What was the Beast of Gévaudan? | Monstrum

Monstrum recently made a video about the Beast of Gévaudan and I wanted to share it here. You cannot beat a real, historical horror story, that has been fascinating me since I watched a TV program about it, some thirty years ago. For your early countdown to Halloween, I hope you enjoy.

The Werewolf and the Train

For today's countdow to Halloween, a post about our visit to the a "Scarecrow Festival",which is held in a nearby village. It is now a family tradition come Halloween. I don't know who had the idea, but one of the scarecrows on display had a spooky train and a werewolf next to it. With pumpkins in the surroundings. In the train, a dino(!) and the Grim Reaper. There's a horror story to be written about it, I`m sure. Either way, this looks so darn cool.

Les loups-garous de Thiercelieux en film

Petite nouvelle ciné française et d'horreur: j'ai appris il y a quelques semaines que le jeu de société Les loups-garous de Thiercelieux a été adapté en film et qu'il est disponible sur Netflix. Je compte le regarder d'ici à l'Halloween. Mais il faudrait vraiment que je m'achète le jeu et que j'y joue un peu. Il est disponible ici, alors je n'ai aucune excuse.

Werewolf Mask

For today's countdown to Halloween post, another post about werewolves. I did some rambling about them in 2018, so I might repeat myself here, sorry if that is the case. Anyway, I saw this werewolf maks (for half the face) in the local toy shop and it kind of inspired me. As an amateur of traditional, classic horror stories and trope, I am surprised that I read fairly little werewolf fiction. Most of the time, I stumbled upon werewolf stories. I will try to find more, partially because I love wolves in general, but also because I might try my hands on a horror story or two featuring lycanthropes. I would like to use elements that we don't see anymore, like people becoming a werewolf through something else than infection after being attacked by one. Although I don't know how to proceed from there. But hey, I think we need more werewolves in spooky stories. Don't you? Let me know in the comments.

The Howling II

 For today's countdown to Halloween reading suggestion, The Howling II. By Gary Grandner. Not the novelization to the sequel to the first film, but the sequel to the original novel that inspired the rather uneven and lacklustre film franchise. The Howling II might have well been titled Karyn Can't Get a Break. Because the heroine/damsel in distress of the first novel, after surviving the horrors of Draco, a village full of werewolves, after being through the trauma of witnessing her then husband turn into a werewolf AND cheat on her has, well, to survive more ordeals. She's now remarried to a widower, she's a stepmother and she's undergoing therapy. Because, you know, the events of the previous book. But it turns out some lycanthropes survived the fire that destroyed Draco. Her (ex)husband Roy, for one, and his new partner, Marcia, who has been wounded by a silver bullet in the head, but not killed, for some reason (Brandner tend to retcon things). Marcia, now turning into a she-wolf/human hybrid every night, is pretty unhappy about it, and she's planning revenge on Karyn. So yeah, it's not very good. The Howling was a flawed, but enjoyable horror story, with plenty of atmosphere and a great setting. Its sequel is more flawed and less enjoyable. Gone is the claustrophobia, the remote environment, all the little details that made the first book work in spite of its flaws. But this one nevertheless has its moments, and remains better than the sequels of the movie franchise. In any case, this is a reading suggestion, not a reading reocmmendation. And we always need some werewoves for Halloween, right?

La Bête du Gévaudan: un anniversaire

Aujourd'hui, c'est l'anniversaire du'un évènement de sinistre nature, qui a donné des frissons à bien des amateurs d'horreur et en a inspiré beaucoup d'autres. Vous avez deviné de quoi je parle? Il y a 260 ans, le 30 juin 1764, la Bête du Gévaudan faisait sa première victime officielle. Je m'en suis rappelé en regardant cette vidéo sur YouTube hier et je me suis dit que je devais le souligner. Avec l'une de mes images préférées du monstre. La Bête a vraiment besoin de figurer plus souvent dans le patrimoine effrayant mondial. Je songe moi même à m'en inspirer pour écrire une histoire d'horreur quand l'Halloween viendra. Enfin bref...

Signs you are a Werewolf

I found this on one of the many Halloween Facebook pages I am following and found it so funny I had to share it now. Before the next full moon and way before Halloween. It is just so very funny.

A Werewolf Game

 For today's countdown to Halloween post, a finding and maybe a call for help from my readers. I was at the Windsor's Waterstones a few weeks ago when I saw this game on sales: One Night Ultimate Werewolf. I did not buy it, although I was very tempted. But it looked a tad too much like a rip off from another werewolf game. But hey, maybe the more the merrier. I always thought werewolves were the most neglected critters of horror fiction. My opinion on the matter in this 2022 post and this one from 2018. I think there is a lot to do with a werewolf as a horror character, both protagonist and antagonist. What do you think? And if any of you played that game, what did you think of it? Is it any good?

The Wolf Man

 Here's my second countdown to Halloween post of the day. Because I have a lot to cover this year and I have been preparing for months. I bought this decorationa couple of months ago. It is meant to represent the Wolf Man, the Universal one. But frankly, and I am happy about it, he looks far scarier than in the movie, with an longer face and leaner body, much more wolf-like. He looks like a true werewolf and not a cuddly teddy bear. I say this and nevertheless I love the film, it's one of my favourite black and white movies. I thought our home and our Halloween display needed a werewolf. This one is just perfect.

Santon loup-garou

 Photo trouvée sur la page Facebook sur les Santons de Charlevoix. C'est LE Santon que je veux avoir en priorité. Ex aequo avec celui du Bonhomme Sept-Heures. Et je le veux pour donner une touche québécoise aux Halloweens que je passe ici. Il y a d'autres santons conçus pour l'Halloween, mais celui-ci est celui que je trouve le plus réussi. Il est à la fois effrayant et ragique: on voit que le loup-garou est l'objet d'une malédiction, regardez comme il essaie de couvrir son visage avec son manteau, dans une expression à la fois de honte bien humaine et néanmoins bestiale. Oh et il a les bras velus et des griffes en plus. Il est vraiment très réussi.

The Werewolves' New Moon

 I blogged back in 2017 about The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, a card game/board game and borderline role-playing game about, well, werewolves. So it is a horror game of sorts. I bought one formy  brother Andrew in its original French version,then years later I bought the localised version for Blonde Tickler. But never for myself. Then, to my great surprise, I stumbled upon its first expansion, called New Moon, in a toy shop in Wallingford. Now how cool is that? I am very tempted to buy it next time, and get my hands on the original, so I can play it during my countdown to Halloween. This seems to be the perfect game when the season of the witch comes.

About Werewolves

For today's countdown to Halloween post, let's talk about a critter that might need a bit more love: the werewolf. Well, maybe it's just me, but I feel like it hasn't been as popular as other horror creatures and maybe has not always been used to its full potential. A few years ago, I read The Howling by Gary Brandner. The rather uneven (but enjoyable) movie adaptation is now far more famous, but I preferred the original novel, although I found it flawed. My full review and recommendation in this post from 2017. Be that as it may, while I recognised novel's shortcomings, I liked it enough to buy its sequel, simply (and rather dumbly) called The Howling II. It had even more shortcomings, but I must confess, I still enjoyed it. There is just something about these bloodthirsty beasts and their relationship to men and civilisation that I find endearing. I find it sad that The Howling's film franchise went stupidly down the drain after each installment and that the original novels are all but forgotten. Brandner I thought had managed to bring the werewolf into a modern setting and give it a certain relevance, but keeping its menace. There is so much to do with werewolves depending on how you develop them: is their condition a curse or do they embrace it, what causes it, how do they deal with mankind, and so on. Werewolves deserve their own series of novels, something Brandner had started, but never quite finished. Anyway, I am rambling, but what do you think about werewolves? Are there any stories featuring them you would recommend? And how would you make them original?

The Killer Origins of the Werewolf | Monstrum

Let's have another countdown to Halloween post for tonight shall we? Because Monstrum recently released a video about werewolves (part 1, there will be more) and I really enjoyed it, and we need more gory werewolf fun in our Halloween countdown (and in horror fiction in general, come to think of it). So anyway, it's not too long and tell me what you think in the comments.

La peur du loup

J,ai pensé ce soir faire une nouvelle suggestion de lecture pour l'Halloween, dans un domaine plus encyclopédique: La peur du loup, qui est dans la même collection que cet autre ouvrage et apprend bien des choses sur les perceptions fausses et la vraie nature du loup. Tout  y passe: le loup-garou, la Bête du Gévaudan, le petit chaperon rouge, etc. C'est un ouvrage de référence pour ceux comme moi aiment le loup, mais sont aussi fascinés par la peur irrationnelle qu'il a suscitée et suscite malheureusement encore chez certaines personnes.

Rambling about werewolves

I took this picture in Morisson's. Not the best image to accompany my post, but there you go. So I was recently thinking writing a post on werewolves, when it struck me that I have not read that many stories about them, and most stories I read are fairly recent. Werewolves seems to be the poor relative of all the Halloween and horror critters. He has been overshadowed a long time ago by the vampire and more recently by zombies. Even the way a human becomes of werewolves in modern fiction is rather reductive: it is more often than none through contagion, by the bite or clawing of another lycanthrope. In folklore, there were many different ways to become one and contagion was not even one of them. A werewolf could owe his condition to a curse, the alignment of stars in the sky at birth, to witchcraft, to a magic ointment, etc. It would be interesting to revisit this character of horror stories and these methods of infection. The werewolf could benefit from a bit of variety.

The Howling

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post I have another reading suggestion: The Howling by Gary Brandner. Flawed novel that is the source material of an equally flawed movie, at least the book does not go into self-parody. Not voluntarily anyway. Sure it's often predictable and contrived but it has good old fashioned malevolent werewolves. And they enjoy their beastly nature. The story is simple: Karyn and her husband Roy leave Los Angeles (after she'd been raped) to the remote village of Drago, which turned out inhabited by werewolves. While Karyn makes for a rather annoying heroine of the damsel in distress kind, surrounded by stereotypical characters, it still has lots of atmosphere, eerie moments, a decent amount of violence and a good deal of suspense. There's also a rather neat prologue that sets up nicely the origins of Drago and its evil nature. Brandner is no Lovecraft, but he can write a decent yarn. And it's a quick and easy read too: you can finish it in a day. With all its flaws I preferred it to the movie.

Eerie Tales from Transylvania

I found the reading for tonight's countdown to Halloween in an Oxfam in Bath more than ten years ago. So it is a rarity which you might struggle to find. The book is titled Ghosts, Vampires, and Werewolves: Eerie Tales from Transylvania. And boy does it deliver! Not all tales are scary but those who are... Apart from the creatures of the title you'll find in it the guardian spirit of a forest who is not shy of killing with extreme prejudice to fulfill his duty, devils in all forms and a number of other critters and weird primitive customs. It's chilling but fascinating, giving you a lot of information about the land and its people's culture that is free from the "contaminations" of a certain Gothic novel (which I nevertheless love). Special mention to The Red Emperor's Son, a bizarre dreamlike fairy tale that is literally the stuff of nightmares.

The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow

For today's countdown to Halloween post, I am plugging a game which ironically I never played. But I was always fascinated by The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. I bought it for my brother Andrew in its original French version, then to Blonde Tickler for her birthday, even though it's a bit old for her. It's not a role-playing game per se, but it's pretty close and the perfect game for Halloween. You can play a werewolf, one of its potential victims and/or a series of stock characters (the witch, the little girl, the hunter, etc.) that would easily find their place in an old Hammer movie. If you are a werewolf, your goal is to eat all the villager and survived their wrath. If you are a villager, it is to survive yourself and kill all the werewolves (and not be mistaken as one!) It could really make for the basis of a series of scary stories.

The signs of the werewolf

This is tonight's countdown to Halloween post and is a simple anecdote. A week ago, we went to visit the family of the blonde Tickler. The Tickler was as usual adoring our little Wolfie, spending her time cooing and taking pictures of him. I told her: "I don't know if you have noticed something abour our son. He has hair from birth. He has pointy ears. His mother was never baptised and his father has not been to confession for more than seven years. These signs all point to one thing and we better face it: Wolfie is a werewolf." She laughed. She does not mind of course as she finds werewolves cute. Anyway, it is a new great unknown line.

Black Moon

Apparently, tonight is  a Black Moon, which is apparently a rare lunar event. Again. After the strawberry moon this summer, the blood moon last year, the blue moon when there is one... Well, like blood moon, the Black Moon sounds deliciously sinister. Which has to be a particularly good time for werewolves, or to read stories about them if you are not one or don't have one handy. Even though this is not a full moon, I am sure lycanthropes must change shapes on the night of a Black Moon. And, fittingly enough, tonight will start the official countdown to Halloween, so all the more reason to celebrate the Black Moon rising. And to watch this space, as I will of course blog about Halloween in the upcoming weeks, almost exclusively.