Name Of Book:  The Hunting Season

Author:  Dean Vincent Carter

Book summary:    A young man with a history of coming across a beast that killed his parents, crosses paths accidently with men that have a hit put out on them.  The hitman hired to take those men out, just so happens to be a werewolf, and loves the hell out of his dirty work.  One of the men gets away, with the help of the young man, and the werewolf then has to track them all the way into London, making his last stand at attack in Piccadilly Circus. 

Why it’d make a good horror flick: The first half alone involves the three men and the young man stuck in an abandoned old school theatre hunted by an intelligent and cunning werewolf, that moves with perfect streamline pace and leaves itself open for plenty of great FX moments, especially the vain werewolf taking the time to check himself out in the mirror before having the fun of the hunt.  Plus, with the new Twilight movie helping to bring bucks to a werewolf genre, and the upcoming Wolfman remake, it looks like the werewolf genre is going to be having a surge.  Probably not as huge as the Zombie wave of this decade, but if it’s going to spike at all it’d be nice to have this mostly great werewolf story among the pack.

What needs to stay if made:   What MUST stay if anything, is how vain the werewolf is.  I found it to be incredible that, after the werewolf changes into its “war form” (Garu, bipedal bad ass), it takes the time to check itself out in the mirror, even though it’s been around like that for years and years.  The climax in a Piccadilly Circus museum provides plenty of excellent set uses, especially since it avoids going out into the streets retreading the ending to An American Werewolf In London.  Also needed to be kept: The werewolf jumping back into human form to do his detective work tracking his marks, and accidently going to the wrong apartment while in his Werewolf form, is also an excellent sequence, demonstrating mistakes can be made, and how fast he can think on his feet to get out of a situation.  How to kill a werewolf is an interesting addition to the mythos, letting go of the silver myth in favor of something that kind of makes sense given the background for the specific bloodline (it sounds like certain bloodlines die certain ways).

What should be changed if made:   I can do without the werewolf forming perfect dialogue.  I can swallow it making out words and brief phrases, but it comes off as goofy doing complete sentences so cleanly.  Plus, the “plot twist” is horribly cliché, I had seen it coming chapters before…BUT I WAS JOKING WHEN I PREDICTED IT!   When it happened, all I can think of is how a wonderful werewolf story just got wounded.  It needs to be cut out.  For a visual medium, it won’t work as a “shocking” twist anyway since you get a look at the werewolf in human form anyway.  The hunter that’s been following the werewolf deserves more than just to be there to explain this particular werewolf.  He had such potential to be a bad ass.  The “special task force” police don’t even need to be there.

Who should make it:  Ridley Scott would do brilliant work with this, and I’d like to see him tackle the subgenre.   So what if he’s stuck on doing crime thriller types lately, I think if he’s willing to do a prequel to his Alien film, then he’s got a bug in him to handle a werewolf cat-n-mouse thriller.  Who would star?  Why the ego-centric Russell Crowe would make a fine pissed off vain werewolf.