormented werewolf who was condemned to wander the countryside for 8 years, regaining his humanity if he refrained from eating human flesh. According to this legend a full recovery was possible as illustrated in the legend of Damarchus who went on to win a boxing prize at the Olympic Games after rigorous training in the gymnasium. The connection with cannibalistic practices is further illustrated in the legend of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, who was changed into a wolf as punishment for secretly feeding Zeus human flesh.

The article traces the cultural history of lycanthropy (as late as the 1700s, epidemics of lycanthropy would break out and, in one case, a French judge is reported to have condemned more than 600 sufferers to death) and ends on a curious note that suggests our own affection for werewolf fictions may have replaced religious inspirations for the disease. In short, movie werewolves might be creating modern lycanthropes:

To gain an understanding of certain bizarre psychiatric symptoms it may be helpful to consider the effects of religion and culture. At the time of the Inquisition, when the werewolf was a feared satanic representation, the incidence of lycanthropy peaked. As religious beliefs have changed, the perception of the devil as a wolf or goat-like creature has receded but is not entirely unfamiliar. These beliefs may be revived in those suffering from severe depressive illness where they are incorporated into delusions of guilt and sinfulness. Similarly, the cannibalistic and aggressive qualities of the lycanthrope can be traced back to the content of ancient myth and followed through the centuries when the werewolf retained these characteristics. Despite the passage of time, the werewolf remains a powerful and evocative image. The influence of myth and legend has been filtered and obscured with the passage of time but it is likely that the symptom of lycanthropy will continue to be seen as long as tales of the wolf-man can frighten us.

Mad science: How werewolves became imaginary.

Over at the Fortean Times web site, writer Brian Regal tracks the history of the werewolf feared monster of Europe's darkest forests to figment of the imagination. The broad arch of the werewolf's lapse into fantasy is familiar, but Regal points out that the extent to which the werewolf became strictly fictional is uniquely notable:

For most of recorded history, the half-man, half-wolf lycanthrope reigned supreme as the creature travellers most feared encountering in the woods and along dark roads at night. Numerous legends concerned werewolves – the awful deeds they committed, how to protect against them, how to kill them – and belief in their reality can be found in many cultures from ancient times to the present. But while the werewolf still holds a place in fiction and films, few people today actually fear meeting one in reality. Many individuals and groups actively search for cryptids, but there are no werewolf-hunting organisations. So – where have all the werewolves gone?

From the late 19th century on, anomal­ous primates like the Yeti, Sasquatch and Bigfoot nudged aside the wolfmen of old and stepped forward to occupy the niche of this fearsome man-like monster. But what accounts for this curious transformation?

Regal starts his story with a discussion of the dog-headed proto-werewolf of Greek legend: the Cynocephali, the race of dog-headed men that even included (in the lore of the Eastern church) St. Christopher, pictured above. He notes that, curiously, Europe started to dismiss the possibility of werewolves even as its belief in demons and witches proved fatally strong:

Despite the widespread cultural acceptance of werewolves as a reality, by the late 1500s some European writers were questioning the concept. While belief in witches flourished with murderous abandon, views on werewolves had little consistency in learned circles, and though werewolves often found themselves associated with witches, no werewolf ‘craze’ ever developed. In fact, there are only a few werewolf trials on record. As the Enlightenment dawned, a debate ensued over whether demons could transmute a human into a werewolf. Philosophers and theologians wondered whether the human soul was capable of becoming genuinely bestial, and such theological reservations posed the same problems for werewolfery as evolution did two and a half centuries later. It was during this period of scient­ific revolution that psychological, rather than physical, explanations for lycanthropy gained currency.

Ultimately, he argues, the rise of Darwin put paid to the wolf man. Evolutionary theory began to kill off the beasts of myth, replacing them with an equally fantastic, but more "scientific" zoo of missing links, prehistoric survivals, and "nature's mistakes" (though Darwin himself was dismissive of any notion of a missing link). Notably, apes - and their cryptid shadow relatives, Bigfoot, yeti, sasquatch, the stink ape, and so on - became the beast-man link of choice.

Music: Neo-prog taco-eating werewolf.

And he fights a vampire.

Here's Bear in Heaven's "Werewolf."

It's like two dudes who got too old and got kicked off the set of New Moon had a drunken brawl outside a Motel 6 in Rich Creek, Virginia, while a Catherine Wheel tribute band attempted its first Lungfish cover in the background.

At least, that's what I thought it was like.

Bear In Heaven - Werewolf from Hometapes on Vimeo.

Music: Moonwalk macabre.

Formed originally as a folksy duo by the name Unitard, singer Karen O and guitarist Nicolas Zinner electrified their sound, hooked up with drummer Brian Chase, and became the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Producing a strong of critically and popularly successful albums and EPs, the trio emerged as one of the few "it bands" to survive the post-White Stripes neo-garage bubble.

The YYY's new long-player, It's Blitz, expands the groups sound, adding dreamy electronica, dicso, and even a hint of Celtic traditional to their rock palate. The video for the second single from that album, "Heads Will Roll," features a Michael Jackson inspired werewolf that not only has some nice moves, but goes all chomp-chomp-slash-slash on the audience and band. Dig, Screamers and Screamettes.

Stuff: Therewolf.

I wanted to plug a nifty post by the relentlessly productive B-Sol of Vault of Horror. Among the video blogs, weekly top ten lists, news bulletins, and paternalistic odes to the joys of raising monster-kids, this engine of Interweb copy has managed to produce the first of three posts on the history of werewolf flicks.

It's nice to see ol' fuzzy face get the B-Sol treatment. Long the red-headed stepchild of the Universal fold, the werewolf's is to the universe of classical monsters what Martian Manhunter is to the Justice League – everybody feels he's iconic, but nobody has ever been able to raise his status to the level of a Frankenstein or a Dracula (the Superman and Batman of the JLA conceit).

From B-Sol's post:

With the highly anticipated Benicio del Toro remake of Universal's The Wolf Man on the way this fall, the time is ripe to take a long, considered look at the history of one of the horror genre's most venerable and beloved sub-categories. Although not quite as popular as its cousin the vampire, and perhaps not as thoroughly explored cinematically, the lycanthrope has nevertheless provided us with some of the most terrifying films ever made.

A beast whose origins go back nearly to the beginnings of Western civilization, the mythological being who can transform from man to wolf under the influence of the full moon has gone through its fair share of Hollywood-ization, much like its blood-drinking brethren. And in general, the history of werewolf films can be divided into three major eras. Today we will take a look at the first.

Most of the comments have focused on the odd film that's been left out, notably the list's lack of reference to the werewolf cycle of Euro-horror "master" Paul Naschy. These omissions don't bother me. You can't cover everything and, while Naschy probably deserves mention for holding the record for most-performances-as-a-werewolf, it doesn't strike me that his body of work has had some massive influence on the development of the genre. Despite their cult status among Euro-horror fans, they're sort of an evolutionary dead end. I think Naschy's the William Blake of werewolf filmmakers: There was nobody quite like him and he left no notable imitators, so he stands alone as a weird one-shot mutation in the genetic history of the subgenre. That's my take anyway.

I would, however, underscore something in his discussion of 1935's Werewolf of London:

The movie is Werewolf of London, and for some connoissuers of vintage horror, it remains the high watermark of lycanthrope cinema. Henry Hull stars as Dr. Glendon, and English botanist who falls under the curse of the werewolf after being bitten on an expedition in the Himalayas. The vast bulk of cinema's take on the werewolf legend is already established in this one film: the transmission through biting, the transformation under the full moon, the beast's desire to destroy that which its human half loves most.

The makeup created by Jack Pierce is striking, and Hull's humanoid, intelligent portrayal of the creature is quite unique, giving us one of the only talking werewolves of the silver screen. The film also puts the transformation scene front and center, a tradition that would continue throughout the history of the subgenre. Werewolf of London remains one of the most influential, and yet also one of the most underrated horror films of the Universal canon.

The biggest paradigm shift Werewolf of London introduced to the subgenre is the "humanoid" part. Prior to Werewolf of London, werewolves were depicted as changing from men into standard issue wolves. After London, the norm would be a mostly bipedal human-wolf hybrid creature. Ancient wolf stories tended to assume either a purely mental transformation (a dude gets on his hands and knees and starts acting like a wolf) or a complete physical transformation (in which the transformed person becomes a wolf-wolf). The ancient idea that the transformation is complete – though often a crucial part of the pre-film folklore - would become increasingly less common.

(There are, of course, dissidents. Perhaps ironically, American Werewolf in London and its sequel mostly keep their wolves on all fours. The Ginger Snaps franchise avoids extensive two-legged walking as well. Sharp Teeth and Sacred Book of the Werewolf are novelistic exceptions to the general trend – both assume a complete transformation).

Still, that's a small quibble. It's an excellent post and worth your attention. Dig, Screamers and Screamettes.

Stuff: The sinister werecow of Babylon.

Vaughan Bell, at the ever entertaining Mind Hacks blog, points to a new study of clinical lycanthropy – the delusion that one can change into an animal – that cites 20 new cases of the uncommon condition in the Iraq.

Bell gives the entire abstract, which I'll reproduce here:

Lycanthropy alive in Babylon: the existence of archetype.

Acta Psychiatr Scand. 2009 Feb;119(2):161-4; discussion 164-5. Epub 2008

Younis AA, Moselhy HF.

OBJECTIVE: Lycanthropy is the belief in the capacity of human metamorphosis into animal form. It has been recorded in many cultures. Apart from historic description of lycanthropy, there has been several case reports described in the medical literature over the past 30 years. METHOD: We identified eight cases of lycanthropy in 20 years, mainly in the area of Babylon, Iraq. RESULTS: The most commonly reported diagnosis was severe depressive disorder with psychotic symptoms. The type of animal that the patients changed into were mainly dogs (seven cases) and only one case changed into a cow for the first time to report. CONCLUSION: Lycanthropy delusion is a rare delusion but appears to have survived into modern times with possible archetypal existence.

That's right: a werecow! Indie horror filmmakers, get those scripts a grinding!

I couldn't find a picture of a were-cow proper for inspiration, so here's two wall-mounted robotic cow tongues created by Korean artist Doo Sung Yoo.

Books: Not-so-hopeful monsters, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Recently, long-time ANTSS supporter Screamin' Sassy asked if I thought Frankenstein's monster was the new zombies.

I answered that I hoped werewolves were the new zombies.

In truth, deep down in my shriveled black heart, I fear that were about to suffer a recrudescence Rician vampire romance, a genre so tired and tedious that even its chief practitioner has left it for something more credible: an un-killable Jewish magician who is the product of spectral rape and who ends up eventually bringing about the end of the world in the name of his father, an all-powerful elder god. Unfortunately, Rice's latest tales have been a hard sell to the wrist-scar and black eye-goo set who, since the demise of Buffy and its sundry spin-off co-morbidities, have been left without significant media templates for the validation of their necro-erotic fantasies. That is, of course, until Twilight arrived on the scene, with its canny mix of taboo-busting teen girl passion and parent-pleasing lack of actual sexual material.

Visit the YA section of any big box bookstore and you can already find shelves full of knock-off product, including my personal favorite: a series that seems to revolve around a cabal of sexy and sassy teenage vampire surfers. I kid you not. The short term future of horror looks like Dracula in board shorts, with a "DED LIFE 4-EVER" tat across his gym-toned pecs, texting Mina: "D Chill-dr3n of D Nite, ? B U Tful MU6 dA M8k. C U L8tr."

We should all just learn to live with this now.

Still, it would be awesome if it was werewolves.

While hordes of dubiously-heterosexual Teenbeat-grade undead heartthrobs fill up bookstore shelves and legions of pro- and amateur critics stretch out their scorn muscles so as to not pull a hammy when Twilight makes its street date and they are go for outrage, werewolves have been quietly staging a two pronged attack on the collective psyche that we dub pop culture.

The traditionalist front is hoping to gain cinematic ground. Not only is a big-budget remake of the seminal Universal flick in the works, but retro flourishes can be seen in the monster designs in new Underworld flick.

But the real interesting stuff is happening in the lit world – where the revisionist front is making its stand.

Early this year, Toby Barlow's genre-mutant Sharp Teeth, easily the best epic free-verse poem about werewolf gangs prowling modern day Los Angeles that you'll ever read, set the overall tone.

This was followed not long after by the English translation of Victor Pelevin's The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, another brilliantly revisionist novel about were-beasts in the modern world.

We can expect more neo-werewolf action soon. Word on the street is that David Wellington's next series, after the conclusion of his current vamp-centric project, will center around werewolves. As Wellington's already given us zombie shaman wizard thingies and vampire-busters as haggard civil servants, I think we can expect some equally unorthodox beasties from him.

Today, though, we focus on Pelevin.

Victor Pelevin ranks as the only modern Russian author to score significant readership outside the confines of the former Soviet Union. His blend of paranoid black humor, surprisingly broad erudition (he's the only author I know that can convincingly blend references to the work of philosopher George Berkeley, Russian underworld slang, macro-economic theory, and Chinese folk legends into single novel without seeming to break a sweat), and Buddhist-tinged nihilism seems like it wouldn't travel, but it has won him a global cult of readers (that includes critics at The Guardian, The New York Times, and other mainstream press outlets).

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, a 2005 novel that got its first English edition this year (translated by long-time collaborator and Pelevin translator Andrew Bromfield), follows the surreal romance between the centuries-old prostitute and were-fox A Hu-Li and Alexander Sery, a FSB (the new post-Soviet KGB) agent, werewolf, and bandit petro-capitalist, who may also be the embodiment of a messianic figure from the ancient mythology of the were-creatures.

The were-fox is a major figure in Chinese mythology, where they figure as symbols of feminine cunning, seducing men and sapping them of their life force. A Hu-Li, who appears to humans as a perpetually pre-pubescent Asiatic girl ("I don't need to tell you about Lolita," she says. "Even the lolitas have read Lolita these days."), make a living – literally – hanging around upmarket Moscow hotels and playing the role of the prostitute. It is all a mystical con, however. After seducing her target, she basically traps them in a magical simulation of whatever sexual fantasies they can cook up. As they have their way with a faux A Hu-Li in their own heads, she quietly reads a book and saps them of their life force – always leaving just enough in them not to bring down karmic retribution.

A Hu-Li carefully organized way of life collapses when she runs across the boorish and violent Alexander, a werewolf who can, at will, tear through the illusions she creates. The tempestuous relationship between these two creatures forms the bulk of the novel. Originally repulsed, A Hu-Li finds herself strangely attracted to the seemingly inferior Alexander. However, this uneasy superiority is threatened when Alexander undergoes an unexpected transformation that may have turned him into a legendary wolf-figure from Norse mythology.

Along the way, Pelevin gives us ample bits of bitter comedy, various glimpses of were-fox and werewolf society, heaps of scathingly satire regarding the Westernization of Russian culture, explorations of esoteric religion and post-classical philosophy, and he even finds time to take a shot at Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (A Hu-Li derides the work as the product of a "broker culture" where marketing and re-branding trump real creativity).

What Pelevin's new work is not is scary. Sacred Book isn't really a horror novel in any conventional sense of the term. Though it uses some common tropes of horror literature – this is actually the second time Pelevin has written about werewolves – the main characters are too human, too fully-fleshed out to be monstrous. This in not to say that there isn't some suspense and tension in the book, especially when A Hu-Li and Alexander's relationship begins to sour. But, rather, that these beast are part of a fairly monstrous world. They are predators in a world full of human and inhuman predators. The wolf form of Alexander seems threatening, but it is really as sinister as the violent gangster capitalism that is the dominant economic system of modern Moscow?

For die-hard traditionalist, Pelevin's new one is bound to leave you dry. But, for those looking for odd catches at the fringes of the genre, I recommend it highly.

Music: Witches (and werewolves) of the Stone Age.

Built out of the stitched together remains of Kyuss, the Queens of the Stone Age have gone through two names and nearly annual staff changes since their formation in 1997. Trying to pin down just who is further complicated by the fact that the Queens love nothing quiet so much as jamming with a guest, which means well known, but temporary faces keep popping up. These guests have include the Strokes' Julian Casablancas and Nirvana/Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl (who not only did duty as drummer on the group's 2002 Songs for the Deaf, but toured in support of the album). As of this year, I think only one member from the original line-up remains on the permanent roster: singer/guitarist Josh Homme. Given all that swapping and whatnot, let's say that counts for our normal intro and leap straight into the music.

Screamers and Sreamettes, I bring you two – count 'em: TWO – big songs for the Queens of the Stone Age. Here's the Queens "Burn the Witch."



Still ready for some rumbling, hook-heavy rockage? Good. 'Cause I've got a second platter ready for you. Here's Queens of the Stone Age's "Someone's in the Wolf."

Stuff: Thinking inside the box.

Artist Alex CF creates amazing mixed media assemblages – part art piece, part play set – that appear to be recovered relics from the darkly fantastic worlds of Stoker, Lovecraft, and others. Above is an image of his brilliant "Werewolf Anatomical Research Case."

To get a better sense of how detailed and interactive these things are, check this video (scroll to the bottom of the page) of Alex CF walking you through the various components of a set he calls "The Henrich Emille Rectangle" – a collection of artifacts detailing researchers into a mysterious and dangerous structure that appears to defy the laws of physical universe.

Vampire hunting kits, a box from the so-called "Mountains of Madness" expedition, ghost traps, and even some props for an upcoming remake of the classic film "Nosferatu;" there's plenty of nifty stuff to check out. Enjoy.

Stuff: Stuffed.

Custom Creatures Taxidermy, itself a creation of artist Sarina Brewer, will not only whip together a stuffed creature that previously existed only in your head, see the gaff (an old carny term for a faked-up beastie) shown above, but they can also provide you with preserved chupacabras, stuffed unicorns, mummified werewolf hands (or is it paws?), and other uncanny artworks.

My wife would most likely kill me - and then have me stuffed - if I brought one of these amazing pieces into our humble home. But that's shouldn't stop you from throwing a little biz CCT's way. For the truly show-stopping pieces, check out the "carcass art" category.

Music: Werewolves! Lesbians! Vampires! Nuns! Monday!

A tribute to the trashy and incomprehensible Euro-sleaze subgenre of film horror, the video for the Blues Explosion's (no longer prefacing their collective moniker with the name of front man Jon Spencer) "She Said" is a bizarre mash-up of werewolves, naked nun flesh, and lesbian vampires, all shot in the awkward, cheapo, washed-out style of Jess Franco.

WARNING: This is NOT work safe. If you decide to play it in your cube and are later forced to explain what a group of half-naked nuns were doing writhing across your monitor, you brought the trouble on yourself. Don't tell human resources to call me, 'cause I won't help.



Scare-sounds fans might note that "She Said" is a cut off the Blues Explosion's Plastic Fangs album. Though it isn't really a unified concept album, the cover art and several of the songs have an overt Creepy/EC horror-comic vibe going on. Devotees of musical monstrousness might want to take it home and let it haunt their iPods for a bit.

Stuff: El Santo!!!!!!!!!!

I have nothing newsworthy to share with you today. So, instead of a review or links to horror-ness, here's a clip of the Hero of the People, The Man in the Silver Mask, the one and only El Santo, kicking some monster butt!

Happy Friday!

Books: Hopeful monsters, Sharp Teeth, and a defense of mutant genre literature.

Very recently, Curt over at the Groovy Age of Horror (forgive me for not yet fixing my sidebar Curt) wrote a thoughtful defense of repetition and cliché in genre fiction. Check it out and then hustle on back 'cause it is well worth your time.

Curt's spirited defense is part of a broad movement (a movement in which Curt could be counted among the vanguard of) to renew, revitalize, and reassess the role and value of genre literature. In academia, this began in the 1980s and '90s with the second generation of postmodern criticism. The early postmodernists, despite their rebellious and playful attitudes, were still very much classicists. It would take a second wave of literary and cultural critics, all thinkers who began with the assumptions of postmodernism, to toss out the old high/low culture dichotomy and bring academic methods to the study of popular texts, especially genre works.

During this same period, within the publishing world, the new genre crusade was fought on two fronts. First, genre masters old and new were revitalized. There was a hunt for "ignored geniuses" that somewhat resembled the '60s hunt for prototypical blues men. No ground was more fertile than mystery (always the genre with "most favored outsider" status) and sci-fi. Hammett and Chandler and Jim Thompson got the trade paperback treatment. Leonard and Ellroy and King started getting glowing full-page profiles from establishment book reviewers. Vintage launched a project to bring every Philip K. Dick novel back into print (a project which, honestly, threatens rather than preserves his rep). University presses are publishing anthologies of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. Finally, even H. P. Lovecraft was published in an archival quality Library of America edition. There was a degree to which this genius hunt still partook in some of the old snobbery. The conceit was that, among the pulpy rough, some diamonds had been overlooked. Though, by the mid-1990s, partially due to the success of the film Pulp Fiction, the floodgates opened. Anthologies of pop lit genres are now a dime a dozen. Because these re-issues and anthos are published by major publication houses, they are more widely available than they ever were before. Add to this the existence of organized networks of vintage dealers who trade over the web and I think it is safe to say that it's probably easier now to get your hands on the work of most major pop lit authors than it was back when they were first published. We may, despite the perpetually beleaguered tone of genre lit proponents, be in pop lit's true Golden Age.

Second, on the authorial side, genre is back in a big way. I believe that the McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales anthology was a real paradigm shifting moment in this cultural sea change. Edited by Michael Chabon (who had himself been launched from respectable cult status to national star status by a genre bending book about comic book creators and their heroes) this anthology still acts as a sort of manifesto for the new status of genre lit. It combined known genre titans – like Elmore Leonard, Harlan Ellison, and Stephen King – with cult authors from what Terry Southern used to call "the quality lit game." Nearly all the alumni of that anthology have gone on to continue their genre experiments. And they do so in a literary climate that seems uniquely welcoming to genre tropes and trappings. Even literary giants like Philip Roth have gotten in on the act: his alternate history The Plot Against America is part of a long sci-fi tradition of historical what-ifs.

Although genre lit's proponents continue to lay siege to the castle, they've already got the throne. Take a look at the NY Times bestselling hardcover fiction list and you get three mystery novels, a decidedly romanticized look at how amnesia makes a Scrooge-ish old lady a better person, and a romance novel by a woman who spent some time writing DC's re-launched Wonder Woman series. One of the common refrains of the standard genre jeremiad is a list of a few novels by genre masters - say Hammett, James M. Cain, and Budd Schulberg - followed by the bold claim that academics just don't have anything to tell us about these narrative masters. This, of course, ignores that within American academia courses and academic papers featuring works by these authors are about as common, if not more so, as those featuring, say, Nobel Prize winners Anatole France and George Simeon.

This is genre fiction's day.

Now, in the same vein, but in a different direction, I'm going to use Toby Barlow's debut book, Sharp Teeth, as a defense of experimentation in fiction. First, let's talk about the book at hand.

Sharp Teeth is a curious book. On one hand, it is clearly a work of genre fiction. It is about gangs of werewolves going to war in modern Los Angeles. The outline of the plot will be familiar to anybody with even a passing knowledge of the werewolf sub-genre. Los Angeles is home to several warring packs of werewolves. These packs feud with one another while hiding their existence from the human populace that would destroy them if they found out. Against this backdrop, we play out a love story between a dogcatcher named Anthony and a "dog" (the werewolves prefer the term dogs and, in full transformation, are often mistaken for conventional canines) who is known throughout the book only as "she." Barlow plays slightly with the genre conventions: the werewolves are given a vaguely Native American origin story and, within limitations, they can control their transformations (thought this doesn't always work – the smell of frying meat at a fast food joint causes a few dogs to wig out, transform, and slaughter everybody inside). However, these tweaks to the standard werewolf lore are still well within what I think most of us would consider standard fare.

So, what's so unusual about Sharp Teeth? Most explicitly, Barlow wrote Sharp Teeth as an epic length free-verse poem. It isn't a "novel" in the conventional sense. In fact, it was recently nominated by the National Critics Circle in the Best Poetry category, making it perhaps the first werewolf horror story to have a shot at the title of "Best Poetry Book of the Year." (Though the prize for the first extended wolf/person poetic work must go legendary Beat poet Diane di Prima's thematically unified collection Loba, published in 2005.) Structurally, this frees up the author the way the invention of montage techniques freed up Silent Era filmmakers. In fact, as poetry, Barlow's book is middling at best. But the freedom it gives his storytelling is exhilarating. Barlow cuts between locations and time frames with manic speed. He puts demands on the reader that traditional storytelling does not. If the plot is a collection of standard werewolf riffs, the form of the book requires the reader examine their knowledge of the werewolf clichés and use them as tools for understanding the mosaic of experiences and scenes that Barlow presents.

Aside from this, Barlow makes a series of clever narrative choices that, I think, undermine the traditional werewolf story in smart ways. Some of these are played for laughs. For example, these werewolves don't magically become super-specimens of humanity. We see them doing wind sprints up and down their home stairs to prevent chunkification. Barlow also works in some surprising characterizations. Lark, one of the more sinister gang leaders, spends some time on the lam hiding out as the pet of a lonely and emotionally needy young woman. Despite his violently ambitious streak, he finds himself enjoying his servile domesticity and ultimately must make a decision to remain a beast of the night, constantly hunted and hunting in a life and death struggle with other dogs, or become a pet, protected and free from responsibility in a gilded cage. These touches, and nearly every character gets a few pleasingly unexpected moments, give the book a welcome depth of feeling and humanity. Finally, there's the humor. Although there is plenty of agony and gore, we also get slapstick and puns – including an extended riff on the idea of card-playing dogs. In a way, these touches are all connected to the form of Barlow's work. Just by choosing such an odd form, Barlow telegraphs to the reader that genre expectations are going to be subverted, including an open ended conclusion that is either the perfect way to end this hybrid what-is-it or a really frustrating cop out, depending on your point of view.

So, what does all this have to do with genre? The key to genre literature is repetition. Curt's insights into the nature of genre lit speak to this point. Genres are born and die to the degree that recognizable elements within them are reproduced. Let's take an example from film history. In the early days of film, there was a recognizable "train film" genre. Images of trains captured in motion were a draw for early filmmakers and audiences. I won't even attempt to explain why, but somehow trains and their passengers where something of an obsession with the inventors of film art. Though it now resembles a western, the famous "The Great Train Robbery" was, to audiences of the time, a "train film." But, ultimately, the elements that would become "the western" and not the elements that made the "train film" were reproduced and one genre died while another was born.

Curt's essay locates some of the root need for repetition and the pleasure it gives us in Freudian theories of childhood development. Personally, I believe it goes deeper than that. It is a biological adaptation. Humans are pattern-seeking animals. The ability to see patterns and predict the their outcome has a massive impact on our ability to survive. To the degree that this ability is important, nature has provided that the discovery and manipulation of patterns would be pleasurable. It is like reproduction: sexual pleasure isn't a biological end in and of itself, but if it feels so good that it will hopefully drive enough of us to do enough lovin' to make up for any non-reproductive behaviors we might, as a species, engage in. As a strategy, it's been very successful. In the same token, engaging in the play of patterns is pleasurable for its own sake as a way of sharpening our abilities for when it counts. I quote Brian Boyd, long time editor of Nabokov and proponent of such an evolutionary literary theory:

Art is a form of cognitive play with pattern. Just as communication exists in many species, even in bacteria, and human language derives from but redirects animal communication along many unforeseen new routes, so play exists in many species, but the unique cognitive play of human art redirects it in new ways and to new functions.

Play exists even in the brightest invertebrates, like octopi, and in all mammals in which it has been investigated. Its self-rewarding nature means that animals with flexible behavior—behavior not genetically programmed—willingly engage in it again and again in circumstances of relative security, and thereby over time can master complex context-sensitive skills. The sheer pleasure of play motivates animals to repeat intense activities that strengthen and speed up neural connections. The exuberance of play enlarges the boundaries of ordinary behavior, in unusual and extreme movements, in ways that enable animals to cope better with the unexpected.

This is, I think, the secret to the pleasures of genre literature. We're simultaneously wired for and wired by our repeated exposure, in the context of playful pleasure, artistic patterns. Though we don't go in for completely repetitious work. Again, Boyd:

If information is chaotic, it lacks meaningful pattern and can’t be understood. If on the other hand it is completely patterned, we need not continue to pay attention, since the information is redundant: indeed the psychological process of habituation switches attention off if a stimulus remains, if the pattern of information can be predicted. The most patterned novel possible would repeat one letter, say q, over and over again—a queue no reader would want to wait in.

I kept his joke in there. He's a Nabokov scholar. They think that sort of thing is the limit. You'll have to forgive him. The point is that even the most avid genre fan requires some variation, within the limits of the pleasure-giving pattern, or the input becomes monotonous. Hence, within the horror context, we get fast or slow zombies, magical or scientific vampires, and so on. Artists, who literally thrive on attention, capture the attention of their readers by altering the input without violating the pattern. Too much pattern violation and the information becomes white noise.

In a way, there's an evolutionary parallel. The slight tweaks represent the minor transcription errors and other random quirks of DNA reproduction that give rise to genetic variation. Like most mutations, the variations in genre lit are minor. They may confer some benefit on the work (in terms of being an influence on other genre writers and hold the attention of the audience) but the overall difference doesn't impact the species, which is to say genre, as a whole.

Enter the hopeful monsters.

Using this evolutionary metaphor as our framework (and it is, in this discussion, just a metaphorical framework – the intentionality of artistic creation means that we are not dealing with random mutation and therefore we are not dealing with a truly evolutionary process), we can propose a role for genre warping works like Sharp Teeth. Experimental genre fictions - like House of Leaves, Sharp Teeth, and so on – are hopeful monsters. From the brilliant (and quite sexy) Olivia Judson, author and science columnist for the The New York Times:

The term [hopeful monsters] was introduced in the 1930s by a geneticist called Richard Goldschmidt. He was interested in the question of how radical changes in morphology evolve.

As an example of radical change, he gave flatfish — the flounder and its relations. These are descended from fish with the usual fishy symmetry: the same left-right symmetry that we have. Larval flounders have it, too. But as adults, flounders have a profound asymmetry — one side has been completely flattened. What’s more, they have deformed, twisted skulls, and an eye that has migrated from one side of the face to the other. It’s as though you had both eyes on the same side of your nose. How did they get this way?

Goldschmidt speculated that big changes like this could be caused in one step by a mutation acting on the developing embryo. Most such mutations, he suggested, would produce individuals that were plain monstrous, and doomed to die without issue. But every so often, one of these mutations would happen in an environment where it could be beneficial. Then, the individual sporting it would be a hopeful monster, because it might have an evolutionary future as the founder of a new lineage.

I propose that genre mutants like Sharp Teeth are the literary equivalent of hopeful monsters. They, in a single step, introduce massive formal changes in an effort to permanently shift or create new paths for the evolution of a genre. It is important to note that this isn't always productive. As Goldschmidt theorized of massive biological mutation, most such leaps are doomed to failure. This is where proponents of "experimentation for experimentation's sake" miss the boat. Most experiments fail. If their success was assured, they wouldn't be an experiment. However, the hopeful monsters, those that do pass on some of their conventions, represent perhaps the most exciting growth potential for the genre as a whole.

Though, one might ask, why should we care? If we gain pleasure from the current patterns, what is the point in evolving them further? This is a valid question. To go back to the evolution metaphor, even without the engine of mutation, natural selection in the form of consumer tastes would ensure a certain level of evolutionary change no matter what. From a literary perspective, you could go along recombining the tried and true elements of a genre in various combos for decades, possibly centuries, before exhausting artistic possibilities. However, there is a downside to this. Let's revisit Boyd's theory of play for a moment. We aren't just wired to see patterns; the patterns wire us to see them. Repetition of the same pattern over and over again basically wears a groove in our psyches. Surprise, a denser pattern, new and disruptive data has an intellectual value:

Expectations are possible because the world and its objects and events fall into patterns. But we learn more from the surprising than from the expected, since surprise signals something new worth notice. Stories fall into patterns of patterns, which storytellers can play with to arouse, satisfy, defeat, or surprise expectations—and no wonder that expectation and surprise drive so much of our interest in story.

New patterns, denser patterns, surprising patterns rewire the brain to see more. And that's the value in mutants like Sharp Teeth. This is not to say that experimental fiction is inherently better than genre fiction that "plays by the rules," so to speak. In fact, a truly successful hopeful monster starts a new line of development and becomes the template for a genre. An experimental novel that works is just tomorrow's genre lit. But I feel that it is important, for the health of a genre, to not attempt the impossible and try to stop mutation. Defenders of genre lit often attack hopeful monsters as the product of sterile intellectualism, as if they were created in the spirit of spite and condescension. Rather, they should be accepted for what they are: the necessary mutants that, live or die, are the best proof that a genre still has a future.

Sheeh. That's a lot to say, "Read Sharp Teeth and support your local hopeful monster."

Music: Getting a little cramped in here.

How is it that we've dragged on for a year and some change now and I've never featured the trash-glam tastelessness that is the Cramps in a musical segment? I don't know. Utter negligence on my part.

Well, screamers and screamettes, with your kind indulgence, I will rectify that error right now.

Here's the Cramps performing their "I Was a Teenage Werewolf."

Stuff: Is your dog a werewolf?

I'm currently reading Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth, the newest entry into that curious subgenre of high-lit horror that's home to such books as House of Leaves, Demon Theory, and Raw Shark Texts. Sharp Teeth is, I kid you not, a free-verse epic poem about werewolf gangs fighting for territory in modern Los Angeles. A full review should be forthcoming. In the meantime, check out Barlow's site for an important public service announcement.

You should also check out the neato animations that various folks have made to illustrate short passages from the text. It's fun stuff.

Music: "Cry, Werewolf, Cry!"

Normally, I take no small measure of pride in the posts featuring slices of horror-themed music. My loyal public, all six of you, really demand the best, and I, your humble horror host, get a real sense of fulfillment when I can bring it to you.

And then, sometimes, I just post a POS tune from Euro-trash hair metal rockers Sha-Boom and am done with it.

Sha-Boom's lamer than lame "Werewolf" is from the band's third album and can be found on their 2008 greatest hits compilation: Fiiire. The extra vowels are necessary because, you see, so many people are so very excited by the possibility of a Sha-Boom greatest hits album that they cannot constrain themselves from drawing out their vowel sounds.

Belgian hair stylist: "Have you heard about the new Sha-Boom album?"
German leather pants monger: "Iiindeed. Iiit iiis called Fiiire! III'm so exciiited my speech patterns are effected!"

This is perhaps the worst horror-themed tune I've ever posted on ANTSS. Though I feel I must warn you that it's chorus, which uses the lead singer's accent to force a rhyme between "cry" and "wild," is strangely addictive. I won't be held responsible for anything that happens to the sanity of any reader who gets this tune stuck in their noggin.

Comics: One if by land, two if by werewolf.

As regular readers of ANTSS know, yours truly has got a serious soft-spot for that most wonderful of horror genres: the mash-up. Tell me you've got a movie about a zombie outbreak, and I may give it a look if I'm not otherwise engaged. Tell that your movie take place in the 1800s and features zombie cowboys fighting zombie Indians, and you've got my attention. Tell me that the zombie outbreak was caused by the mad experiments of an in-exile Dr. Frankenstein and it is up to Billy the Kid and the Wolf Man to save the day- well, then, amigo, I'll be there.

Today's mash-up de jour is Revere: Revolution in Silver. This four-issue mini is now available in a high-quality hardback collection by Archaia Studios Press. Archaia has been responsible or some of the more interesting titles on the fringe of the caped-do-gooder besotted comic biz. They brought out Lone and Level Sands, a graphic novel that retold the story of Exodus from the point of view of Pharaoh. They're also the cat who published the strangest breakout title in recent memory: Mouse Guard.

Revere continues Archaia's tradition of putting out high-quality stuff that avoids treading the same ol' masked superduper hero territory. The debut series for both writer Ed Lavallee and artist Bond, Grant Bond, Revere takes the opening days of the American Revolution and filters them through a horror/action lens. Set in Ye Olde Colonial America, the titular hero is none other than the Paul Revere of the famous midnight ride. Only, in this alternate reality, Revere belongs to a secretive society of adventurers called the Order of the Silver Star. Apparently, beginning with the mysterious disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, there's been a curse on the colonies. The members of the Order are dedicated to fighting this supernatural evil. Think of them as the 18th century predecessor to Hellboy's BPRD.

As the story begins, Revere is frantically hunting down a pack of ravenous werewolves responsible for a hundred or so victims throughout the Massachusetts colony. Because werewolf hunts are one of those human endeavors that just seems to attract complications, Revere's work gets derailed when he finds himself swept up into the opening battles of the American Revolution. More trouble comes on black wings when one of the revolutionaries, the Reverend Tobias Hodge of Old North Church, is suddenly and inexplicably beset by a flock of bloodthirsty Harpy-like creatures.

The plot of Revere is a bit overpaked. Lavallee has to juggle redcoats, werewolves, revolutionaries, the Battle of Lexington, swarms of harpies, and the characterizations of a cast of eight significant characters and dozens of bit parts. He also manages to weave in historical allusions and excerpts from the writings of Longfellow, Emerson, and Poe. And all this in just four issues! This isn't to say that Lavallee does a bad job. In fact, I think he does a swell job. The crux of the problem is that the job is simply bigger than four issues.

Bond's art is also pushed to its limits. It seems some times that a sort of photo-reference driven hyperrealism is slowly taking over the comic world. It is good to see artists like Bond still working in a cartooning medium and working it all so effectively. Bonds characters are vivid, his splash pages (especially the one depicting the "shot heard round the world") are exciting, and his werewolves are excellent. Seriously: Bond's werewolves are these enormous, bristling, pissed off things the size of bears with mouths like blood-spattered steel traps. These are werewolves that could well tear their way through entire colonies! The colors are moody and somber. Without the restraint the coloring provides the action and violence would seem almost-too cartoony. The mist-shrouded backgrounds occasionally make everything feel a bit muddy and confused, but overall the effect is suitably grim.

For a first-time outing, Revere is a strong debut. A one-page add in the back promises a second series: Revere: Salem's Plot (a pun on King's Salem's Lot perhaps). I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Comics: Of course you realize this means war.

There's a fine line between wanting to deliver the goods to your reader and pandering. War of the Undead, a new mini-series from IDW, avoids lapsing into pandering elevating the practice of pandering to a manic art. The first issue of this thing is packed to the point of absurdity with horror tropes, clichés, and classic moments barely reworked that it flies by in a crazed whoosh, laughing hysterically it all its own bizarre and wonderfully surreal excess.

I'm going to try to summarize the action of the first issue. It's the last moments of World War II and the Nazi war machine is on the brink of total collapse. Hitler has just committed suicide in his bunker and a confused Nazi officer is dispatched on a strange mission: collect Hitler's one testicle. (I'm not kidding.) Apparently it is want by the head of cabal of Nazi black magicians and mad scientists. As a last ditch effort to save the "master race" this scientist and his mummy man Friday have raised an army of zombies. To lead this coalition of the rotting, his revives Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Though this only happens after we get a gory battle royal between Nazi zombies and the Dracula's protective harem of vampire wives (a battle the ends when somebody rams everybody with a plane). Along the way we get a cameo by Robbie the Robot, some Satan worship, and an allusion to the famous WWII era photo of Russian troops raising the hammer and sickle flag in the rubble that was Berlin.

All this comic is missing is Godzilla and, maybe, a musical number.

As far as plots go, this is about as thin as a plot can get and still deserve the name. The story rolls from go from Berlin to Transylvania to wherever else it wants to with all the care and finesse of a speeding 18-wheeler whose driver had a heart attack and died while trying to negotiate a particularly treacherous ice-covered mountain road. In fact, it is really less of a plot than it is an excuse to just do neato things. The development of characters is strictly functional: this guy is a Nazi; there's our mad scientist, that guy is a zombie; that is an ape with a human brain implanted in its head; and so on. Everything seems aimed towards or sacrificed to the goal of giving the horror fan maximum entertainment.

I know this sounds like I'm putting the book down. I'm not. This one-track approach is the book's strength and the best reason to give it a look-see. There's something great about War of the Undead's complete dedication to giving the reader everything they can thing of. It isn't some cynical, half-assed, tired effort snag our comic buying dollar with more of the same old, same old. Instead, it takes joy in pulling out all the stops. It flirts with becoming an utter and total mess, but achieves a sort of anarchic wildness you don't often see in comics. For all their anti-heroes and violence and fan service, comics want a seat at the big media table. As such, even their scandals now come in $50 slipcase editions. War of the Undead is like a great rock single. It is short, fun, and doesn't sweat the fact that its pleasures are disposable.

About my only complaint is the art. The cover gives us a wonderful painting of a Nazi zombie, gore dripping from its mouth. The innards, however, don't live up to the expectations the cover sets. The art is somewhat clumsy, made more so by heavy-handed coloring that undermines the gore and mood.

The pleasures of War of the Undead are slender and specific, but it delivers on them in full.

Movies: "I think somebody needs a massage."

Last night was one of my girlfriend's late shifts, so, in accordance with the traditions of my people, part of the evening was spent watching B-grade horror flicks. Last night's masterpiece: Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory.

This movie was simultaneously disappointing and surprisingly good.

First, the disappointment. Any film with the words "Girls' Dormitory" in the title instantly conjures up certain expectations. These include, but are not limited too: skimpy negligee, pillow fights, shower scenes, and at least one pair of "friends" who express their closeness through massages and communal showers. While I understand the constraints placed on filmmakers working in a certain budgetary range, these elements are neither costly nor effects-heavy. Furthermore, they are easily integrated into just about any standard B-movie plot.

See below:

Sci-fi:
"Shame about Mary. Do you think there are really aliens in those woods?"
"Don't be silly. It's just a story. I think somebody needs a massage."

Horror:
"Shame about Mary. Do you think there are really zombies in those woods?"
"Don't be silly. It's just a story. I think somebody needs a massage."

Sci-fi/Horror:
"Shame about Mary. Do you think there are really alien zombies in those woods?"
"Don't be silly. It's just a story. I think somebody needs a massage."

It's that simple. However, the director of Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory, despite the gratuitous use of the word "girls" and "dormitory," included none of these things. His girls, while all quite cute, wear something like OR scrubs made out of old sail canvas to bed. The spend their time in class or investigating the horrific murders of their classmates, instead of focusing on pillow fights, kissing practice, and any other crucial aspects of the all-girl educational experience. Finally, if the makers of this film are to be believed, these girls never bathe. Ever. Sure, there are hints that the girls bathe. Film is a visual medium: show don't tell. You owe it to the viewer.

Now the surprisingly good part: for all its heightened cheese-factor, the film is an enjoyable flick with a dual plot and a mystery-thriller structure that is better than it needed to be (or would have needed to be, if the completely lack of "girl dorm" genre trappings didn't put extra pressure on the film to be entertaining).

This Italian produced flick takes place in a Mediterranean villa in the English mountains. The arrival of a new teacher, Professor Blond Hero, sends the girls into a tizzy, especially a pretty and shy student named Female Lead. The Creepy Groundskeeper leads Hero to the school's main office where he meets Sir Stick-Up-the-Butt, the schools prim and proper headmaster, and his assistant, Icy McFrigida. Hero and Stick talk around Hero's past – he was accused of murder and acquitted for lack of evidence. Stick explains that this school is a place for new beginnings. All the girls have had trouble with the law and are here because the school's benefactors believe they deserve a second chance.

That night, a wayward student named Victima One, heads out into the woods. She crosses the Creepy Groundskeeper, whom she tells to get lost. Eventually, she runs into another teacher from the school, a man by the name of Sir Pedo. It is clear that Victima is blackmailing Pedo. They leave on a unresolved note and Victima heads back to the school. However, as happens in such flicks, she is brutally murdered and left in a shallow stream.

The police, as they can be depended on to do in such cases, declare it the work of a wild animal. However, the curious and headstrong Female Lead is not so sure. She finds evidence that a blackmailing plot was underway, but she doesn’t know who Victima was blackmailing.

Who is the murderer? Hero, with his dark past? The Creepy Groundskeeper, because he's creepy and the groundskeeper, which is really evidence enough in a film like this? Pedo, the only guy with a motive? Can the Female Lead trust Professor Blond Hero and, perhaps more importantly, isn't the obvious chemistry between creepy given she's supposed to be his student?

Eventually both bodies and contrivances pile up. The werewolf plot and murder mystery run side by side, with the characters bouncing back and forth between the two, unable at first to distinguish the main plot from the subplot.

All in all, a good time despite the teasing title. Using the ever popular Champions of the Moorilla Hobart International film ranking system, I'd give this flicker three Alicia Moliks and one Mana Endo.