Chapter 6 continues the subject of screen metamorphosis from a different perspective. It takes the first metamorphosis in Ovid’s epic, that of the evil Lycaon into a wolf, as its cue to discuss different approaches by filmmakers to putting abnormal psychic phenomena on the screen. Transformations of a human into an animal or into a human monster and someone’s possession of another’s mind are staples of horror stories in word and image. This chapter also examines technical aspects of screen metamorphoses from man to beast. Ovid’s Lycaon sets the scene. The name Lycaon derives from the Greek word for wolf. The Wolf Man, a classic series of horror films, can be shown to derive directly from Ovid. Other films are revealing examples of background Ovidianism. The screen metamorphoses of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde are instructive for the processes by which such transformations were achieved before CGI. The chapter closes with analyses of two films by Ingmar Bergman (Hour of the Wolf, Persona), in which psychological horror replaces the surface thrills of standard shockers.

Chapters 5–6 deal with some of the chief aspects of Ovidian and cinematic metamorphoses. Chapter 5 examines another crucial moment in screen history, when film pioneer Georges Méliès accidentally discovered how bodies and objects could be changed into something completely different on the screen. Ovid’s versions of the myths of the sculptor Pygmalion, whose ivory statue, later named Galatea, comes to life, and, conversely, the petrifying gaze of the Gorgon Medusa initiated two important developments in modern visual arts: the Pygmalion Effect and the Medusa Effect. Related to these are the Hephaestus and Daedalus Effects, in which statues acquire movement. This chapter connects elements from Ovid’s myths to a variety of related film forms and genres. Visible essences and underlying characteristics of bodily metamorphoses are as important for Ovid’s epic as they are for the cinema. The latter has extensively shown complex metamorphoses through editing and camera tricks since the days of silent films and in animated films. Now computer-generated images (CGI) add a whole new dimension of verisimilitude to what is physically impossible. A complex metamorphosis, from human to robot, occurs in Fritz Lang’s silent classic Metropolis, while the metamorphosis of a young ballerina in Black Swan may well be the most realistic change of the human body in the CGI era. The chapter closes with a brief homage to Eisenstein’s famous montage in Battleship Potemkin, in which three marble statues of lions become one animated lion.