Legend of the Werewolf By Robert Black

Legend of the Werewolf
By Robert Black
Based on a screenplay by John Elder
1976 Sphere Books
Paperback, 158 pages

                                                 

                As a Peter Cushing fanatic, I have long been a fan of Tyburn Studio’s Legend of the Werewolf (1975). I am the proud owner of the kick-ass one sheet poster and as I wait for Tyburn’s Kevin Francis to become less insane about licensing the title for Blu Ray release, I wanted to revisit the story via the novelization. While Les Edwards’ amazing cover is enough to make me open my wallet, I wondered if Robert Black’s (Robert Holdstock, 1948-2009) adaptation of John Elder’s (Anthony Hinds, 1922-2013) screenplay would do the film justice. I need not have worried. Even though “Elder’s” name isn’t on the cover or title page, “Black” follows the script to a T and does so with excellent, descriptive and often eloquent prose.

 

                If you’ve seen the film (and you should seek it out if you haven’t), you know the plot. Etoile is a young man who was raised by wolves who joins a traveling circus and then winds up in Paris. He finds work with crusty old Duvic, a sleazy zookeeper who gives Etoile a place to live and a tiny bit of money for his services. While there, Etoile meets Christine and becomes smitten, not knowing she’s a prostitute. When he does discover her line of work, the men who see her wind up shredded. Morgue doctor Cataflanque (the Cushing character) starts looking into what is making Christine’s clients become his clients despite the police’s warnings to back off the case. Meanwhile, Etoile is obviously conflicted for many reasons, as is Christine.

 

                As noted, the novel follows the script quite closely, but Black fills in a lot of background detail and employs many colorful descriptions to make this much more than a carbon copy. Cataflanque’s detective work is very exciting despite the reader knowing a werewolf is at large. The scenes in the bordello are perfectly elegant and sleazy and provide a welcome sense of humor while Cataflanque investigates. It was easy to read that character as played by Cushing and that made my experience with the book that much better. The written gore is plentiful and the suspenseful ending is a rip-roaring good time. This is one novelization that gets it just right and I recommend it howlingly!

 

                Now, Mr. Francis… don’t be a putz. Get this film out on home media soon. My creaky old VHS tape wants to retire.

                                   

                                                            My one-sheet from the film.

The Howling By Gary Brandner

The Howling
By Gary Brandner
1977 Fawcett
Paperback, 223 pages

Yes, we’ve all seen the movie The Howling (Joe Dante, 1981) but who has read the source material? I never had, so I thought it was about time to correct that. If you plan to take a first read of this novel, do yourself a favor and forget the movie completely. John Sayles’ script for the film bears almost no resemblance to this book. I can’t imagine what the folks who bought this after seeing the film thought of it, especially Fawcett’s reprint with the movie poster art.

 

Karyn and Roy Beatty are the perfect California couple; blonde, wealthy and happy, with a little bun in the oven. All is well until Karyn is sexually assaulted in her home and she loses the baby and, obviously, develops some serious post-trauma problems. Loving Roy rents a place far enough away from Los Angeles, in the town of Drago, to help his wife recover in relative safety. The tiny town is peculiar, but Karyn tries to make the best of it. The Beatty’s sex life is in shambles, though, as you might imagine. Roy, who is a scumbag after all, soon succumbs to the dark charms of Marsha, a shop owner in town. Meanwhile, Karyn keeps on hearing… something howling.

 

Sure that it is a wolf she is hearing, she orders a stack of books from a neighboring town’s library, and they are delivered to her by Inez, a woman who knows quite a bit about wolves and, more importantly, werewolves. Could someone in town actually be a werewolf? Eventually, Karyn shoots at a wolf-like figure in her yard and blows off its ear. Seems like it should be easy to figure out who is a werewolf now, but the long list of suspects and the speed at which werewolves heal are two things that make the investigation difficult. And Roy is no help because he’s getting laid on the side and feeling quite canid himself.

 

The book is slathered with plenty of gore, attacks and sex. The rape scene is particularly rough and, of course, hiding away the victim and keeping her drugged might not be the best treatment. Karyn’s isolation is well established; she doesn’t drive, it’s a two mile walk into town, and Roy isn’t any help after he goes Marsha-crazy. Karyn and Inez are a team worth rooting for.

 

Brandner was back with two sequels to this one with The Howling II (1978) and The Howling III (1985) (both Fawcett), the first of which continues this storyline. The third entry goes back to the olden days. A film was eventually made that was closer to this first book, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (John Hough, 1988). The British editions of the three books, all published by Hamlyn, have great covers and different titles for the two sequels; The Return of the Howling and The Howling III Echoes.

             Hamlyn's 1978 edition                                                      Hamlyn's 1983 movie tie-in

                                                                           

The Wolfen By Whitley Strieber

The Wolfen
By Whitley Strieber
1979 Bantam Books
Paperback, 275 pages

                This is another one of those classic horror books that I’ve seen the movie of, but I never got around to reading. I took the bait recently when I found two different copies in thrift stores. I bought them both, if only to assure myself that I had to read it. Well, I did and I’m glad. It is pretty great.

 

                Two cops are found mutilated in a remote autobody yard in New York. The city’s finest homicide detectives are put on the case; George Wilson, an older, slovenly, misogynistic, racist curmudgeon who makes up for his lack of social skills with a keen detective’s eye, and Becky Neff, a young but proven cop. This odd couple has the unenvious job of trying to figure out who or what killed these two. The bodies look eaten. There are paw prints. Dogs? Could there have been wolves? Werewolves?

 

                The bodies keep piling up and the duo are starting to lean towards the latter, even though they know such things don’t exist. But something is out there, and they are as smart as man, stealthy and incredibly fast. Ferguson, a doctor at the Museum of Natural History is starting to believe them. He has extrapolated what they might look like from a plaster cast of a pawprint. The Medical Examiner is also on board. But how could it be?

 

                Strieber’s werewolf history works for me here. These canids have been around for a long time and yes, the werewolf legends probably derived from them. But they are so stealthy, and they cover their tracks so well that they have gone almost unnoticed for thousands of years. Passages of the book are told from the Wolfen’s point of view, so we understand a lot about their intelligence and the laws of the pack. I buy it implicitly. This species is so smart, they think of wolves as vacant and dumb. And they know that they have to find and remove the two detectives who could reveal their secret.

 

                Everybody has an opinion on older books and this one gets slammed for being misogynistic. Yes, Wilson certainly is. He’s an old-fashioned dope, but Neff is such a strong and capable character that to me, she erases any negativity that the reader might (incorrectly) surmise. In fact, not mentioned in any of the dozens of online reviews that I compared my own thoughts to, is that Wilson and Neff’s relationship changes and corresponds with that of the leaders of the Wolfen pack that is terrorizing New York. (Though Wilson’s revelation of his romantic love for his partner is unneeded.)

 

                The book blows the movie away. The movie could never touch on the inner working of the Wolfen mind, nor could it have survived with the police procedural layout of the book. The film (Michael Wadleigh, 1981) added in extraneous bullshit that takes the souls of the Wolfen away, and that’s one of the book’s most relevant aspects. Good movie, excellent book.

Bestial By Ray Garton

Bestial
By Ray Garton
2009 Leisure Books
Paperback, 339 pages

                Bestial is Garton’s sequel to 2008’s Ravenous (reviewed in Midnight #9) but there’s more to it than that. Martin Burgess hires Investigators Karen Moffett and Gavin Keoph to look into the werewolf rumors he’d heard about in Big Rock, California. Those three characters are returning from Garton’s Night Life (2005) which was a sequel to his successful vampire novel Live Girls (1987). Got that? It doesn’t really matter if you have read any of the previous books; Bestial is self-contained and any references to the earlier works are easy to follow.

 

                So, the rumors are true; there is werewolf activity in Big Rock, and Burgess’s previous investigator has disappeared. Karen and Gavin know how tough their job is. As they begin to believe what we already know, we get treated to a pure werewolf birth. It gets fed a human baby to munch on upon it’s emergence into the world. Yes, there is plenty of graphic gore here and that scene is in the prologue! And, of course, as in Ravenous, werewolf-ism is spread by sexual activity. Lots of fucking and gore ensues.

 

                The main thrust (you’re welcome) of this one is to start a new race of pure werewolves and take over the law and the church in town and grow their new race. I’ll admit that there were a few too many characters that I had to juggle with as I struggled with the small and tight typeface, but it all became crystal clear in an epic scene in a hospital emergency room as a second wolf kid is born. After that, I knew everybody and couldn’t put the book down. The ER slaughter is a magnificent segment of the novel that works up some beautiful bursting visions of horror. The characters are all fleshed out enough to make you care one way or another, and their situations become very important to the reader.

 

                The ending is another explosive and exciting scene that kept me on the edge of my… well, pillow, I guess, since I usually read in bed. For my money, this sequel is better than the original book. There is ample room for a sequel to this but since Garton sadly passed away in 2024 (he was younger than me… not fair!), we’ll never get it.

Wolf Tracks By David Case

Wolf Tracks
By David Case
1980 Belmont Tower
Paperback, 240 pages

                That sounds like some kick-ass ice cream! But no, it’s David Case’s second horror novel, written ten years after his first, Fengriffin: A Chilling Tale. That book was made into a great Amicus film, And Now the Screaming Starts (Roy Ward Baker, 1973) starring Peter Cushing. I haven’t yet read that book, but it has plenty of positive online reviews. I wonder what happened during those ten years to make the quality of Case’s writing dip so deep.

 

                There is a string of murders in Toronto. The victims are bitten and ripped up but not eaten. Wolf and human saliva are found in the wounds. Eyewitness accounts are uneven. A huge man, not a man at all, a hulking hairy humanoid. It sure sounds like a werewolf to me. Detectives Greene and the laughably virile and stuck-up La Roche are on the case. Greene sees Cronski, an expert on wolves, who tells him it is not a werewolf, but it might be a wolfman.

 

                Meanwhile, American Harland James is in Toronto to visit his draft-dodging son Paul, hoping to rekindle their relationship. Paul was having girl trouble with his live-in girlfriend Sheila. She is a free-thinking hippy. In 1980. There are a number of hippies in this book. In 1980. OK. Anyway, the father and son hang out and things turn worse when Sheila becomes a victim of the killer.

 

                The book has a handful of side characters who are far more interesting than the leads. Barfly Wash, the ex-boxer, who is called the N-word later in the book for absolutely no story-telling reason, Ike, the legless eyewitness, Gus the bartender and Cronski, the only female with a brain in the book. In fact, it became quite obvious that Case is not a fan of women. La Roche’s wife is a childish idiot and the victims are all boneheaded tarts or prostitutes. Even a female cop on duty (undercover as a hippy…) thinks she might have rather been a whore or go-go girl. That shit makes me bristle. Like a wolfman.

 

                More because of the fact that this was a Belmont Tower release than any ineptitude on the author’s part, there are dozens of misspellings and wrong words throughout the text. Proof-read much? Evidently, in the recent Valencourt reprint, the errors are still present. I find when editing is this poor, it is part of the fun of old, shitty books. So, yes… I did read this quickly despite its flaws, and there are many. As a horror book it fails and as a detective novel, it’s pretty darn easy to know whodunnit early on. But the book has a lovely R.S. Brown cover painting of Lon Chaney Jr., and you do get this bit of dialog…

 

                “She was lying in a pile of cheese sandwiches, Steve. Goddamn cheese sandwiches.”

Werewolf by Moonlight By Guy N. Smith

Werewolf by Moonlight
By Guy N. Smith
1974 New English Library
Paperback, 110 pages

                     

                  NEL 1974, artwork by Lucinda Cowell                             BHB 2024 artwork by Mike McGee

    This landmark novel is a short, quick read that isn’t perfect but satisfies on so many levels. The very first published horror novel by The Master, Guy N. Smith, this book was originally written when a friend told the author that NEL was looking for a werewolf novel to publish. Guy sent them an outline; it was accepted, and the rest is history. He wrote this in three weeks, and he didn’t stop going until his death 56 years later.

    A neighbor’s new dog (of a mysterious breed) bites Philip Owen on the leg. They then develop an odd kinship and Philip starts getting strong sexual urges for the women in town. So does journalist Gordon Hall, who is bonking a village wife. Philip’s urges become more than sexual; he starts to feel outright bloodlust, so he eats a few sheep. Then a girl. The town and Scotland Yard blame the dog and put it down but when the next full moon arises, they still have the problem. Just what is responsible for the savage killings?

    OK, most of these characters are thin, but the narrative is strengthened by having the setting a very familiar one to Smith. He utilizes the small town and its surrounding hills to great effect. Hall seems to be GNS himself, with a few extra eccentricities (like adultery!). He’s a writer, a hunter, smokes a pipe and is a hero. There is never any question to the reader that Philip is the werewolf. We are with him during his changes and his kills. We live through his confusion and torment, together with him. No other characters in the book make a huge impression, save maybe Peter Pike, a leather-jacketed interloper that becomes a red-herring to the police for the murder of a girl he was seeing. Nope, we know the werewolf did it!

    Being Guy’s maiden voyage in novel writing, there are a few problems, but nothing that deter the reader from having a grand old time. The wad of bloody clothes that Philip hides under his bed seem to live in a timeline of their own, and a gratuitous decapitation by electric saw is only there for us gorehounds, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!

    Fast moving and loads of fun, this is a wonderful introduction to the horror world of Guy N. Smith, one of the most important voices in the genre over the last 100 years. This is the first book in his werewolf trilogy, followed by Return of the Werewolf and Son of the Werewolf. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. It’s also on Kindle for you freaks that like that sort of thing. Best of all, Black Hill Books have recently reprinted this title so you can forget about all of those expensive originals. The Mike McGee cover captures the spirit of the novel perfectly!

The Son of the Werewolf by Guy N. Smith

The Son of the Werewolf

by Guy N. Smith
1978 New English Library
Paperback, 124 pages

                The end of The Return of the Werewolf lets you know that this one was forthcoming, and it does not disappoint. At 124 pages, there is no time to be anything but a fast-paced page turner to be devoured in an afternoon.

 

                Margaret Gunn, pregnant after an assault from the baddie from the previous book, gives birth to Hugh, an ugly baby whose third finger on each hand was longer than the rest. A sure sign of a werewolf. He is an outcast, hated in school and in the town and he likes it that way. And then he committed a murder and was jailed. It was while incarcerated that he discovered his own secret, his lycanthropy.

 

                After his release, the book follows ugly Hugh as he leaves his home and goes out on a blood-drenched road trip. GNS gives us what we all love in his books; blood, guts and some “oh no he wouldn’t” sexual situations. Gordon Hall returns from the previous books and tells us some legends that come in handy for the denouement of the book. He also gives us some words to live by… “You can never be sure of anything where werewolves are concerned”. Indeed not. Cover art by Bill Francis Phillips.

 

                This book ends the trilogy that started with Werewolf by Moonlight. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. As the original New English Library books have become pretty expensive, the Omnibus seems like a pretty good way to go if you want to read these. And you should read these.

Update: Black Hill Books have recently reprinted this title with a killer Mike McGee cover, so you can forget about all of those expensive originals. 

Black Hill Books, 2025

Cover art by Mike McGee.

Return of the Werewolf By Guy N. Smith

 

Return of the Werewolf
By Guy N. Smith
1977 New English Library
Paperback, 112 pages

 

                This slim tome is the sequel to the Master’s (also slim) debut horror novel Werewolf by Moonlight, which was originally published by NEL in 1974. In between the two books, he wrote some classics like The Sucking Pit and the first Crabs novel. He’d also penned a couple of Walt Disney movie novelizations. Go figure!

 

                This one picks up a year after Werewolf by Moonlight ends, with the body of the wolfman being stolen from its grave. (I’ll try to not spoil either book.) And, of course, it’s not too long before the grisly murders start up again on Black Hill. Some eyewitnesses swear they saw a werewolf, too. The story plays out as a Whodunit, with possible suspects and red herrings on every page.

 

                The cast from the first book is back (or dead and disinterred) and if you haven’t read the first book yet, Smith makes it easy to know who’s who and what they were up to in the previous novel. Of course, you will spoil the mystery of the first book by reading this one first, but who cares? This sequel is a lot less gory and has less sexual situations than its predecessor, but it is still a satisfying page turner. It’s too short to be any other way! Cover art by Bill Francis Phillips.

 

                The fur was flying again a year later when Smith unleashed Son of the Werewolf (1978), completing the trilogy. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. It’s also on Kindle for you freaks. Best of all, Black Hill Books have recently reprinted this title with a Mike McGee cover, so you can forget about all of those expensive originals. 

Black Hill Books, 2025

Cover art by Mike McGee

Wolfcurse By Guy N. Smith

 

Wolfcurse
By Guy N. Smith
New English Library, 1981
Paperback, 176 pages

 

                This is one of my favorite non-Crab books by Guy N. Smith. Everything works. It’s a fresh idea and Smith barrels into it and doesn’t let up until the last sentence. The entire book follows the main character’s actions as his life falls into chaos.

 

                Ray Tyler is a milquetoast; a henpecked banker who is suddenly going through some changes. After beating up a trio of young thugs, he starts standing up to his wife, his neighbors, and his boss. In fact, he starts turning into a really violent asshole. A murderous asshole. He thinks he might be turning into a werewolf, thanks to a book on Folklore that he had recently purchased. Surely that would explain his sudden, violent bloodlust and overcharged sex-drive.

 

                GNS never really tips his hand as to whether Tyler really is a werewolf or if it is all in his head and that is part of what makes this book so readable. Stone cold crazy or bloodthirsty werewolf? He doesn’t skimp on the gore or sexual violence. In fact, the rape scenes are very vivid and made me squirm quite a lot. Not pleasant in the least. That is to say, very real and scary.

 

                This is GNS at his very best. The cover painting of the New English Library paperback is of a werewolf who is a dead ringer for Paul Naschy’s Waldemar Daninsky, too! This book gets my highest recommendation.

Quarrel with the Moon By J.C. Conaway

 

Quarrel with the Moon
By J.C. Conaway
1982 Tor Books
Paperback, 319 pages

 

What a pretentious fucking title for a werewolf novel! But despite a few overly florid passages, the prose doesn’t get too purple in this book and it’s really pretty darn good.

An anthropologist and his fashion model girlfriend (!) travel to the mountains of West Virginia, he to study some human-like bones found at a dig and she to try to rekindle their troubled relationship. But ol’ Josh, the anthropologist, grew up on that there mountain and it is a kind of homecoming for him as well. Naturally, their relationship doesn’t improve with all of his kin in the way, and his kin are weird, and a little deformed. ..and a little hairy. And then there are the bloody murders.

It should be noted that Josh and Cresta, the model, are both pretty shitty people and it’s hard to root for or feel bad for either of them. In fact, only Josh’s Aunt Avvie has a decent soul. But this is a horror novel, and we only want blood, guts and incestuous family relations, and there is plenty of that to go around.  It’s kind of a long book but it reads quickly and doesn’t get boring, even when the characters do incredibly dumb and frustrating things. There are plenty of twists and reveals along the way to keep you pleasantly satisfied.

                It’s pretty easy to guess some of what is going to happen, but Conaway (who seems to be primarily a romance author) keeps it moving at a good pace and writes well enough for you to admire the story’s construction and telling. And some of it gets batshit crazy, pushing this one into “recommended” territory.

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Ravenous By Ray Garton

 

Ravenous
By Ray Garton
2008 Leisure Books
Paperback, 342 pages

 

Another longer, newer horror novel! What has gotten into me? I discovered this title on somebody’s “nature-strikes-back” list. I looked it up and noticed that it didn’t exactly fit the bill; it is a werewolf novel. Still, it looked pretty good, so I found a copy and took a chance. And I’m extremely glad I did. This book is great.

 

The town of Big Rock has a bit of a problem. Unbelievably, there is a werewolf problem. A mysterious stranger seems to have all of the info, but the town sheriff doesn’t know what to believe. But there’s no other rational explanation for the bloody deaths and shape-shifting bodies he encounters. Pathologists and eye-witnesses say wolf… an upright wolf-like creature.

 

Unlike in the movies, lycanthropy is spread via sexual contact in Ravenous. Big Rock has no shortage of philandering husbands, rapists and horny housewives, so the disease is quick to take hold and threaten everyone in town. The characters are varied and believable, the story starts with a bang and never lets up and the blood flows freely. Garton reinvents the werewolf story and makes it all credible. I really can’t recommend this one enough.

 

Garton followed this up with a sequel, Bestial, the next year. In 2021, Ravenous was reissued by Gauntlet Press as a signed, limited edition, boutique release. I’m saving my pennies.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #9, March, 2022.

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