Chainsaw Research Articles

1973 and the American horror film: Political futurity in The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

1973 and the American horror film: Political futurity in The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Dead Ends: Ruin, Redundancy, and the Horrors of Precarity in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and It Follows

While Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) ostensibly focalise their films’ narratives upon the imminent threat of bodily violence which endangers their respective protagonists’ lives, a deeper analysis of both films illuminates the terror at the heart of the narratives: economic precarity and immobility. Both Hooper and Mitchell deliberately situate their horror films within settings that are haunted by the past hope of prosperity and which have corroded into ruins, left to rust and rot under the hostile conditions of post-industrial capitalism. These rents in the socio- economic fabric are intimately registered on a corporeal level, as the bodies of both Chain Saw protagonist Sally Hardesty and It Follows protagonist Jay Height become the sites onto which the capitalist horrors of unequal prosperity and labour redundancy are violently enacted. In Hooper’s film, the rural backwoods of Texas play host to a brutal confrontation between a working-class family—made redundant by the rise of automation and thus embodying the industrial atrophy of the American South—and a group of drifting, unfettered young people, represented by Sally and her friends.

Design solution for a device to determine the energy consumption of sawing wood with chain saws

Cutting wood chips is one of the common work procedures in the course of processing wood with a saw chain. This paper presents the conceptual design of the device and the design of the device for determining the energy demand of such a process. The preparation is designed with the given parameters to achieve the most realistic conditions for sawing wood. It must contain the original cutting device from the STIHL MS 261 chainsaw. It consists of several calculations to determine the cutting moment and the loaded points of the preparation, which define the possible place of damage. In the conceptual design, calculations for cutting force Fr = 924 N and tensile force Fn = 290 N are processed in the work. From the calculated forces, it is possible to determine the resulting stress at the attachment or critical points. For comparison, a finite element method analysis was created in Creo Parametric. The results of the analysis confirm the appropriate selection of material and parameters for the application of the preparation to the test device. The resulting voltages, corresponding to a maximum value of 132 MPa, are negligible for this type of preparation in terms of safety and durability.

Совершенствование конструкции цепных пильных аппаратов

At the present time cutting of trees, delimbing, and crosscutting with gasoline-powered saws and logging machines are carried out in the forestry cutting area operations with the help of chain saws. Therefore, the efficiency of forestry work depends on the reliability and performance of the chain saw machine. The problem of increasing the reliability of sawing machines, increasing their service life becomes particularly relevant due to a sharp decrease in the volume of logging with the use of multi-operator logging machines. In this regard, the wide use of efficient motor tools, improvement of their design, especially the chain saw machine, with regard to reducing the harmful effect on the operator is of great importance. Poor quality and performance of domestic machinery has led to the fact that mainly imported tools are used in Russia, while their price and maintenance costs are constantly increasing and, consequently, the cost of harvested wood increases too. In this regard, it is important to develop and introduce new, more perfect tool designs that are not only as good as the reliability and performance of the imported equipment, but even much better. Taking it into account, we can consider that the issue of chain saw research with regard to the specifics of its design, as well as its science-based improvement will increase the operational performance and reliability of machines, which is important for the logging industry. One of the main causes of saw unit failures is the increased wear of its components accompanied by the improper saw chain tensioning. Currently, the proposed devices for regulating the tension of the saw chain require periodic stopping of the saw, as none of the devices provides its automatic tensioning. Thus, the purpose of the research is to improve the reliability and service life of chain saws of forestry machinery on the basis of improving the design that provides automatic tensioning of the saw chain. The paper describes the design solutions to improve the saw machine, that is the design of the device that provides automatic tensioning of the saw chain when the saw bar is fixed, allowing to increase the reliability and service life of chain saws, to reduce the chain slipping during the work, which will increase the safety of work and reduce the risk of injury to the operator.

The Hetaera's Monster: The Sublime Mother in the Slasher Film Genre

The Journal of Popular CultureEarly View Original Article The Hetaera's Monster: The Sublime Mother in the Slasher Film Genre Charles E. Hicks, Corresponding Author Charles E. Hicks [email protected] Search for more papers by this author Charles E. Hicks, Corresponding Author Charles E. Hicks [email protected] Search for more papers by this author First published: 22 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13186Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Works Cited Arnold, Sarah. Maternal Horror Film: Melodrama and Motherhood. Palgrave, 2013. Baffes, Melanie. Love, Loss, and Abjection: The Journey of New Birth in the Gospel of John. Pickwick, 2016. Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror: Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, 1990. Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws. Princeton UP, 1992. Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1993. Deleuze, Gilles. Masochism. Zone, 1991. Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton UP, 1995. Geyskens, Tomas. “ Literature as Symptomatology: Gilles Deleuze on Sacher-Masoch.” Deleuze and Psychoanalysis: Philosophical Essays on Deleuze's Debate with Psychoanalysis, edited by Leen Bolle, Leuven UP, 2010, pp. 103– 16. Halberstam, Judith. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Duke UP, 1995. Halloween. Directed by Rob Zombie, Dimension, 2007. Halloween II. Directed by Rob Zombie, Dimension, 2009. Harrington, Erin. Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror. Routledge, 2018. Hollinger, Karen. “ The Monsters as Woman: Two Generations of Cat People.” The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas UP, 2015, pp. 346– 58. Jenkins, Barbara. Eros and Economy: Jung, Deleuze, Sexual Difference. Routledge, 2017. Kaplan, E. Ann. “ The Case of the Missing Mother.” Feminism & Film, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, Oxford UP, 2000, pp. 466– 78. Kaplan, E. Ann. Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama. Routledge, 1992. Kristeva, Julia. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia UP, 1988. Kristeva, Julia. “ Julia Kristeva.” Women Analyze Women: In France, England, and the United States, edited by Elaine Hoffman Baruch, and Lucienne J. Serrano, New York UP, 1988, pp. 129– 48. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia UP, 1982. Mattoon, Mary Ann. Jungian Psychology in Perspective. Free Press, 1981. Mulvey, Laura. “ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminism & Film, edited by E. Ann Kaplan, Oxford UP, 2000, pp. 34– 47. Oliver, Kelly. Reading Kristeva: Unraveling the Double-bind. Indiana UP, 1993. Powell, Anna. Deleuze and the Horror Film. Edinburgh UP. 2005. Red Dragon. Directed by Brett Ratner, Universal, 2002. Santner, Eric L. On Creaturely Life: Rilke, Benjamin, Sebald. Chicago UP, 2006. Scott, Darieck. Extravagant Abjection: Blackness, Power, and Sexuality in the African American Literary Imagination. New York UP, 2010. Sobchack, Vivian. “ Bringing It All Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange.” The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas UP, 2015, pp. 171– 92. Studlar, Gaylyn. In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic. Illinois UP, 1988. Tarr, Clayton Carlyle. Gothic Stories Within Stories: Frame Narratives and Realism in the Genre, 1790-1900. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2017. Verhaeghe, Paul. “ Enjoyment and Impossibility: Lacan's Revision of the Oedipus Complex.” Jacques Lacan and the Other Side of Psychoanalysis: Reflections on Seminar XVII, edited by Justin Clements, and Russell Grigg, Duke UP, 2006, pp. 29– 49. Williams, Linda. “ When the Woman Looks.” The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas UP, 2015, pp. 17– 36. Wood, Robin. “ An Introduction to the American Horror Film.” Robin Wood on the Horror Film: Collected Essays and Reviews, edited by Barry Keith Grant, Wayne State UP, 2018a, pp. 73– 110. Wood, Robin. “ Race with the Devil.” Robin Wood on the Horror Film: Collected Essays and Reviews, edited by Barry Keith Grant, Wayne State UP, 2018b, pp. 67– 72. Žižek, Slavoj. Enjoy Your Symptom! Routledge, 1992. Žižek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. Verso, 1989. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue ReferencesRelatedInformation

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity

Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity

Less Punk, More Splatter: Heavy Metal, Horror Video, and the Literary Nasties of Shaun Hutson

Less Punk, More Splatter: Heavy Metal, Horror Video, and the Literary Nasties of Shaun Hutson

Emotional Point of View in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) forcefully demonstrates an unusual technique for conveying characters' emotions, which I call emotional point of view (POV). This is a means of depicting emotions enmeshed with elements of film form, such as cinematography or mise-en-scène. Reading for emotional POV allows us to witness the distortive effect of characters' emotions on their perception. I examine three episodes of emotional POV in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: those of fear, horror, and anger.

Home Is Where the Horror Is (2022)

Home Is Where the Horror Is (2022) Jason Zinoman (bio) Sometimes facing your fears isn't enough. You have to scrutinize them. In an attempt to understand my own nightmares—and the ones that shaped our culture—my first book, Shock Value, published a decade ago, examined one of the great eras of modern film: the revolutionary scary movies made between the late 1960s through the end of the following decade.1 I called them the New Horror. To tell the story of its artists—masters such as Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter, and Dan O'Bannon among many others—I interviewed them about their work with an ear sensitive to what this group shared. One surprisingly common thing I discovered was an embarrassment about working in the genre itself. To the people who made Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) and Alien (Scott, 1979) horror, as they had understood it since they were young, was lowbrow, disreputable, the kind of thing you didn't want to tell your parents about. To hear these great artists tell it, the genre they worked in was kid's stuff. Sadly, most of the filmmakers I wrote about in the book have died, but part of their considerable legacy is to change the reputation of horror and consequently the atmosphere that their successors work in. The genre is not only bigger and more lucrative, a persistently popular part of the cultural diet, but also more respected. For young filmmakers, there is no shame in working in the genre of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974). There are downsides to the growing stature of horror, to be sure, but also [End Page 289] advantages, a new sense of the possible that allows for growth. The recent expansion of the genre is what inspired the article below, which I wrote for the cover of the "Arts & Leisure" section of the New York Times in 2018 about the artists at the forefront of an ambitious new direction in horror. Building on the work of their predecessors, their work appears unshackled from any status anxiety over genre and deals directly and expansively in mature themes. They are making movies that kids enjoy but are primarily aimed at adults. Since I wrote the article this trend has only intensified, and its impact is evident in recent movies such as Relic (James, 2020) and She Dies Tomorrow (Seimetz, 2020) that speak to the terror of isolation in the age of COVID-19 better than any new mainstream dramas. This new grown-up horror has produced movies that I believe will be studied and imitated just like those from the 1970s were. This essay, and the others in this journal, attempt to understand this new golden age. _____ What happens when your family is what frightens you? A new renaissance in scary movies skips jump scares in favor of dread based on adult fears. In Hereditary (Aster, 2018), bugs crawl from decapitated heads, ghosts lurk in the shadows, and an artist tries to communicate with the dead. But the most jarring moment of this terrifying new movie might be when Annie, a mother played by Toni Collette, tells her son she never wanted to have him and tried to induce a miscarriage. Then she wakes from this nightmare, unsettled by the thoughts rattling in her subconscious. Parental guilt is the real monster here. Moving into territory once the preserve of prestige dramas, horror has never been more bankable and celebrated than it is right now. And while evil clowns and serial killers at sorority houses still haunt young viewers (and make tons of money), we're in the midst of a golden age of grown-up horror. Hushed and characterdriven, this mix of indie fare and blockbusters works ferociously on adult anxieties in an age of dislocation. These movies have confronted liberal racism, economic worries, and family dysfunction, and while horror has always reflected the social and political concerns of its day, if you had to pinpoint a unifying theme that distinguishes this renaissance, it's the ominous danger of overwhelming grief. A character coping with the death of a loved one is the new car of teenagers heading to a...

Chain Saw Chains: Analyzing Sharpening Options and Practices for Operational Efficiency

Background: Chain saws are a primary piece of equipment in arboriculture. Sharpening of chain saw chains is important to the chain saw’s continued efficient cutting power. Analyses of chain saw sharpening procedures can influence efficiency and sustainability in arboriculture. Previous research has examined mechanical aspects and variability of chain saw chains; however, a knowledge gap exists regarding sharpening methods relating to operational efficiency. Methods: Chain saw chains retired from operational service were submitted by 132 arboriculture crews from 47 companies across a 6-month period. The research team reviewed 640 chain saw chains to determine whether the functionable lives of the chain saw chains had been exhausted. If the functionable life was not exhausted, the remaining functional life of the chain was documented. To analyze the accounting cost and economic cost of sharpening versus purchasing new chain saw chains, an economic model was created with variables from chain saw chain manufacturers and geospatial data. Results: Of the submitted chain saw chains, 77% (n = 493) were retired before their functional life was exhausted. The mean number of additional times that the chains could have been sharpened was 4.54 more times (σ = 2.22). Per the economic model, accounting costs of purchasing new chains were 3.64 to 4.96 times more expensive than sharpening chains in-house. The economic cost of purchasing a new chain was generally 1.83 to 3.74 times more expensive than sharpening chains in-house. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the functional service life of chain saw chains are frequently not exhausted and that purchasing chains has higher accounting and economic costs than sharpening chains in-house.

Effect of Mechanical Pruning on Olive Yield in a High-Density Olive Orchard: An Account of 14 Years

In Portugal, the study of mechanical pruning in olive orchards began in 1997. Trials were carried out in traditional orchards, and the obtained results revealed that mechanical pruning can contribute to the reduction in pruning costs without a reduction in yield. In 2005, the authors started an evaluation of mechanical pruning in high-density olive orchards. The trial was organised in a randomised, complete block design, with three replications. Four treatments were compared: T1—manual pruning, using chain saws in 2005, 2010, 2014, and 2017; T2—mechanical pruning, topping, and hedging (two sides) in 2014 and 2017, followed by manual pruning complement; T3—mechanical pruning, topping in 2005, topping and hedging (west side) in 2008 and 2012, topping and hedging (east side) in 2010, 2014 and 2017, summer topping in July 2015, and hedging (west side) in winter 2016; T4—mechanical pruning, topping in 2005, topping and hedging (two sides) in 2010, 2014, and 2017, and summer topping in July 2015. The average yield per tree for each treatment was evaluated. In the first period (5 years), no significant differences were found between treatments. In the second period (4 years), a greater frequency of mechanical pruning (T3) showed a lower yield, with significant differences with treatment T2. In the third period of 5 years, a greater pruning severity reduced the olive yield (2014). Manual pruning complement after mechanical pruning (T2) did not increase olive yield; however, the average yield over this period of time was similar. The olive yield was maintained over a period of 14 years by only applying mechanical pruning, without manual pruning complement inside the canopy.

AIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND WILDLIFE INCIDENCE AROUND A MAJOR DEFORESTATION SITE IN ODUAL CLAN OF RIVERS STATE

This study was carried out in Odual Clan in Abua/Odual local government area of Rivers State, Nigeria, to determine the effect of deforestation on air quality and wildlife. Three air pollutants were measured at the study sites (CO2, CH4, PM) It was observed that the mean concentrations of CO2 (970.5000000ppm, 548.1250000ppm, 690.2500000ppm) in all the study sites were above the permissible limits by WHO. The mean concentration of Pm7 (17.6250 µg/m3) in the deforested area was significantly higher than those of the control (7.1250 µg/m3) and the residential area (11.2500 µg/m3). The mean concentration of PM10 ranges from 9.2500 µg/m3 to 21.1250 µg/m3 with the deforested area having the highest concentration. T-test revealed a significant difference in the mean concentration of TSP with the deforested area having the highest concentration of 24.5000 µg/m3. Results (68% of respondents) also revealed that there is a loss of wildlife species. The causes of degradation according to the results obtained are chain sawing, illegal farming, over exploitation and illegal mining; 36%, 2%, 26% and 6% respectively

Engineering Management Model Towards Enhancing Institutional Based Workshop Facilities

This paper is focused on the use of technical personnel in the typical setting of a workshop in higher educational institutions in Nigeria. The essence is to fully manage tools for more creativity in technical work. The case study is focused on woodwork engineering management where vending cost analysis and implications model is presented to enhance productivity and reduction of requisition cost. So far, wood work refurbishing and repairs are being carried out with existing tools such as CNC-MDF Chain Saw Machine, and Automatic Edge Banding Machines respectively in quite a number of higher educational institutions in Nigeria. Now the trend has changed, more efficacious wood work requiring the production of durable stools and other furniture is needed. CNC works on the Cartesian coordinate system (X, Y, Z) for 3D motion control and parts of a project can be designed in the computer with a CAD/CAM program, and then cut automatically using cutters to produce a finished part. So these engineering trend has to be fully managed in such a way that the functionalities of these tools are fully harnessed to ensure full operations; particularly to produce for high-volume local content, skills acquisition and entrepreneurial development. The resultant effect will be to remove costly and repetitive manufacturing steps for office and other relevant furniture, and to create opportunities with future expansion for revenue generation. Keywords: Technical Personnel, Nigerian Higher Educational Institutions, Wood Work Engineering, Vending Analysis, Entrepreneurial Development, Computer Numerical Control Machines.

Psycho-killer: Shifting spectator address from Psycho to Bates Motel

Leveraging Carol Clover’s influential Men, Women, and Chain Saws, this article attempts to situate the A&E television series Bates Motel as a progressive prequel to Psycho. Through a close reading of the series’ formal and narrative components, vital distinctions are clarified between Psycho and Bates Motel, arguing that the latter achieves a unique mode of spectatorial address. This unique address is accomplished via three devices: a shift in genre away from the horror/slasher film to re-situate the backstory of Norman Bates within the melodrama – a genre traditionally geared to a female spectator; by playing Norman as an active investigative protagonist rather than the prototypical psycho-killer devoid of psychological complexity; and by opening up the narrative to dual protagonists via the inclusion of Norma Bates. Taken together, Bates Motel emerges as an adaptation of the iconic Hitchcock film whose very success is dependent on intentionally altering its mode of spectatorial address.

Southern Discomfort: Clanking, Rattling, and Screaming in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)

The article analyzes the role played by both the diegetic sounds and the music in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974). Resorting to some atonal score made of jarring notes coupled with diegetic sounds of the most bizarre sort (from the rattling of chainsaws to the cackling of encaged hens, without forgetting the screaming of the unyielding heroine), Tobe Hooper means to literally set the viewers’ teeth on edge. By counting on the sense of hearing more than on special effects, the director creates some kind of prolonged sticky red scream that still unsettles the most blasé spectators of today’s horror films.

Value chain analysis of farm grown Melia volkensii (Gurke) timber in the South Eastern Dry lands of Kenya

This paper analyzes the value chain of Melia volkensii timber grown on farms in the South Eastern dry lands of Kenya. The “filiere” approach was used to analyze the institutional and the economic dimensions of the chain, while technical dimensions were analyzed using on-farm timber sawing systems. Six main actors; tree farmers, timber merchants, sawyers, timber yard operators, furniture makers, and end consumers were mapped. Transporters, though temporary, played intermediary roles of facilitating the linkages. A variety of combinations determined costs and gains along the chain. Some actors circumvented some links to increase revenue. Quality of trees and sawn timber were key determinants of monetary value transacted along the chain. Inadequate farmers’ skills in tree silviculture, valuation and cumbersome procedures in obtaining Government permits were also mentioned as major challenges, while timber sawyers lacked efficient sawing technology, consequently lowering income along the entire value chain. To improve the value chain, there is need to address the identified challenges through enhancing information and technology transfer to the players among other interventions. Key words: Farm grown timber value chains, Melia volkensii, “filiere” approach, chainsaw.

8 th Symposium on Mechanics of Slender Structures 2019 (MoSS2019)

8 th Symposium on Mechanics of Slender Structures 2019 (MoSS2019)

Search and recovery of aircraft parts in ice-sheet crevasse fields using airborne and in situ geophysical sensors

On 30 September 2017, an Air France Airbus A380-800 suffered a failure of its fourth engine while over Greenland. This failure resulted in the loss of the engine fan hub, fan blades and surrounding structure. An initial search recovered 30 pieces of light debris, but the primary part of interest, a ~220 kg titanium fan hub, was not recovered because it had a different fall trajectory than the light debris, impacted into the ice-sheet's snow surface, and was quickly covered by drifting snow. Here we describe the methods used for the detection of the fan hub and details of the field campaigns. The search area included two crevasse fields of at least 50 snow-covered crevasses 1 to ~30 m wide with similar snow bridge thicknesses. After 21 months and six campaigns, using airborne synthetic aperture radar, ground-penetrating radar, transient electromagnetics and an autonomous vehicle to survey the crevasse fields, the fan hub was found within ~1 m of a crevasse at a depth of ~3.3 to 4 m and was excavated with shovels, chain saws, an electric winch, sleds and a gasoline heater, by workers using fall-arrest systems.

Evaluation of Olive Pruning Effect on the Performance of the Row-Side Continuous Canopy Shaking Harvester in a High Density Olive Orchard.

In 2009, the Side-Row Continuous Canopy Shaking Harvester project was set to develop such technology. The prototype comprises two symmetrical harvesters trailed by a farm tractor. Each harvester has a vibratory rotor with flexible rods, a catching platform with conveyors belts delivering fruits to a temporary storage bag. The removal efficiency of canopy shakers are influenced by factors like shaking frequency, ground speed as well as the dimension and shape of olive canopy. In 2014 authors started a trial to evaluate the influence of pruning in olive yield and in the performance of the Side-Row Continuous Canopy Shaking Harvester. The trial was established in an irrigated olive orchard of Picual cultivar planted in 1996 with the array 7 m x 3.5 m. In a randomised complete block design with three replications, four treatments are being compared leading to 12 plots with 30 trees/plot. The treatments under study are: T1—manual pruning using chain saws, in 2014 and 2017; T2—mechanical pruning: topping and hedging the two sides of the canopy, followed by manual pruning complement to remove wood suckers inside the canopy, in 2014 and 2017; T3—mechanical pruning: topping the canopy parallel to the ground and hedging southeast side of the canopy in 2014 and 2017; topping the canopy in July 2015 (summer pruning); hedging northwest side in winter 2016; T4—mechanical pruning: topping and hedging the two sides of the canopy in 2014 and 2017; topping the canopy in July 2015 (summer pruning). Regarding to olive yield per tree, significant differences were found among treatments on different years. However, no significant differences were found regarding the average olive yield per tree, over the period of 2014–2017. Regarding to the olive removal efficiency, only in 2016, significant differences were found among treatments on different years. No significant differences were found regarding the average of the olive removal efficiency, over the period of 2014–2017.

The beast without: The cinematic werewolf as a (counter)cultural metaphor

While in-depth cultural histories have been devoted to such horror monsters as the vampire, the zombie and Frankenstein’s monster, the cinematic werewolf has long been considered little more than a Freudian allegory for the dark side of man. Accepted thinking on horror cinema would have it that countercultural ‘New Horror’ films such as Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968), The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) marked a turning point, proving beyond doubt that the horror film could be a site for social, cultural and political debate. Yet, while a few examples have been given scholarly attention outside of psychoanalytic discourse, the werewolf film is still considered to have little cultural resonance and continues to be framed in the context of ‘the beast within’. This article argues that, while this term has been historically important in establishing the werewolf as a topic for scholarly study, its continued dominance prevents us from engaging with the werewolf as a complex and mutating cultural metaphor. By providing cultural readings of Werewolves on Wheels (Levesque, 1971), The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (Juran, 1973) and The Werewolf of Washington (Ginsberg, 1973) – three films that share their thematic preoccupations with the New Horror movement – it illustrates that the werewolf is just as versatile as our other popular monsters and should be considered not just in the context of the psychoanalytic ‘beast within’ but the cultural ‘beast without’.