31 Days of Halloween: Day 24

Busy day today, because we had a big Halloween event on at work, and I was performing at it!

Pumpkin

There were some pumpkins left over from another event at work yesterday, so I was offered one to take home. Admittedly, we already have seven at home... but I just can't say no to a pumpkin.

A Nightmare on Nelson Street 2: Emmeline's Revenge

Tonight was the annual Halloween event at the Pankhurst Centre. I led a walk around Nelson Street (where the museum is located), telling stories of its history and the history of the infirmary that surrounds it. Then we returned to the museum, and I gave a talk entitled 'Suffragettes and Werewolves'. It was kinda weird, but also kinda nice, to return to female werewolves after so long. A bit like a homecoming.

OUT NOW: Fantastika Journal 5:1 (May 2021)

The May 2021 issue of Fantastika Journal is out now.

Editorials:

The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow: Practising the Impossible
Rob Maslen

Articles:

'All of her made part of […] the Wood': Consumption, Transformation, and the Limits of Subversion in Naomi Novik’s Uprooted
Eilis Lee

'White is Not My Colour': Penny Dreadful, the Postcolonial, and the Changing Gothic Heroine
Carey Millsap-Spears

Conscripts from Birth: War and Soldiery in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future
Mike Ryder

Prepping for the Latourian Apocalypse, from Doomsday Preppers to Broken Earth
Derek J. Thiess

Non-Fiction Reviews:

Emily Alder, Weird Fiction and Science at the Fin de Siècle (2020)
Fredrik Blanc

Mike Ashley, Science-Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990 (2020)
Derek Johnston

Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora, Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures (2019)
Chase Ledin

Nivedita Bagchi, Human Nature and Politics in Utopian and Anti-Utopian Fiction (2018)
Peter J. Maurits

Francesca T. Barbini (ed.), A Shadow Within: The Evolution of Evil in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2019)
Taylor Driggers

Eleanor Beal and Jonathan Greenaway (eds), Horror and Religion: New Literary Approaches to Theology, Race and Sexuality (2019)
Chloe Campbell

Catherine Belsey, Tales of the Troubled Dead: Ghost Stories in Cultural History (2019)
Lucy Hall

Mark O’Connell, Notes From An Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back (2020)
Oliver Rendle

Carys Crossen, The Nature of the Beast: Transformations of the Werewolf from the 1970s to the Twenty-First Century (2019)
Hannah Priest

Dan Dinello, Children of Men (2020)
Ezekiel Crago

Paul Dobraszczyk, Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination (2019)
Thomas Kelly

Charul Palmer-Patel and Glyn Morgan (eds), Sideways in Time: Critical Essays on Alternate History Fiction (2019)
Paul March-Russell

Dawn Stobbart, Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run! (2019)
Matt Coward-Gibbs

Peter Swirski, Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future (2019)
Joe Howsin

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (2019)
Alison Baker

Toby Widdicombe, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Guide for the Perplexed (2019)
Mariana Rios Maldonado

Conference Reports:

The Gothic 1980s: The Decade that Scared Us (June 8, 2019)
Thomas Brassington

Science Fiction Research Association Conference 2019 (June 21-24, 2019)
Alexandria Nunn

Queer Fears (June 28, 2019)
Daniel Sheppard

Religioni fantastiche e dove trovarle (July 3-6, 2019)
Chiara Crosignani

15th International Gothic Association Conference – Gothic Terror, Gothic Horror (July 30-August 2, 2019)
Alissa Burger

Gothflix: A Conference Celebrating Netflix and the Gothic (February 1-2, 2020)
Kat Humphries

Beyond Borders: Empires, Bodies, Science Fictions (September 10-12, 2020)
Beatriz Herrera Corado

Fiction Reviews:

The Terror of the Transcendental
A Review of Roarings from Further Out: Four Weird Novellas by Algernon Blackwood (2019)
Michael Wheatley

For a Wider Weird
A Review of Women’s Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women, 1891-1937 (2020)
Steen Ledet Christiansen

'Trespassers will be persecuted'
A Review of Weird Woods: Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain (2020)
Stuart Spear

Do Androids Dream of Electric Nirvana?
A Review of Readymade Bodhisattva (2019)
Lauren Nixon

S is for Superhero, H is for Heart: Shazam! and the Magic of an Inclusive Family
A Review of Shazam! (2019)
Zvonimir Prtenjača

'Nothing is Everything is Really Quite Something'
A Review of Nothing is Everything (2018) by Simon Strantzas
Oliver Rendle

'Politics can wait until the Khan is dead'
A Review of Ghost of Tsushima (2020)
Charlotte Gislam

Tales of Two Tagores: Fantasy between Folklore and Children’s Literature
A Review of Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore’s The Make-Believe Prince and Gaganendranath Tagore’s Toddy-Cat the Bold (2018)
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay

'I’m the Devil, and I’m here to [Re]do the Devil’s Business': Alternative History as Political Commentary
A Review of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (2019)
Trae Toler

For more information, or to subscribe to the journal, please visit the Fantastika Journal website.

OUT NOW: Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic, ed. Robert McKay and John Miller (University of Wales Press, 2017)

A new academic edited collection on werewolves from University of Wales Press, featuring a chapter by me on bad dads, painful transformations and the embarrassment of morning-after nudity...

Wolves lope across Gothic imagination. Signs of a pure animality opposed to humanity, in the figure of the werewolf they become liminal creatures that move between the human and the animal. Werewolves function as a site for exploring complex anxieties of difference – of gender, class, race, space, nation or sexuality – but the imaginative and ideological uses of wolves also reflect back on the lives of material animals, long persecuted in their declining habitats across the world. Werewolves therefore raise unsettling questions about the intersection of the real and the imaginary, the instability of human identities and the worldliness and political weight of the Gothic.

This is the first volume concerned with the appearance of werewolves and wolves in literary and cultural texts from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on representations of werewolves and wolves in literature, film, television and visual culture, the essays investigate the key texts of the lycanthropic canon alongside lesser-known works from the 1890s to the present. The result is an innovative study that is both theoretically aware and historically nuanced, featuring an international list of established and emerging scholars based in Britain, Europe, North America and Australia.

Contents

- Introduction, Robert McKay and John Miller
- Like Father Like Son: Wolf-Men, Paternity and the Male Gothic, Hannah Priest
- Wicked Wolf-Women and Shaggy Suffragettes: Lycanthropic Femme Fatales in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras, Jazmina Cininas
- Postcolonial Vanishings: Wolves, American Indians, and Contemporary Werewolves, Michelle Nicole Boyer
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ubernatural: The Other(ed) Werewolf in Twilight, Roman Bartosch and Celestine Caruso
- ‘Becoming woman’/Becoming Wolf: Girl Power and the Monstrous Feminine in the Ginger Snaps Trilogy, Batia Boe Stolar
- ‘Something that is either werewolf or vampire’: Interrogating the Lupine Nature of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Kaja Franck
- Saki, Nietzsche and the Superwolf, John Miller
- A Vegetarian Diet for the Were-wolf Hunger of Capital: Leftist and Pro-animal Thought in Guy Endore’s The Werewolf of Paris, Robert McKay
- Everybody Eats Somebody: Angela Carter’s Wolfish Ecology, Margot Young
- ‘But by Blood No Wolf Am I’: Language and Agency, Instinct and Essence – Transcending Antinomies in Maggie Steifvater’s Shiver Trilogy, Bill Hughes
- Transforming the Big Bad Wolf: Redefining the Werewolf through Grimm and Fables, Matthew Lerberg

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

OUT NOW: She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Paperback Edition)

My edited collection She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves is now available in paperback from Manchester University Press! Essays on lady-lycanthropes in folklore, history, witchcraft trials, literature, cinema, television and gaming, by Merili Metsvahi, Rolf Schulte, Jay Cate, Jazmina Cininas, Shannon Scott, Carys Crossen, Willem de Blécourt, Peter Hutchings, Barbara Creed, Laura Wilson, and me!

She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves
Edited by Hannah Priest
Price: £14.99

She-Wolf explores the cultural history of the female werewolf, from her first appearance in medieval literature to recent incarnations in film, television and popular literature. The book includes contributors from various disciplines, and offers a cross-period, interdisciplinary exploration of a perennially popular cultural production. The book covers material from the Middle Ages to the present day with chapters on folklore, history, witch trials, Victorian literature, young adult literature, film and gaming. Considering issues such as religious and social contexts, colonialism, constructions of racial and gendered identities, corporeality and subjectivity - as well as female body hair, sexuality and violence - She-wolf reveals the varied ways in which the female werewolf is a manifestation of complex cultural anxieties, as well as a site of continued fascination.

Contents:

- Introduction: A History of Female Werewolves - Hannah Priest

- Estonian Werewolf Legends Collected from the Island of Saaremaa - Merili Metsvahi

- 'She transformed into a werewolf, devouring and killing two children': Trials of She-Werewolves in Early Modern French Burgundy - Rolf Schulte

- Participatory Lycanthropy: Female Werewolves in Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Jay Cate

- Fur Girls and Wolf Women: Fur, Hair and Subversive Female Lycanthropy - Jazmina Cininas

- Female Werewolf as Monstrous Other in Honoré Beaugrand's 'The Werewolves' - Shannon Scott

- 'The complex and antagonistic forces that constitute one soul': Conflict Between Societal Expectations and Individual Desires in Clemence Housman's 'The Werewolf' and Rosamund Marriott Watson's 'A Ballad of the Were-wolf' - Carys Crossen

- I was a Teenage She-Wolf: Boobs, Blood and Sacrifice - Hannah Priest

- The Case of the Cut Off Hand: Angela Carter's Werewolves in Historical Perspective - Willem de Blécourt

- The She-Wolves of Horror Cinema - Peter Hutchings

- Ginger Snaps: The Monstrous Feminine as Femme Animale - Barbara Creed

- Dans Ma Peau: Shape-shifting and Subjectivity - Laura Wilson

For more information, or to buy a copy, please visit the publisher's website.

OUT NOW: Werewolves Versus the 1990s

A full-colour, mind-warping, 80+ page collection of werewolf art, stories, poetry and comics. Inspired by the decade of skateboards, clam digger shorts, AOL disks and the colour aqua.

Edited, designed and produced by A. Quinton
Cover art by Tandye

Contents:

Art: Kathy Lea Moyou, Joe Williamson, Ludovic, Tandye, HamsterToybox

Comics: Mike Roukas, Todd A. McCullough

Poetry and stories:
Dial-Up by Tah the Trickster
Wasco by Laura Cuthbert
My Hazy Recollections Of Project: Metalbeast by Craig J. Clark
The Werewolves Of Brainerd by Dan Wallbank
Beasts Pay Their Dues by Slay
Heat Wave by Joey Liverwurst
Ill Will by Hannah Kate
FBI Warning by A. Quinton
'N Amerikaanse Weerwolf in Kaapstad by Lew “Viergacht” Delport

To get a copy of the zine (pay whatever amount you think is fair), please click here.

To find out more about this and future issues of Werewolves Versus, please click here.

OUT NOW: European Monsters (Fox Spirit, 2014)

Edited by Margrét Helgadóttir and Jo Thomas

Blurb:

They lurk and crawl and fly in the shadows of our mind. We know them from ancient legends and tales whispered by the campfire. They hide under the dark bridge, in the deep woods or out on the great plains, in the drizzling rain forest or out on the foggy moor, beneath the surface, under your bed. They don't sparkle or have any interest in us except to tear us apart. They are the monsters! Forgotten, unknown, misunderstood, overused, watered down. We adore them still. We want to give them a renaissance, to re-establish their dark reputation, to give them a comeback, let the world know of their real terror.

Contents:

Here Be Monsters! by Jo Thomas and Margrét Helgadóttir
Herne by J.C. Grimwood
Vijka by Anne Michaud
Broken Bridges by James Bennett
Upon the Wash of the Fjord by Byron Black
Nimby by Hannah Kate
Black Shuck by Joan De La Haye
A Very Modern Monster by Aliya Whiteley
Mother Knows Worst by Jasper Bank and Fabian Tuñon Benzo (artist)
Fly, My Dear, Fly by Nerine Dorman
Melanie by Aliette de Bodard
Moments by Krista Walsh
Hafgufa Rising by Chris Galvin
Old Bones by Peter Damien
The Cursed One by Icy Sedgwick
Serpent Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Eugene Smith (artist)

For more information about the book, please visit the publisher's website.

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No 1

And so we come to the end of Digital Front's countdown of his Top Ten werewolf films, and the end of #lycanthrovember. I hope you've enjoyed this Top Ten - and leave your comments below if you disagree with any of the choices!

All that remains is to reveal Digital Front's selection for the No. 1 slot - the best werewolf film of all time. To be honest, if you've been reading this countdown from No. 10 and you still need me to reveal the film that came in at No. 1, then I'm going to have to sentence you to watch all 5 Twilight films (that's right - both parts of Breaking Dawn) as a punishment. And maybe Red Riding Hood too - it depends how cruel I'm feeling.

Digital Front's No. 1 werewolf film is (of course)...

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Director: John Landis
Stars: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, John Woodvine
Tagline: Beware the Moon

Summary:
Two American college students on a walking tour of Britain are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.

Digital Front's Review:
An American Werewolf in London was released the same year as The Howling, but somehow has fared much better against the ravages of time than its rival.

Two American students are backpacking around Europe and find themselves in the Yorkshire Dales. They come across a remote village where the locals are inhospitable to say the least, not taking kindly to a couple of strangers in their midst. After being made aware they're really not welcome, they head back out into the night with a few words of advice: "Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors." Advice that they accidentally ignore, resulting with one of them dead and the other seriously injured.

The surviving tourist, David Kessler (David Naughton), awakes in a London hospital under the care of Dr Hirsch (John Woodvine) and Nurse Price (Jenny Agutter), who inform him of his friend's demise and David's lucky escape from an attack by "a madman". But David insists they were attacked by an animal, not a man.

David eventually leaves the hospital under the care of Nurse Price who offers him a place to stay for a few days. David is plagued by horrific dreams and thinks he's losing his mind as he is also visited by his dead friend who informs him that he is now a werewolf and should kill himself before he hurts anyone. What soon follows is one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history, as David does indeed transform into a werewolf, just as his friend Jack had warned.

There aren't many films that have successfully combined horror and comedy. An American Werewolf in London achieves this with perfect precision - at its heart is a horror with enough blood and gore to satisfy any fan, while the constant undercurrent of humour provides enough charm and relief to prevent the darker elements from becoming exhausting.

Incidentally, this film did lead to a sequel (An American Werewolf in Paris), but it's certainly one to avoid in my opinion.

Though it's probably no surprise to find this film happily sitting at the top of the pile in the No. 1 slot, it's No. 1 for many people for a very good reason. It's the perfect werewolf film.

***

So... I hope you've enjoyed this countdown of werewolf cinema, brought to you by my lovely husband. I'm now off to go through his choices and completely disagree with them in the comments section. If you've liked this Top Ten, I'm planning on posting a countdown of my own shortly - this time, the Top Ten werewolf novels. Watch this space! Awwwooooooo!

Go on... you know you want to listen to this song right now...

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 2

And so we near the end of Digital Front's lycanthropic countdown. Time to announce the runner-up...

Drum roll please...

In second place, it's...

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Director: Neil Marshall
Stars: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby
Tagline: Six soldiers. Full moon. No chance.

Summary:
A routine military exercise in the highlands of Scotland turns very bloody very quickly.

Digital Front's Review:
A squad of British soldiers lead by Sergeant Wells (Sean Pertwee) are on a training exercise in Scotland only to discover the massacred remains of the special forces squad they have been pitted against. It's not long before they encounter what was behind the brutal slayings and, as they're only armed with blanks, decide to get the hell out of there.

They're saved by Megan (Emma Cleasby) who takes them to a nearby farmhouse and fills them in on the local wildlife - werewolves as it happens. The same werewolves that soon lay siege to the farmhouse leaving the weaponless soldiers and Megan completely stranded and battling for their lives.

This is not a complicated film by any stretch. It's a 'cabin in the woods' scenario with a group of people stranded and fighting for their lives by whatever means necessary - but it's a formula that has worked to great effect for countless classics and Dog Soldiers is no exception. There's plenty of humour, horror, action, a revelation (fair enough it could be seen from miles away but the film is too enjoyable for that to be a negative point), a noble sacrifice, and a satisfying resolution. Spoiler alert - the dog makes it out unscathed too, so gets to join the likes of Jones the Cat in the Horror Film Pet Survivors Hall of Fame.

Another aspect of the film I've always loved is the werewolves themselves. There's no crazy CGI effects on show... instead the filmmakers opted for brief glimpses of the creatures and that's always far more effective in my view.

The soldiers rendered impotent by their absence of firepower are entirely believable and serve as an interesting contrast to Megan, the only female in the film, who is much stronger and collected throughout. Then again, perhaps she knows something that they don't.

All in all, a fantastic werewolf romp that hits all the right notes for me.

Click here to find out what's at No. 1!

Or go back to No. 3!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 3

So we enter the Top Three of Digital Front's Top Ten werewolf films... so let's find out which lycanthropic gem scooped the bronze medal...

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Director: John Fawcett
Stars: Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, Kris Lemche
Tagline: She's got the curse.

Summary:
Two sisters must deal with the tragic consequences when one of them is bitten by a werewolf.

Digital Front's Review:
In stark contrast to many of the films in this werewolf Top Ten, Ginger Snaps is quite a dark, sombre and gory film.

The story centres around two sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigette (Emily Perkins), whose hobby is photographing death scenes that they've staged and making pacts about dying together. This idyllic existence isn't to last though, as Ginger is bitten one night by a werewolf that has been terrorizing the local canine population. This life changing event also happens on the same day as Ginger gets her first period.

Ginger then starts to gradually change, both physically and in terms of temperament, and Brigette is locked in a race against time to save her sister.

Ginger Snaps is similar to The Company of Wolves in terms of the underlying narrative focusing on the transformation to womanhood, but takes a slightly different direction by drawing reasonably blunt but not overstated direct comparisons to werewolves rather than helpless innocent women being preyed upon.

It's a welcome change watching a werewolf film that isn't dominated by big beastly hirsute men and helpless weak women, but sadly Ginger Snaps falls into a minority in that respect.

The film has spawned two sequels (Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps Back) but sadly they are considerably weaker than the original. I'm undecided if that's because they are genuinely just not up to par or that Ginger Snaps was just too damned good to follow up. This film is one of a kind and just has to be in any serious werewolf fan's collection.

Click here for No. 2!

Or go back to No. 4!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 4

We're counting down the Top Ten werewolf films (according to the lovely Digital Front). In fourth place, it's...

Wolf (1994)

Director: Mike Nichols
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader
Tagline: The animal is out.

Summary:
An ageing publisher is down on his luck, until he is bitten by a wolf and suddenly finds himself rejuvenated.

Digital Front's Review:
Wolf is a bit difficult to categorize - it's not a traditional horror, drama or thriller... it's an off-beat combination of the three.

Will Randall (Nicholson) is a meek and mild-mannered literary editor who loses his job, his wife, and to top it all off is bitten by a wolf. To rub his nose in it a little further, he also discovers that Stewart Swinton (Spader) has not only taken Will's job, but is also the man that has been having an affair with his wife.

However, it's not all doom and gloom for Will as he discovers that since being bitten by the wolf, his senses are starting to get much stronger. And he has so much more energy too. Actually I lied, it is still a bit doom and gloom because all this power comes at a price - Will has also started to have blackouts which always coincide with a tragedy (for example, his wife's murder). And Will also comes to realize he's actually starting to look more and more like a wolf...

Will meets his former boss's daughter, Laura (Pfeiffer), and amid their burgeoning relationship he turns to her for help fearing the worst about his blackouts and growing animalistic urges.

And I'm going to leave it there, because otherwise I'll ruin the film for anyone who hasn't seen it.

The reason Wolf ranks so highly in this list is because it just has a real charm about it. As I mentioned at the beginning, this isn't a standard werewolf film. It's very tongue-in-cheek, and as you'd expect with the calibre of talent on show the performances by the cast are absolutely top notch. Highly recommended.

Click here for No. 3!

Or go back to No. 5!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 5

We're currently counting down Digital Front's Top Ten werewolf films, to celebrate the last day of #lycanthrovember. And at No. 5...

Silver Bullet (1985)

Director: Daniel Attias
Stars: Gary Busey, Megan Follows, Corey Haim
Tagline: When darkness falls, terror rises.

Summary:
A werewolf terrorizes a small town where only a young paralytic boy knows the truth behind the spate of killings.

Digital Front's Review: Based on a Stephen King novella called Cycle of the Werewolf, Silver Bullet takes place in Tarker's Mills - a trademark King sleepy New England town. Well, not such a sleepy town anymore. Someone is stalking Tarker's Mills every full moon and ripping people to pieces...

Naturally, all the inhabitants of this small town believe a serial killer is on the loose. All except Marty (Corey Haim), a young disabled boy. He believes a werewolf is to blame.

Cue an expected turn of events - the townsfolk form vigilante groups and hunt the killer, only to be picked off in the process, and Marty's sceptical sister Jane (Megan Follows) accepts his werewolf theory after the two have a run-in with the beast. The pair then hunt down the man behind the furry transformations.

Silver Bullet isn't original, it's not groundbreaking, it's not cerebral in any way. But it is a lot of fun, and that's an element I find missing from many werewolf films.

Click here for No. 4!

Or go back to No. 6!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 6

And at No. 6 in Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films...

The Howling (1981)

Director: Joe Dante
Stars: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan
Tagline: Imagine your worst fear a reality.

Summary:
After a near fatal encounter with a serial killer, a television reporter is sent to a remote mountain resort whose residents may not be what they seem.

Digital Front's Review:
This is one of the bigger werewolf films of our time. After a near death experience at the hands of a notorious murderer, reporter Karen undertakes a course of therapy at a secluded retreat called The Colony.

Predictably, this gives plenty of opportunity for howls from the forest at night, mutilated animals in the forest, and strange inhabitants at The Colony. This also gives rise (no pun intended) to a fair amount of carnal activity, which does underline the animalistic nature of Karen's newly acquired co-inhabitants but also feels a little gratuitous.

Although the film hasn't aged particularly well, The Howling marries a decent storyline and horror in an almost perfect ratio, producing a classic and watchable werewolf flick.

Click here for No. 5!

Or go back to No. 7!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 7

We're now at No. 7 in Digital Front's top ten werewolf films... and in at seventh place, we have...

Bad Moon (1996)

Director: Eric Red
Stars: Mariel Hemingway, Michael Paré, Mason Gamble
Tagline: Half man. Half wolf. Total terror.

Summary:
While on assignment in a remote jungle, an American photojournalist is attacked by a fearsome werewolf. He survives the encounter with only a nasty bite, but becomes a werewolf himself. Appalled by his bloodthirst, Ted goes to stay with his sister in the hope that she can stop him, but her dog knows his secret.

Digital Front's Review:
Bad Moon is one of those hidden gems. You'd be forgiven for never having heard of this film, and if that's the case you're really missing out.

Distilled to its basic elements, Bad Moon could have been called "Werewolf Versus German Shepherd". A photographer (Ted) is bitten by a werewolf while on assignment. Disgusted by what he's become, Ted goes to stay with his sister (Janet), her son (Brett), and their pet dog (Thor). And Thor is really not happy about having a werewolf living under the same roof.

Don't misunderstand me, Bad Moon is not a flawless masterpiece of cinema by any stretch. It's clearly low budget, and some of the acting really grates (particularly Brett). The werewolf itself isn't exactly convincing either and everything is a bit rough round the edges, but none of these things derail a very decent film.

Where Bad Moon shines (no pun intended) is with a slight departure from the standard werewolf fare but also the real star of the film. Thor. Trust me, you'll be rooting for that fella.

Click here for No. 6!

Or go back to No. 8!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 8

And at No. 8 in Digital Front's Top Ten werewolf films, we have...

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Director: Neil Jordan
Stars: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner
Tagline: The desire... the fantasy... the nightmare.

Summary:
After hearing her grandmother's stories about dangerous men, a 13-year-old girl has nightmares that transform her into Little Red Riding Hood.

Digital Front's Review:
Based on Angela Carter's short story of the same name, and co-written by Carter and director Neil Jordan, The Company of Wolves is a fantasy dream world containing dreams within that dream. Rosaleen is a young girl haunted by her grandmother's stories that serve as a warning to be wary of men, particularly those whose eyebrows meet in the middle.

It's quite a difficult film to make sense of at times, and its highly stylized macabre tone can be quite unsettling. Littered with coming of age sexual undertones, The Company of Wolves is a metaphor whereby the innocent Little Red Riding Hood is suddenly exposed to a world where werewolves, or beastly men, prey upon women.

Essentially, if you're looking to rip open the popcorn and enjoy some mindless gruesome werewolf action then you will be sorely disappointed.

Moving along from the cerebral aspect however, on another level this is a beautiful film. The production is as clever as the narrative, and although it's now 30 years old the imagery is really quite breathtaking at times, shunning creepy forests for obvious sets that somehow really add to the viewers immersion into the dream world on show.

Yes, it's weird. Yes, it's occasionally difficult to follow. But this film has charm, originality, and vivid visuals that take it to a whole new level and hopefully may inspire more werewolf films to take a path lesser travelled.

Click here for No. 7!

Or go back to No. 9!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 9

Continuing Digital Front's countdown of the Top Ten Werewolf films... in 9th place we have...

The Wolfman (2010)

Director: Joe Johnston
Stars: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt
Tagline: The legend is alive.

Summary:
A practical man returns to his homeland, is attacked by a creature of folklore, and infected with a horrific disease his disciplined mind tells him can not possibly exist.

Digital Front's Review:
A remake of the 1941 film starring Lon Chaney Jr., The Wolfman boasts a healthy cast of big names, big production values, and beautifully captures a dark and foreboding Victorian gothic atmosphere. Everything is dark and subdued - not only the visuals, but (on the whole) the performances as well.

As a horror fan, the addition of gore to the remake is also very welcome, updating the more family friendly format of the original. Anthony Hopkins is, as you'd expect, thoroughly dark and turns in a great turn as Lord Talbot.

There are disappointments however. The eponymous wolfman, in being faithful to the original, doesn't really fit with the polished visuals of the 2010 version. I appreciate the decision to not rely on CG and stick with prosthetics, but it never really hits the mark. And Del Toro, while arguably a great actor, for me is miscast in this film.

On the whole, The Wolfman is a little too subdued and in places really drags its heels. At times it feels like there was never a definitive vision that would add to the original, but it's definitely worth taking a peek at.

Click here for No. 8!

Or go back to No. 10!

Digital Front's Top Ten Werewolf Films: No. 10

To celebrate the end of #lycanthrovember (which, admittedly, seems to have run slightly longer than November as originally planned), I asked independent musician and husband-of-me, Digital Front to come up with his top ten werewolf films. Let's see how many you agree with!

And so... in 10th place...

Underworld (2003)

Director: Len Wiseman
Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen
Tagline: An immortal battle for supremacy.

Summary:
Vampires and Lycans have been warring for centuries. Vampire Selene wonders why the enemy are interested in a particular human, Michael, but when she discovers a conspiracy between a Vampire traitor and a Lycan leader, she is forced to question her own origins.

Digital Front's review:
Underworld has all the ingredients for an amazing film - vampires and werewolves have been at war for centuries, beating the stuffing out of each other on a regular basis in a battle for supremacy and world domination. It's stylish, dark, and I really want to love the film.

And that's why it's in this list, albeit at the very bottom. Underworld should be a fantastic action fantasy exploring a power struggle between legendary monsters... but what we get is essentially a visually stunning but hollow film, trading an amazing plot opportunity for countless fight scenes that rapidly become dull carbon copies of each other.

There are a few sequels to the film, but Underworld is by far the better of the franchise. That isn't really saying much, sadly.

If you like your films to look nice, dish out lots of fight scenes, and have Kate Beckinsale in a tight leather fetish catsuit - Underworld will certainly keep you entertained. If however you like a substantial plot tying everything together, then Underworld is really not for you.

Click here for No. 9!

#lycanthrovember

As some of you might have seen, Hic Dragones have been talking a bit about #lycanthrovember, so I thought I'd do a quick blog post about it. #lycanthrovember was my idea, as basically a month-long version of #WerewolfWednesday. (And yes, I did come up with the name. And no, it's not my best work.) It's shaping up to be quite a werewolf-y month for me, so I thought it would be cool to share the lycanthropic love on social media - if you have any werewolf related projects, artwork, books or films, feel free to add the hashtag so we can share them.

To kick off, then, at Hic Dragones are running a November-long offer on K Bannerman's wonderful Canadian werewolf novel The Tattooed Wolf: order the paperback or eBook from the Hic Dragones website and get our short collection Wolf-Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny absolutely free!

Also from Hic Dragones, if you fancy a bit of Victorian Gothic werewolf fiction, Digital Periodicals is currently serializing George Reynolds' Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf. New instalments are published every fortnight in eBook formats, and are available for the princely sum of £1.

On a personal note, I have a werewolf short story entitled 'Nimby' coming out in the Fox Spirit Books' European Monsters anthology. I'll be blogging a bit more about that as the publication date gets closer. And my academic book on female werewolves (with Manchester University Press) finally has a wonderful cover and a publication date: She-Wolf: a Cultural History of Female Werewolves will be out in April 2015.

Now it's over to you... what werewolf-y things would you like to plug this month?

Happy #lycanthrovember!

OUT NOW: Sexual Culture in the Literature of Medieval Britain (D.S. Brewer, 2014)

Edited by Amanda Hopkins, Robert Allen Rouse and Cory James Rushton

It is often said that the past is a foreign country where they do things differently, and perhaps no type of "doing" is more fascinating than sexual desires and behaviours. Our modern view of medieval sexuality is characterised by a polarising dichotomy between the swooning love-struck knights and ladies of romance on one hand, and the darkly imagined and misogyny of an unenlightened "medieval" sexuality on the other. British medieval sexual culture also exhibits such dualities through the influential paradigms of sinner or saint, virgin or whore, and protector or defiler of women. However, such sexual identities are rarely coherent or stable, and it is in the grey areas, the interstices between normative modes of sexuality, that we find the most compelling instances of erotic frisson and sexual expression.

This collection of essays brings together a wide-ranging discussion of the sexual possibilities and fantasies of medieval Britain as they manifest themselves in the literature of the period. Taking as their matter texts and authors as diverse as Chaucer, Gower, Dunbar, Malory, alchemical treatises, and romances, the contributions reveal a surprising variety of attitudes, strategies and sexual subject positions.

About the Editors:

Amanda Hopkins teaches in English and French at the University of Warwick; Robert Allen Rouse is Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Cory James Rushton is Associate Professor of English at St Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Contents:

Introduction: A Light Thrown upon Darkness: Writing about Medieval British Sexuality
Robert Allen Rouse and Cory James Rushton

1. ‘Open manslaughter and bold bawdry’: Male Sexuality as a Cause of Disruption in Malory’s Morte Darthur
Kristina Hildebrand

2. Erotic (Subject) Positions in Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale
Amy S. Kaufman

3. Enter the Bedroom: Managing Space for the Erotic in Middle English Romance
Megan G. Leitch

4. ‘Naked as a nedyll’: The Eroticism of Malory’s Elaine
Yvette Kisor

5. ‘How love and I togedre met’: Gower, Amans and the Lessons of Venus in the Confessio Amantis
Samantha J. Rayner

6. ‘Bogeysliche as a boye’: Performing Sexuality in William of Palerne
Hannah Priest

7. Fairy Lovers: Sexuality, Order and Narrative in Medieval Romance
Aisling Byrne

8. Text as Stone: Desire, Sex, and the Figurative Hermaphrodite in the Ordinal and Compound of Alchemy
Cynthea Masson

9. Animality, Sexuality and the Abject in Three of Dunbar’s Satirical Poems
Anna Caughey

10. The Awful Passion of Pandarus
Cory James Rushton

11. Invisible Woman: Rape as a Chivalric Necessity in Medieval Romance
Amy N. Vines

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

WIN 3 BOOKS! Wolf-Girls Competition (International Entry)

A fantastic new competition from Hic Dragones...

Enter now via the Rafflecopter widget below for a chance to win 3 wonderful paperbacks PLUS an exclusive WOLF-GIRLS tote bag!

Wolf-Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lygogyny
edited by Hannah Kate

Feral, vicious, fierce and lost… the she-wolf is a strange creature of the night. Attractive to some; repulsive to others, she stalks the fringes of our world as though it were her prey. She is the baddest of girls, the fatalest of femmes – but she is also the excluded, the abject, the monster. The Wolf-Girls within these pages are mad, bad and dangerous to know. But they are also rejected and tortured, loving and loyal, avenging and triumphant. Some of them are even human…

Seventeen new tales of dark, snarling lycogyny by Nu Yang, Mary Borsellino, Lyn Lockwood, Mihaela Nicolescu, L. Lark, Jeanette Greaves, Kim Bannerman, Lynsey May, Hannah Kate, J. K. Coi, Rosie Garland, R. A. Martens, Beth Daley, Marie Cruz, Helen Cross, Andrew Quinton and Sarah Peacock.

In addition to this lycanthropic anthology, the prize also includes novels by two of the contributors: Kim Bannerman and Beth Daley!

The Tattooed Wolf
by K. Bannerman

Morris Caufield thought he’d seen it all…

Until the moment Dan Sullivan walked into his office. Dan needs a divorce lawyer he can trust, and he thinks Morris is the man for the job. The thing is, Dan wants Morris to represent his wife. Who tried to kill him. Twice. And as if that wasn’t enough, Dan expects Morris to buy some crazy story about werewolves…

As Dan reveals the truth about his life and his marriage, Morris listens to a captivating tale of lycanthropy, love and betrayal. It’s lunacy, he’s sure of that, but there’s something about Dan Sullivan that makes it all very easy to believe.

Blood and Water
by Beth Daley

Dora lives by the sea. Dora has always lived by the sea. But she won’t go into the water.

The last time Dora swam in the sea was the day of her mother’s funeral, the day she saw the mermaid. Now she’s an adult, a respectable married woman, and her little sister Lucie has come home from university with a horrible secret. Dora’s safe and dry life begins to fray, as she is torn between protecting her baby sister and facing up to a truth she has always known but never admitted. And the sea keeps calling her, reminding her of what she saw beneath the waves all those years ago… of what will be waiting for her if she dives in again.

Enter now!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Coming Soon: New Digital Editions of Victorian Penny Dreadfuls

Serialized Victorian Gothic pulp fiction for the discerning modern reader!

Hic Dragones is pleased to announce a new series of eBook editions of Victorian penny bloods and penny dreadfuls. Digitally remastered and reserialized, these editions are intended to introduce modern readers to the thrills, shocks and cliffhangers of classic blood-curdling tales.

Penny dreadfuls have a significant place in the modern imagination and affections, but they are rarely read in the twenty-first century. And this is hardly surprising—with only a few exceptions, these texts can only be found in original publications or mechanically scanned copies. Until now!

The Digital Periodicals serials from Hic Dragones have been fully formatted (by a human being) to create searchable eBook texts with interactive tables of contents. For the first time since their original publication in the mid-nineteenth century, these texts will be sold as serials, with new instalments (comprising between 5-10 chapters) being released fortnightly. Readers can once again savour the anticipation of a new instalment, and enjoy these episodic stories as they were once intended.

Digital Periodicals launches on Friday 13th June 2014 with two of James Malcolm Rymer’s classic titles: VARNEY THE VAMPYRE; OR, THE FEAST OF BLOOD and VILEROY; OR, THE HORRORS OF ZINDORF CASTLE. Additional serials will be published in due course, with THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF VALENTINE VOX, THE VENTRILOQUIST coming out later in the month. As well as better-known titles, such as WAGNER THE WEHR-WOLF and THE STRING OF PEARLS (Sweeney Todd), Digital Periodicals will introduce readers to works that have unfairly fallen into obscurity: including, George Reynolds’ FAUST, Albert Coates’ SPRING-HEEL’D JACK and Pierce Egan’s WAT TYLER.

Penny dreadfuls were always meant to be pure, sensationalist entertainment, and the Digital Periodicals series is designed to inject the fun back into these under-read masterpieces of lurid, melodramatic, garish pleasure. Readers can subscribe to receive reminders about their favourite serials, and join in discussion about the stories on Twitter and Facebook. 

Let the feast of blood begin again…

For more information, or to sign up for the mailing list, please see the website or contact Hic Dragones via email. For academic and press enquiries, please contact Hannah Kate (series editor).