Humanity

The horror of the Night Tiger lies in the very idea of a weretiger: a man turned suddenly animal, no longer bound by the rules and regulations of society, ready to eat, maim, or kill at a moment’s notice. The folktales surrounding the stories of weretigers vary considerably: some say weretigers are just tigers who don human skins, known as harimau jadian. William Acton points out that weretigers are also said to be either “a saint or an evildoer. In the case of a saint, the tiger is considered kermat and serves as a protective spirit, but evildoers are also reincarnated as tigers as punishment” (78). Nothing adds up; nothing is clear; William chooses to disbelieve in their existence, but Ren knows weretigers are real.

Dr. MacFarlane is a man who’s possessed with spells of transformation, wandering into the night and committing deeds he views...