When Werewolves Come to Roost: Healers, Shadows, and the Liminal Magic of Horror-Comedy

Leigh Melander, PhD
Jun 29
5 min read

Werewolves Within (2021) — *Werewolves Within* (2021)

The alchemy of horror and comedy

I admit, somewhat wryly: I generally avoid horror. I don’t seek out slasher films, and I’d rather skip the books that keep me awake with my heart racing—I get my adrenaline hits elsewhere. But horror with comedy? That’s a different alchemy altogether. There is something fascinating in the juxtaposition—the grotesque sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the ridiculous. When horror and humor converge, something mythic stirs. Precisely in this liminal space—between fear and laughter—I find myself intrigued with the archetype of the Healer.

An unlikely hero

Director Josh Ruben’s film Werewolves Within, based on Ubisoft’s video game, became, unexpectedly, a personal and archetypal touchstone for me. Set in a snowed-in mountain town wracked with suspicion, the story pivots not on the werewolf itself but on the psychological unraveling of a community under pressure. At its core is Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson), a conflict-averse, painfully polite forest ranger. He arrives with no sword, no bravado, and no desire to dominate. He listens. He mediates. He believes—almost foolishly—in kindness. And this insistence on decency, absurd as it may appear amid violence and mistrust, situates him within the archetype of the Healer.

Finn’s trajectory evokes Campbell’s hero’s journey, but with an essential inversion. His heroic arc is presence over conquest. He doesn’t actually slay the monster, but instead holds ground for human decency amidst fracture (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 210). This is the healer-hero—what C.G. Jung identified in psychological terms as the Wounded Healer archetype, wherein one’s vulnerability becomes the conduit for transformation (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 20). Finn’s awkwardness, his persistent hopefulness, allows him to mirror back the townspeople’s fear without becoming absorbed by it.

Shadow and the ritual of laughter

Horror, of course, is saturated with shadow. Jung’s conception of the shadow self—the disavowed, unconscious aspects of our psyche—resonates deeply in the figure of the werewolf. As half-human, half-beast, the werewolf embodies our repressed instincts, our animal rage, our socially unpalatable desires (Jung, 131). Such creatures often surface, not coincidentally, in isolated, already-fractured communities. The monster is not merely a threat from without; it is a projection of the internal rot. As Jung notes, we are prone to externalizing our shadow, making monsters of others to avoid confronting the monsters within (Jung, 42).

Aristotle’s Poetics offers a powerful lens as well. His concept of catharsis—that tragedy evokes pity and fear in order to purge them—maps onto the function of horror (Aristotle, 1449b). Horror disorients, provokes, even wounds, but it does so in service to psychic release. As Jacquie Walters writes, “Horror gives us a way to confront fear and trauma from a place of safety. It lets us feel powerful in the face of the unthinkable.”

And comedy, layered atop horror, often completes the arc. Adam Safron’s theory of humor as a mechanism for anxiety reduction (RAR) aligns here: laughter functions as a regulatory system, a counterweight to terror, and in some cases, a re-enchantment of meaning (Safron).

In Werewolves Within, the audience’s laughter becomes ritual. It creates the emotional flexibility necessary to metabolize the fear. The absurdity makes the horror digestible and in turn opens the door to both the healing that horror invites and the release found in laughter, as Safron suggests.

Crises and the Healer’s kindness

These archetypal energies came to roost in my life both metaphorical and literal ways, offering support and insights in an unprecedented moment. Werewolves Within was shot at Spillian, the Catskills estate I steward. Production wrapped three days before New York shut down in response to COVID-19. Our staff, back on site to restore the mansion, got sent home by mandate, leaving half-filled coffee mugs and scattered tools. When they returned months later, the scene was uncanny—like walking into an echo of Pompeii. The film’s presence lingered in the air, suspended. And more tangibly, the rental revenue from the production helped sustain us through the first uncertain months of the pandemic.

I’m finding it fascinating to see this through a mythic lens. The film’s plot unfolds in a town already weakened by the threat of a gas pipeline—politically divided, ideologically embattled—then thrown into full disarray by an unseen predator. It echoes, with unexpected resonance, both the early pandemic and the current divides shattering the United States: communitas unraveling, fear of contagion and the other, trust eroded at the root. In both, the question is not simply who is the monster, but whether community can survive the knowledge that it is not immune to monstrosity.

And yet, Werewolves Within does not descend into hopelessness. Its hero is not triumphant in the traditional sense. He does not defeat the darkness so much as illuminate the possibility of wholeness within it. The Healer archetype does not promise resolution—it offers resilience. It reminds us, gently and absurdly, that presence, kindness, and unflagging awkwardness may, in the end, be our most potent form of magic.

The Healer archetype does not promise resolution—it offers resilience.

Werewolves Within was released just as the pandemic was beginning to subside, at a time when large gatherings were still rare and cautious. Director Josh Ruben and his collaborators never had the chance to celebrate its release together. A year later, Josh returned to Spillian to screen the film—a gesture full of warmth and generosity, jump scares and laughter—and in doing so, launched a broader tour of screenings in New York City and beyond. Kindness, again, at the center. A small but powerful echo of the film’s heart.

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MythBlast authored by:

Leigh Melander, PhD has an eclectic background in the arts and organizational development, working with inviduals and organizations in the US and internationally for over 20 years. She has a doctorate in cultural mythology and psychology and wrote her dissertation on frivolity as an entry into the world of imagination. Her writings on mythology and imagination can be seen in a variety of publications, and she has appeared on the History Channel, as a mythology expert. She also hosts a radio who on an NPR community affiliate: Myth America, an exploration into how myth shapes our sense of identity. Leigh and her husband opened Spillian, an historic lodge and retreat center celebrating imagination in the Catskills, and works with clients on creative projects. She is honored to have previously served as the Vice President of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Board of Directors.

This MythBlast was inspired by Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine and the archetype of The Healer.

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