Is Creature Feature Classics 1: Lycanthropy Worth Your Bite

Is Creature Feature Classics 1: Lycanthropy Worth Your Bite

Snake Bite Books (www.snakebitebooks.com) is likely a press not many are familiar with, myself included until I read this anthology – since this is their first ever release! With that in mind, it’s a nice, if familiar place to start, as it looks to be the first in a series of horror anthologies which focus around creatures we all know and love, this time the subject being werewolves. 

These were my favourites.

When coming up with his next Dalek adventure, it’s said that Terry Nation would simply add or subtract an element of the narrative’s DNA and observed what would happen: what if they were invisible? What if the story was cold and calculating as opposed to bombastic and destructive? What if the setting was Earth?

What if they possessed time travel? What if they couldn’t kill? In this collection, both Nora Studholme and Kayleigh Dobbs seem to have taken such a route with their stories ‘A Dark Place to Hide’ and ‘Liar’. In both cases, they switch up the format rather than the werewolves themselves, the former asking what if a child were a werewolf and in the latter case, asking what if the end justified the means and supplanting that through a “Lycan” POV.

In both instances you get too extraordinarily heartfelt stories, and while neither are exactly the pinnacle of the anthology’s offerings, what’s undeniable is that they plumb some very dark depths to answer their questions and so should you want your werewolves to deliver an ethical bite as opposed to the sharp-fanged kind, these two stories must indubitably be your initial port of call. 

‘The Last Grunge Fan’ by Stephen Loaconi is the nearest thing the anthology has to comedy, telling a werewolf tale through product placement and paragraphs straight out of a newsletter. Something here struck me as reminiscent of the final few minutes of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (or the opening of DAWN OF THE DEAD) but with werewolves, a glib social and media critique being the vehicle for an altogether grislier horror.

Loaconi’s take is one of the anthology’s shortest, but a lesser duration doesn’t mean a lesser quality. His prose on one level manifests as you’d expect from a doom scrolling, urban legend romp; on another it hides a relatively serrated edge beneath its unassuming exterior. Although its length suits the narrative it’s telling excellently, of all the stories here his is the prose which I could have most happily read swathes more of.

Tom Folske contributes ‘The Monster of Moon River’, an endearing and fable-like narrative laced with alcoholism, baffled detectives, and suburban disruption.

A Minnesotan Werewolf in Trailer Park Suburbia, rather than a general American one in London. It’s an emotional story in that you’re deeply sympathetic towards every character, from Spike – the canine companion – to his mistress Kimmy – the teenage heroine – to Mrs. Abiline Rutherford, dead before the story even starts.

The premise is a simple and direct one, but it holds itself up for the duration without ever appearing tired or over-stretched. The viewpoint of a character on the cusp of the age of innocence also adds an extra dimension to proceedings, never emotional enough that the action is dampened or the gravity of events reduced while always being fantastical enough that it has a winsome, enhanced quality without giving the impression it is divorced from reality.

Penultimately, ‘Wolves Only Come Out at Night’ worked in a way I didn’t expect and author Davey Cobb is meticulous in how certain aspects translate into your mind’s eye, his story some hybrid of a Western and a dark fantasy.

It’s much stronger on plot than it is on character, as some of the characters blend into set dressing, yet the way it manifests the fantasy elements works very well, the mood and assiduity seeming like some prototypical adjunct to Stephen King’s ‘The Gunslinger’. What’s most surprising though is how much it benefits from being underplayed rather than overt, since you expect a lot of over-the-top images and melodrama and instead get served on a platter (no doubt by the creepy bartender from King’s ‘The Shining’) a set of elements which turn out to be very sly.

When anthologies are united by a solid facet, like a specific monster or setting as opposed to a subgenre or theme or unique premise, there’s a mild tendency for the stories to blur together like a slurry of ideas feeding into and off one another – and that runs the risk of being quite taxing. The last story which really impressed me was ‘Rabbits’ by Sarah Pratt, strongly in part because it proves how even a familiar idea can be made as fresh as the blood dripping from a werewolf’s fang.

The premise is not unique, nor are the characters, nor is the eventual end point – but it’s executed as if it’s some domiciliary drama, almost a romance with the gnawing feeling that something’s wrong. Half the fun of it also comes from the fact you know its trajectory; Pratt understands exactly that fundamentally you have the upper hand on the characters you’re reading and in turn is wise enough to let the emotions lead instead, seemingly pushing the thread linking it all together into being a subplot until it can cause the optimal gut-punch. 

Because I’m a bit of a grumpy sod, something which irritates me when I read anthologies – and I’ve made this point in other reviews – is editors contributing to their own anthologies. Yes, there are exceptional circumstances which sometimes require it and I’ll admit that the editor often writes an excellent story; my protest is not based on dislike of the quality. But I find it looks like the editor hasn’t the confidence in their authors or are promoting some kind of vanity project. 

I’m glad to say this is mostly not the case with Annie Knox then, whose story ‘Mister Reaper’ in Elemental Forces (Ed. Mark Morris) made my personal top 10 short fiction list of 2024.

While it isn’t the best of the bunch, it’s an engaging story, it carries the same seriousness which she describes in her introduction, and the characterisation – of people in the boxing world – comes across as infinitely understandable despite the rather niche points of connection the reader will likely have with said characters. I will say though that maybe read the story last, as having it as the opening story does rather feed into my aforementioned theory of editor vanity – and I honestly don’t believe that’s what Knox is doing, it just seems like a rather awkward editorial decision.

Overall then, it’s a nice first crack of the whip for a fledgling editor and press, and I could see this being an excellent bolster to the UK horror indie press’ numbers. It might not have the outright audacity or know its precise oeuvre yet, but at least here, as far as anthologies about werewolves are concerned, it keeps them scary and overall is manages to be a nice tonic to the “high school teenager” concept which – although containing good examples (Oz, from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or Enid, from WEDNESDAY, for instance) – has plagued this lupine beast for a little too long.

Awoooo!   

Creature Feature Classics: Lycanthropy: 1 by Annie Knox

Snake Bite Books presents Creature Feature Classics #1: Lycanthropy.

The first in an anthological series exploring some of the greatest monsters in horror history. Featuring an array of stories from an array of wonderful authors, Lycanthropy takes you from a boxer battling a mysterious transformation before his debut fight, to a woman desperately shielding her children from hunters, to a high school theatre production being rudely interrupted by a clawed creature slashing its way through the set design.

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