Have Werewolves Become Boring?

*Points to the title* Is it so? Have werewolves become boring? Beings who transform from human to wolf could never get old, right? Well, it kind of seems like they have. Before you send me hate mail, hear me out…

Sleeping_wolfLately it seems that nearly every werewolf book, movie or show is the same. The same combination, just different names and settings. You have a cursed human who transforms into a ravaging beast on the full moon. That was once an extraordinary story, but now it’s been done to death and it leaves me feeling bored. Yeah, I said it – bored. Every time I pick up a werewolf novel at the bookstore it falls under the lines of something I have already read. Like the girl who tames the ferocious beast in her werewolf lover, the town plagued by a werewolf murdering its citizens, the werewolf battling it out with a vampire, the misunderstood werewolf trying to be a normal human… etc. It’s the same storylines over and over again. I want more.

I want a book or film that isn’t predictable. I am so tired of reading a werewolf novel or watching a werewolf show and finding the entire story predictable.  You don’t want to be able to guess the ending to a story before finishing it. That takes all of the enjoyment out of the tale.

And sure, some writers tweak things by taking out the full moon curse or giving their wolves control. But even that has become overdone and boring.

Do I hate werewolves now? No! I will always love werewolves, but I expect better. I want more than the same tired stories retold over and over again.

What about you? Are you bored with werewolf stories? Or am I being too needy? Do you want to see something that’s actually new and innovative? Let me know in a comment below.

– Moonlight

About the Author
Moonlight (aka Amanda) loves to write about, read about and learn about everything pertaining to werewolves and other supernatural beasties. She writes for top genre sites like Vampires.com and Werewolves.com. You will most likely find her huddled over a book of folklore with coffee in hand. You can stalk her via her Twitter.

 

By moonlight

One of the writers for werewolves.com, as well as vampires.com.

40 comments

  1. Gingersnaps is an awesome werewolf movie!

    Also, have you ever read The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon? It is probably one of the more original works, with a werewolf that goes up against Nazi Germany.

    1. Wow! I love the Wolfs Hour! Thanks for reminding me of that great book. I saw audible has a fully cast audio performance I’m going to buy.

  2. I can agree, but usually it’s hard to try and tweak it to where it works out. There are very few ways to try and change up something that must stick to some sort of plot within the confines of the myth. Werewolves will never die to me, and I try to view it in a different way. Instead of looking at the story for what it is, look into the characters. See how much depth the author gives them. Werewolves will never die to me, and never become boring.

  3. I think they need to make Peter David’s “Howling Mad” into a movie. It is a totally different take on werewolves. I agree with ghoulvanlagersmith about “the Wolf’s Hour”, it was an awesome book! I will be a Werewolf fan ’til I die.

  4. What you think of having more malevolent werewolves like the Howling? like one who was a jerk to begin with like a Gaston or a Cal Hockley.

  5. The ony ones that are boring are the feminized prettyboy werewolves (who can only change into wolves, no hybrid form) that teenage girls drool over. The rough and tough werewolves like in The Howling, Dog Soldiers, Werewolf: The Apocalypse/The Forsaken, Joe Casey’s graphic novel Full Moon Fever etc…THOSE rock.

  6. Well, I agreed with you, I want originality, even though I really enjoy reading or watching wathever that contains werewolves. Why don’t you tried reading the Deviants Saga by Jeff Sampson, it’s very original and amusing.

  7. Check out the Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan or Bitten by Kelly Armstrong. They are a little different from the norm adding a humor and strength that is needed to bring werewolves out this whinney bitch genre they have been forced into.

  8. I totally agree with you, Moonlight. Werewolves in books & movies are boring now: the same plot over and over again.

    The only original werewolf movies I’ve seen are the Ginger Snaps ones – lycanthropy is treated more as a disease than a curse, and your transformation into the beast is slow and permanent. The series compares puberty to lycanthropy – rather cool.

    1. More of a biological condication than a curse is cooler, you can explain why they change at a full moon saying the gravitational pull of the full moon triggers the transformation, if they took a blood test wouldn’t identify strain saying it’s some infection that isn’t in the books.

  9. I think you raise some excellent points. I think werewolves in mainstream culture have become trapped between the simple tortured monster (a la The Wolf Man or American Werewolf in London) and the “it’s all safe” pretty boy of paranormal romance. It’s rare, I think to see the expression of the werewolf as a symbol of our wild natures and our connection with other animals — something, I think, that people have been denying for far too long.
    However, I also think as a society we just don’t believe in them enough to be really scared by them We are too urban. So we’ve replaced the werewolf with the likes of Hannibal Lecter and other serial killers — they are the true wolves in sheep’s clothing nowadays, the monster that could devour us that is in perfect human disguise.
    I asked a similar question to the title of your post on my blog as well, and saw some interesting responses. I think werewolf fans out there ARE looking for the next incarnation of this great monster.
    If I can add my own book recommendations, it would be “Frostbite” and “Overwinter,” both by David Wellington.

  10. They do tend to reuse old plot-lines… I guess werewolves are getting a bit boring. Good thing I’m working on a book that might change that.

  11. There’s already a huge number of responses here, so I’ll drop in my 2 cents worth anyways….

    Werewolves seem to suffer on the silverscreen due to a result of make-up and special effects, so any stories with them usually aren’t that believable or interesting.

    Thanks to the Wolfman and American Werewolf in London, werewolves are also in a rut. They’ve been heavily seen as one dimensional and few variations. One can argue that vampires have become boring too.

    As long as people stick to the bitten by werewolf, full moon – involuntary monster, wolf or wolf-man goes on a killing spree, morning, discover what you are, no memory of the change and rampaging monster. As long as that cycle is stuck in people’s minds, there’s not going to be much variation. Not until an author comes along to really shake up the perceptions or a movie forever alters how these monsters are viewed.

    One site that I go to for a zombie webcomic, commented that even zombies seem to have been making their run and aren’t that popular right now. A comment there was perhaps it’s time to let this cycle end, let the ground lay fallow before someone comes along and begins writing stories or making movies that feel as if they’re a fresh new take on zombies.

  12. I like much of the classic lore of werewolves, but I like to add my own spin on the lore. I don’t think werewolves have become somewhat mundane, but it’s only a matter of time before someone changes up the game. Hopefully it’s me because I’ve been working on my werewolf lore since I was in middle school.

  13. First off, I love experiencing new werewolf stories. That said, there’s a surprising lack of stories that seem to go outside of the prefabricated proverbial box. I myself am a writer and I’m working on my own storyline that involves supernatural creatures and while I would be tempted to say that my plan is to shake things up, I can’t deny certain innevitable truths about the werewolf in fiction. As others have said before me, the werewolf is used as a metaphor for the base instincts that our society has deemed unsuitable or improper in our day and age. The most successful stories played this up and loaded their stories with subtext – the most famous example is Little Red Riding Hood.

    (Spoilers ahead for those who worry about these such things)

    Other successful stories took the monster out of the creature, without neutering it – such as in Dog Soldiers, probably my favourite modern werewolf story to date. In it we spend time investing in the lives of our heroes as they battle creatures in the night, only to find out that they themselves are the intruders in the home of a family of werewolves who hunt together, working like a lupine combat unit. There’s wonderful symmetry at work and at the same time brings up questions of human-kind’s invasive occupation of the land around us. Man versus nature. You are supposed to cheer for the humans, but what if they are in the wrong and morally speaking are the enemy?

    (Spoilers done)

    The issue I find in modern storytelling is that no one tries to have a theme anymore. There is no underlying message and ‘monsters’ are only used for shock value. I don’t mind the derivative stories about the secret beast among us, or taming the beast in others… I just want it to have a point and very few of the modern stories do; and that’s what I think is boring.

  14. Moonlight: I have completed a script for a werewolf film and I would appreciate your opinion. Interested? Contact me at my email address.

  15. Moonlight: No problem… let me know if you find some time this summer and want to check it out. Thanks for the reply!

  16. One great idea for a werewolf movie would be to make John Saul’s: Gaurdian into a movie. It would be perfect because the dad was genetically modified into a werewolf.

  17. The werewolves weren’t the basis, but Hellsing Ultimate was really cool. An anime, but not cheesy. It was about Integra Hellsing, a descendant of Van Helsing, who used her two vampires, Alucard and Seras, to try and stop a zombie apocalypse that some Nazis started, and there are two cool werewolf Nazis, one being Hans Wolfman and the other Schrodinger. Schrodinger was more of a personified thought and could only stay real when imagining himself that way, and Hans was a couple hundred years old I guess and was the toughest they had.

  18. They’ve become boring because werewolves aren’t werewolves anymore. What happened to the immortal badasses that were indestructible Full moon hours or just when they transformed while even in human form had superhuman senses, strength and stamina? now there just pansy ass shapeshifters who all they do is looking for a mate and getting their Fury ass handed to them by vampires and are only born that way. How any person can call these werewolves is disgusting…

    1. Werewolves were never immortal. Get over yourself Read a book on folklore. The original werewolves of lore could be killed.

  19. Bertrand has a point. So many werewolf fandoms nowadays just feel so fake, like the writers are exaggerating and stretching out something that’s perfectly fine – beautiful, in fact – as it already is just to get more readers/viewers. As much as I love Teen Wolf and Wolfblood – mostly because of the hotness of the actors – I have to say that it would be really nice to read/watch a werewolf story/tv show/movie that feels more real.

  20. I never really was in werewolf thing but if I can give you any advice you may want to watch this one : Wolf Guy. It’s a manga. It’s awesome. You can download it online if you don’t want to buy the books. I guarantie you’ve never seen anything like it before.

    Actually, speaking of it makes me want to read it another time.

    Good luck sleeping…

  21. If there are any writers on this site I’d like to see a werewolf book where the person is trying to live their life as a normal WOLF, we see to much of the sad werewolf trying to stay with family and loved ones, so this would be a nice change

  22. I don’t get the fascination that popular culture has over vampires and werewolves. To me the entire genre of supernatural creatures has been done to death and totally boring. Zombies are over done too. Can’t we think of something new?

  23. It’s not that werewolves themselves are boring. It’s that any time you have something good, you have hordes of people who know nothing about the genre and rushing over to try and cash in on the idea. Once something is set in a high school setting, with everyone’s sex hormones pumped to the max, you will have a winner on your hands. Teens just lap up the formula. The werewolve / vampire / whatever becomes the backdrop of the story instead. The good stuff gets crowded out by these cheap imitations.

  24. I’m trying to write a original book. Two werewolf sisters who lose control on full moons hate each over and have to work together

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