Small Town Monsters Returns With Werewolves in the Lone Star State
Small Town Monsters are at it again with their latest documentary The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State (2023) hitting VOD and Digital HD June 27th. Based on the book by the same name by Aaron Deese, STM regular, independent researcher, and author Shannon LeGro joins Deese as he traverses Texas in search of information about the Lone Star State’s werewolves.
Hunting for Canids in the Dogman Triangle
Encompassing about 700 miles, the Dogman Triangle extends from Kernville to Vidor, to the Dallas / Fort Worth area of Texas. Spread within its boundaries are dozens of sightings going back over a hundred years. Folks swear they saw bipedal wolf and dog-like creatures lurking about, attacking local livestock, and sometimes even people. There’s an inherent menace to all these stories that permeates throughout the documentary. This isn’t a Ken Burns-style documentary about the Vietnam War. This is a heavily atmospheric Seth Breedlove joint about Aaron Deese’s Hearts of Darkness-style journey into a sweltering Texas landscape looking for werewolves.
Those of us that have an interest in cryptids need to remember there’s a whole subculture of people that actually go out and investigate these things the same way police solve crimes or insurance adjusters try and figure out what the fuck actually happened to your car. The stories and photographs Google produces that we just take for granted have a point of origin. They are researched and recorded by people that spend hours upon hours of their lives, boots on the ground, researching and fact-finding these stories as much as they can..and most of them wear hats.
I don’t know if it’s a cryptid thing or a Texas thing but everyone in this movie wears a hat. Seriously Shannon LeGro goes without one in one scene, otherwise, it’s all hats all the time.
STM Strikes Again
Filmmaking wise the documentary is incredibly strong. Under Breedlove’s direction, the score and editing are seamless. Jonathan Dodd’s artwork is so hyper-realistic one often forgets how much of what they’re watching is being manufactured for this film.
There’s little in the way of photographic evidence that these creatures exist (for if there was it would have surely found a much different home), but that doesn’t make The Dogman Triangle any less of an effective piece of media. The compelling nature of this film stems from the people’s stories. Don’t stories make the best evidence? Word documentaries told in the first person. We believe what we want to believe, for the reasons we choose to believe it. We’re learning more and more each day that the nature of reality is shockingly subjective. Additionally, we learn that our worldviews are 100% our own and based on whatever evidence and influence we choose to let through our kitchen door.
The film is at its best when it touches upon aspects of this story. For instance, the trauma one experiences when they come face to face with something that should not exist. Or the potential metaphysical origins of cryptids, and their possible origins in our tulpa. There’s still gold to be mined in this subject matter. It’s not the blurry photographs or third-hand recollections that will teach us something about the unknown. Instead, they teach us about our place alongside the unknown. These are not just unexplained visitors in our vanilla world, they’re passengers on this ride right along with us. A question begging to be answered, something unknowable asking to be known.
The Dogman Triangle Made Me Long for the Lone Star State
One last thing I have to get out there when discussing this film…
The Dogman Triangle: Werewolves in the Lone Star State (2023) acts as an incredible piece of promotional material for the great state of Texas. I’m lucky enough to have been there a handful of times in my youth. Unfortunately, I never came across a dogman. Spending 75 minutes taking in the sites and meeting some of the locals made me want to go back. It would be cool to walk around with a gun all day and eat BBQ whilst hunting for werewolves. Even if everyone looks incredibly sweaty. At one point Aaron and Shannon interview a guy named Tex. He’s wearing a black cowboy hat (seriously everyone is wearing hats in this thing), has taken some shots at an upright-walking canid, and has been carrying a gun since the age of 12. I do believe I’d like to have a beer with that man.
