News

It takes a full moon to bring out the werewolves, but Thursday night thousands of rabid fans raced to theatres under the glow of a new moon to catch The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

The impossibly popular Twilight series has been a catalyst for a vampire renaissance in popular culture, with the help of soft-spoken actor Robert Pattinson – who portrays vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight films.

But this time around, the bloodsuckers have lost some of their bite. Most of the hype around New Moon is centred on a new hot-tempered bad boy, werewolf Jacob Black.

Jacob, played by teen heartthrob Taylor Lautner, is set up as a more muscular, protective – and hairier – alternative to Edward. And he's become the poster-wolf for the rise of the feral leading man in films, TV shows and books.

A remake of the 1941 classic The Wolf Man is due out next spring with a hulking Benicio Del Toro in the title role. Numerous young-adult novels and paranormal romances aimed at grown women with titles such as Seducing the Wolf and Lycan Gladiator about werewolf love are set to be published in the coming year.

The untamed beasts are rising up to displace vampires as the cursed men of desire. Since the book Twilight was release in 2005, the entertainment market has been saturated with vampire blood. In turn, publishers and filmmakers have searched for the next hot thing. Enter the underrated werewolf: He's a bad boy, a sex symbol and even a family man. He's to die for.

Barb Karg, author of The Girl's Guide to Werewolves , released in September, says vampires have always been cast in a seductive light, while their howling counterparts were relegated to simply tearing apart their victims in horror movies. Romance didn't really enter the picture until 1981's An American Werewolf in London . More recently, Michael Sheen's long-haired, bearded portrayal of a werewolf in the Underworld series has also sexed-up the beasts, with the most recent in the saga – Rise of the Lycans – released this year.

And while not a classic werewolf per se, Hugh Jackman's chiselled Wolverine abs have gone a long way toward firing up the wolf man passion.

It's enough to make a one long for a full moon.

“One thing that is very endemic to werewolves is that they are a direct reflection of man's inner beast,” Ms. Karg says.

What screenwriters and novelists of late have done is equate that inner beast to the classic rebel character. Instead of leather jackets and tattoos, these hell-raisers are covered in coarse fur.

The strategy has worked on Lynda Chaplin, a 33-year-old Twimom from Edmonton. There's a mystique with vampires, she acknowledges, but it's the bad-boy nature of werewolves that sends her heart racing.

“[It] keeps so many more things alive and going. You never know where that next adventure's going to come from,” she says.

Like Jacob, her husband (ironically named Edward) is the “much more reckless type.”

And she points out that while Edward's (and most vampires') pallid skin and slim frame are often covered in a few layers of clothing, Jacob and other members of the wolf pack have a, well, more primal way of dressing.

“Shirtless men for two hours? Mmmm,” Ms. Chaplin says with a giggle.

Bianca D'Arc, author of Lords of the Were – a titillating paranormal romance novel featuring twin werewolves – also embraces the werewolf as archetype.

She equates vampires to metrosexuals: good-looking, slightly effeminate and sophisticated. Werewolves, on the other hand, are more rugged, old-fashioned and dangerous – like military men, she says.

“They're more earthy, they're more rough and tumble. Men of few words. They're the big, dark and handsome muscular stereotype.”

And women aren't the only ones howling for the wolf men.

Brandon Batstone, an 18-year-old Twilight fan from St. John's, says he finds Jacob's rough-around-the-edges character far more alluring than Edward's excessively sweet one.

“For a gay male I'm just more attracted to the bad boy,” he says. “I think it's the idea of taming the bad-boy character.”

The physicality of the character makes writing love scenes in werewolf romances a breeze, Ms. D'Arc says.

“If you have a character who's very gruff and intimidating, that comes through in the love scenes.” In Lords of the Were , the deed is more aggressive than it is sweet and tender.

The shape-shifting nature of werewolves does present some challenges, however. Does the attraction to the untamed wolf man ever cross the line into bestial?

“For some authors … they get into the man-wolf thing,” says Michele Hauf, who has penned several paranormal romance titles. “I don't get into that in my books. You don't want to cross over any weird boundaries. It's mostly normal sex [with werewolves in human form].”

But these guys probably have hairier chests than their vampire counterparts.

In her book Racing the Moon , the only way a man can fight the transformation to wolf when the full moon is out is by relieving his sexual urges.

Far tamer is Shiver , a young-adult bestseller by Maggie Stiefvater. She strayed from the hulking stereotype and opted to make her werewolf a misunderstood teen.

Instead of a beast “who's going to ravage everyone at the 7-Eleven,” she says, the main character, Sam Ross, is “this emo kid who plays the guitar.”

Her characterization of Sam as a loyal, caring guy has struck a chord with fans, who tell her they want to cuddle with the beast and often sign their fan mail “Mrs. Ross.”

Other authors have also cast werewolves as the devoted type, in stark contrast to vampires.

“The vampires are going to bite any ol' neck they see,” Ms. Hauf says. “If you compare the two, the vampire seems like a colder kind of creature.”

The alpha male wolf protects his pack, which is a metaphor for protecting the family, she says.

“Some kind of relate it to their lives and what they're looking for. The whole protection thing and having a man that takes charge.”

While vampires hold the powers of hypnotic seduction, werewolves have more long-term potential, she says.

“The vampire people, it's like, ‘Yeah, I'd like him to bite me, but it's not like I want to start a family with him.'”

Fur v. fangs

They are both bad boys, but with very different traits. Which do you identify with: The suave playboy with well-coiffed hair, a neck fetish and endless charm, or the bed-headed, hairy-chested one who's wild and hot-tempered, yet strangely comforting?

Vampires

Johnny Depp

Daniel Day-Lewis

Leonardo DiCaprio

Jay-Z

Tobey Maguire

Werewolves

Russell Crowe

Javier Bardem

Hugh Jackman

Gerard Butler

Jake Gyllenhaal