RELENTLESS AWARD HONORABLE MENTION

White Coon County, Virginia is about as terrible as it sounds: there’s a (Super) WALMART, a swamp, a dozen churches, so many guns, and acres and acres of farmland. Nothing much ever happens here, until the livestock starts getting slaughtered. Slaughtered by something big: big and mean.

The Mayor’s never dealt with a crisis like this and he’s offering WalMart gift cards for answers; the Detective is getting investigative tips by watching Law and Order SVU marathons; the Principal is snorting lots of coke; and to make matters worse: Billy Wilkerson (an outstanding student of White Coon County High School) has gone missing.

Junyce is new and the prime suspect because she punched Billy in the face on her first day. Or maybe Kyle, the ex-girlfriend, is involved? Or is it Huck, Kyle’s new jock-boyfriend? Or could it be Beecher, Billy’s shy study partner? Junyce, Kyle, Huck, and Beecher aren’t concerned with Billy. They’ve got bigger fish to fry (or in this case: bigger wolves to hunt?). The teens keep secretly sneaking off to the woods. What are they doing in the woods? And what is slaughtering the cows? And where the hell is Billy?

WOLFCRUSH is a queer full moon fever dream about cannibalism, werewolves, small-towns, big secrets, first times, sloppy seconds, Mariska Hargitay, and all the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night.