Happy National Werewolf Day!

A year ago, the following interaction occurred on the r/werewolves subreddit, accompanied by an image of an illustration of a lycanthrope.

MetricVoidArt: Happy National Werewolf Day!

MetaphoricalMars: That’s a thing? Lovely drawing.

Newfoxontheblock: IT IS NOW!

If the Internet says it’s so—it’s real, right? Like werewolves, I suppose. They’re all over the Internet — especially today, February 6, National Werewolf Day.

Of course, I’m celebrating—having directed Werewolf Serenade, the ultimate (read: only) Gen X-themed wolfman rom-com. In the film, we use lycanthropy as an on-the-snout metaphor for the panoply of changes that come with middle age (…and I’m not above leveraging a bogus holiday to reiterate that point for the trickle-down economics of indie film distribution).

It starts with the little things. A weird ache in your back that wasn’t there before. The dawning realization that every band you grew up with is now on a “legacy tour.” Again.

An innocent glance in the mirror turns into an existential staring contest with the face of someone who looks suspiciously like your parents. Then, one night, under the glow of a full moon (or, as likely, the bathroom light in the dead of night), it happens—you catch your reflection at just the right angle and something shifts.

Your jawline? Different. Your posture? Hunched. Eyes? Glowing red—or at last bloodshot but with a hint of simmering rage, exhaustion, and the creeping sense that the world has moved on without you. You feel it, don’t you?

The signs were there all along. The sudden intolerance for small talk, the way your patience thins when someone refers to their job as “content creator,” and the fact that you now make a small, involuntary grunt every time you sit down. Something inside you is waking up—something wild, something feral, something that refuses to go gently into that good night.

And then, of course, there’s the hair. Oh, the hair. Popping up in places you don’t recall authorizing. A reminder that nature, too, has its own sense of humor.

And so, we transform.

The werewolf isn’t just about the horror of losing control—it’s about the inevitability of change. The body you once knew? Gone. The world you understood? Rewritten. Your only choice now is whether you fight or embrace the beast.

That’s where the secret is. The transformation isn’t the curse—the refusal to embrace it is what tortures us. Because if you lean in and accept that you’re not who you were but are growing into something else entirely, you might find a strange kind of freedom in it.

Maybe you don’t have to be the responsible one anymore. Maybe you don’t have to chase the old dreams that never materialized. Maybe—just maybe—you can run wild in the moonlight, revel in the absurdity of it all, and let the world chase you for once.

Because here’s the truth about werewolves and middle age: It’s not about what you’re losing. It’s about what you finally allow yourself to become. Awhooo!