When I was serving on the board of the Joseph Campbell Foundation a number of years ago, I founded and edited the MythBlast essay series; an exploration of myth in contemporary culture. I still occasionally write for them, savoring opportunities to swim in the land of myth, Campbell-style.
Last June, I wrote a piece for MythBlast about Werewolves Within, directed by Josh Ruben. It’s a splendidly off-beat horror-comedy based on the video game Werewolves Within and set in a snowed-in mountain town unraveling under suspicion.
The film was shot at Spillian in early 2020. Production wrapped three days before New York shut down in the face of a global pandemic. The trucks pulled out. Our staff went home under mandate. Coffee mugs sat half-finished on the counter; tools were left where they’d been set down. When everyone returned months later, it was like walking back into a paused scene.
The rental revenue from the production helped carry us through those first uncertain months of the pandemic. The story itself, about a community fraying under pressure, landed differently as the years unfolded.
In 2024, Josh came back to Spillian to host a screening of the film. It was one of the first public showings since its initial release, which had opened while most theaters were closed. The jump scares still work in the rooms where they were filmed, and it was truly wonderful to be laughing at a movie standing next to the guy who made it.
And, to our utter delight, the movie has taken on a life here. Couples have found Spillian because of it. Many more, whether they knew the film first or not, now gather with friends to watch it the night before their weddings. There is something utterly weirdly perfect about watching werewolves move through the house you’re getting married in the next day.
I wrote about all of this for the MythBlast series last June. Here’s part of that essay—
When Werewolves Come to Roost: Healers, Shadows, and the Liminal Magic of Horror-Comedy
I admit, somewhat wryly: I generally avoid horror. I don’t seek out slasher films, and I’d rather skip the books that keep me awake with my heart racing…I get my adrenaline hits elsewhere. But horror with comedy? That’s a different alchemy altogether. There is something fascinating in the juxtaposition, the grotesque sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the ridiculous. When horror and humor converge, something mythic stirs. Precisely in this liminal space, between fear and laughter, I find myself intrigued with the archetype of the Healer.
Horror, of course, is saturated with shadow. Jung’s conception of the shadow self—the disavowed, unconscious aspects of our psyche—resonates deeply in the figure of the werewolf. As half-human, half-beast, the werewolf embodies our repressed instincts, our animal rage, our socially unpalatable desires. And comedy, layered atop horror, often completes the arc. In Werewolves Within, the audience’s laughter becomes ritual. It creates the emotional flexibility necessary to metabolize the fear. The absurdity makes the horror digestible, and in turn opens the door to both the healing horror invites and the release found in laughter.
You can read the full piece here.
And if you heard howling last night, it was almost certainly the wind.
