It’s my favorite time of the year and I’m counting down the days to Halloween by celebrating the season’s favorite characters and topics with fun facts and trivia. Today’s monster du jour: werewolves!
5) Jacob Black’s Long Lost Ancestor
Nearly 100 years before Stephenie Meyer introduced werewolf hunk Jacob Black, “The Werewolf” featured film’s very first. The silent movie from 1913 was based on a short story of the same name by Henry Beaugrand. Don’t bother looking for the film on Netflix. All copies of it were apparently destroyed by fire in 1924.
4) Werewolf: Human, Animal, or Both?
Rising in popularity as characters in Gothic horror tales of the 19th century, werewolves symbolized the internal struggle between humanity’s socially expected proper behavior and its raw, animalistic urges and innate dark tendencies. These creatures represented the human clash between good and evil. Interestingly, the werewolf wasn’t the only monster making waves in the Victorian era. Also collecting fans at this time were Mary Shelley’s monster of Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both were similar in nature to the dual personality of the werewolf.
3) The Hollywood Obsession 
Making headlines throughout the 19th century, it’s no surprise that werewolves made the jump from literature to the big screen with the dawn of motion pictures. According to werewolf-movies.com, about 265 movies were released between 1913 and 2010 which include werewolves of one kind or another. Check out one or two of these flicks for Halloween. (Werewolf-movies.com List or Wikipedia Werewolf Movie List)
2) The Father of Werewolves
They had to come from somewhere. One of the earliest stories of werewolves comes from a Greek tale of a man named Lycaon who angered Zeus. Apparently everyone but Lycaon knew that you don’t pick a fight with the head god who ended up changing him and his sons into wolves. Whether legend or supernatural mystery, lycanthropy, the transformation of a human into a wolf, has been reported by many cultures worldwide for thousands of years.
1) Fact or Fiction: Are Werewolves Real?
Yes, they are! Well, sort of. Werewolf Syndrome, also known as hypertrichosis, is an extremely rare condition which causes hair to grow all over the body. I’m not talking about your average guy with a hairy back or a Santa Claus-like beard. Hypertrichosis causes excessive hair growth over parts of one’s body and sometimes all over. There are four types of hypertrichosis, none of which are contagious.
· Localized Congenital Hypertrichosis – Excess hair is typically restricted to specific sites on the body and is sometimes caused by neural abnormalities, diabetes, or AIDS.
· Localized Acquired Hypertrichosis – Injuries such as irritation, inflammation, or trauma can result in hypertrichosis over an affected area.
· Generalized Congenital Hypertrichosis – This type is both rare and inherited. Typically, a baby never loses the fine hairs which grow all over his/her body in utero. Over time, the hair growth tends to affect the face, ears, and shoulders.
· Generalized Acquired Hypertrichosis – The intake of certain drugs such as phenytoin, cyclosporine A, and minoxidil lead to the onset of this version of hypertrichosis. Usually, the condition disappears if an individual stops taking these drugs. In other instances, some individuals suffering from one of the strains of Porphyria may develop hypertrichosis after exposure to/treatment with hexachlorobenzene. Imagine suffering from both Werewolf & Vampire Syndromes! (More on vampires in Friday’s article…)
While the acquired forms of this disease are treatable, solutions such as shaving, laser removal and electrolysis provide only temporary relief to those suffering from congenital hypertrichosis.
So, if you see a “werewolf,” be kind, don’t stare or judge. They’re normal people. The full moon’s affect on them is no different than its impact on the rest of us. We’re all a little crazy and different sometimes.
Resources:
1) “The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead” by J. Gordon Melton
2) Hypertrichosis / Werewolf Syndrome - a) Telegraph.co.uk b) http://www.hypertrichosis.com/
3) Hypertrichosis / Porphyrias
4) Pictures from top: a) Twilight "New Moon" picture - http://twilight-the-movie-new-moon-cast.blogspot.com b) Lon Chaney as "The Wolf Man" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034398/ c) Michael J. Fox in "Teen Wolf" - http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00025147.html d) "Werewolf Boy" article at Telegraph.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment