Vampires, Werewolves, and the Recession

Well this looks promising: a contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves set against the backdrop of the financial crisis in Italy. Literally, every part of that description thrills me to the core.

I mean sure, this does continue the trend of representing vampires and werewolves as mortal enemies but this time in the guise of star-crossed lovers. Something which we haven’t seen since, well, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009). And was I the only person who saw something rather homosocial between Jacob and Edward? (Jacob ends up with mini-Edward in female form for frick’s sake).

But it is interesting to note that our favourite working-class monsters, the lycanthropes, will be transformed into hot-headed financial traders whilst the vampires remain aristocratic and representing old money. I look forward to seeing if this film draws on the symbolism of Wolf (1994) and The Wolves of Wall Street (2002) in connecting lycanthropy, masculinity and excessive risk-taking with business hierarchy and dominance. (Heather Schell has written an interesting paper on this which introduces some ideas regarding our obsession with cultural evolution, werewolves and ‘real’ men). Seems likely there will a be couple of good puns on the term ‘alpha’.

Hopefully, there will be just the right mix of heartbreak, horror and genre-awareness to make this a good addition to monster films. Fingers crossed.

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