What if you lost control? What if, for a night, you found yourself coursing with unfamiliar emotion or perhaps emotions you thought long buried? What if you found your body suddenly augmented— your senses enhanced, your speed and strength off the charts, your limbs bristling not only with fur, but with power? And what if, as the transformation took hold, you blacked out, leaving you unaware of whatever terror you might wreak while in this bestial state?
Like some of the other monsters we’re looking at this October, the werewolf itself isn’t all that scary. (I mean, come on, it’s weakness is bullets. Not much terror there.) What’s scary is becoming the werewolf— the loss of control and subsequent isolation or persecution by your community.
In their earliest history, werewolves appeared as scapegoats for crimes and ill fortune in societies, and if this sounds a little similar to “witch hunts,” well, that’s no coincidence. “Werewolf trials” were a variant of witch trials and served a similar purpose: to place the blame for the town’s problems on a stigmatized individual. For centuries before Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man would stalk the silver screen, werewolves haunted the imaginations of the superstitious, leading to false accusations and heinous abuses of justice.
Unlike in the ancient stories and superstitions, modern portrayals of werewolves tend to be sympathetic. Because the werewolf is usually tormented by his or her condition, these characters offer a level of psychological complexity not seen in many monster stories. Most werewolves don’t intentionally kill like so many other creatures; rather, they are overwhelmed by their bestial sides and cause unintentional havoc in their communities. Characters like Professor Lupin from the Harry Potter series, George from Being Human, and David from An American Werewolf in London showcase the panic and shame which can come from living with lycanthropy. Werewolves are to be pitied, and the real terror isn’t in being attacked by one, but in having to live in this cursed state of losing control with every full moon.
And that’s why werewolves are scary.