Silver Bullet (1985)

          “Our towns long nightmare began that night…”  Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, directed by Daniel Attias in 1985, is one of my favorite werewolf films I watched this week (and I’d never encountered it before!). First of all, I was really excited when I learned it was Stephen King because there really isn’t a King story out there I’m not a fan of.  Second of all, the story surrounds a paralytic young boy Marty (Corey Haim) who winds up going toe to toe with the local werewolf.  His uncle Red (Gary Busey) has made for him a special wheelchair that can accelerate past cars on the road (really cool!) called the Silver Bullet, so there is some wordplay with the name of the movie because it also takes a silver bullet to kill the werewolf in the end.  On a side note, Gary Busey looks exactly the same as he did, what does he never fucking age?  I definitely think that was particularly awesome, and it is hard not to fall in love with Marty’s character as he is very innocent and fun-loving.
            The movie begins with a kill, which always rubs me the right way concerning the horror genre.  Might as well hit hard and fast with the gore, in my humble opinion.  And keep the blood coming!  Anyway, audiences know that this is a wild animal/werewolf when the first kill happens, even though the town isn’t aware – effective use of dramatic irony for sure.  Tension builds between Marty and his sister Janie (Megan Follows), but they subside quickly and audiences begin to gain a sense of understanding of the children’s natures and situation.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, the werewolf strikes again!  I love that the kills in this aren’t predictable, they seem completely random and not part of the plot line at all in the beginning.  Some of the kills (the second one, for example) have a decent amount of gore in them also, which to be honest I wasn’t expecting from an early 80s King film.  I was more than happy with this surprise, of corpse. 

            It is a truly awesome storyline, one that is easy to get invested in.  But I have to admit that the score is not my favorite, and the actual werewolf transformation was not as exciting as I expected with some of the truly inspired death scenes in the film.  I will, however, note that the transformation back into a person was pretty wicked.  When we finally do find out who the werewolf is, there’s some irony behind that as well.  I won’t spoil it for you, but I definitely got a chuckle out of the situational humor.  When Marty and Jane began sending the werewolf letters telling the lycanthrope to kill itself and do the world a favor.  Body Count: greater than or equal to 7.  Killers?  Two.  Boob Count: Zero.  Cheap Thrills: Zero.  Actual Spooks Endured: Zero.  Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.  It was one of my favorites, as I mentioned, though I have to admit that it was not scary, at least not by my standards.   

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

          “I didn’t mean to call you meatloaf, Jack…”  The second wolfie film on the docket this week was John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London (1981).  What a difference from Moon of the Wolf concerning…well…everything!  To kick things off, this film is more of a horror/comedy so it definitely didn’t have the mystery feel that the first lycanthrope film I watched did.  The music is immediately noticeable, as the title is Dean Martin’s “Blue Moon,” and this moon theme continues with all the tunes throughout the film.  This is different from most every horror film during that era – and really helped the film ‘feel’ late 70s, early 80s in nature.  The plot begins by introducing us to a couple of American friends who are backpacking across Europe for the summer.  Rain threatens, and it is pretty chilly, which leads them to a tavern called “The Slaughtered Lamb,” which does not appear too friendly.  The people in the tavern act weird, and kick them out for asking questions about their pentacle which is drawn into a wall and surrounded by candles on either side.  So the boys head back out into the weather, which still threatens rain with some loud thunder claps and a cloudy but brilliant full moon sky.

Not heeding the warning of the barkeep, the boys head off the trails and into the moors, where they begin hearing a terrible howling coming from somewhere out in the dark.  The sky opens up and the rain begins to fall, as they drift further into the foggy, rainy moors. Suddenly a cry cuts through the rain and fog.  The people at the bar continue to act strangely about the night and the moon, and about leaving the boys alone in the dark.  The boys get blindsided by the werewolf, which attacks them after circling them for quite a while.  I have to say, the opening to this movie is great!  It definitely sucked me right in, and continued to be fun throughout.  The gore was wicked, really decent for the year it was made, and the acting was tolerable as well.  It turns out that David (David Naughton) survived, but Jack (Griffin Dunne) was not so lucky.  That doesn’t seem to matter much in this film, though, as Jack continues to appear to David throughout the film as his flesh slowly rots off of his body.  Jack attempts to get David to kill himself, warning him that he is the last werewolf and that he needs to die so Jack can rest in peace. Anyone David reveals he is seeing Jack to (as well as David himself) consider him mad for these visions of his dead friend – and who can blame them!  David has a sweet love affair with the woman who nurses him after he wakes up (three weeks later!) from the attack.

 The transformation from man to werewolf in this film is actually pretty funny, and I don’t think it’s even comparable to Hemlock Grove, which takes itself much more seriously.  David had been having nightmares since he was mauled by the lycanthrope (which all were now referring to as a human ‘lunatic’), and has been pre-warned by his dead friend that he is about to transform into a monster.  It begins with him just freaking, as though his head hurts.  He screams, and sweats, and yells that he is burning up.  His hands elongate, and his body begins to grow more hair.  The prosthetics were actually impressive, and the transformation slow and pretty painful looking.  The irony is that “Blue Moon” is playing throughout the entirety of the change, and just made the situation comedic instead of scary.  Body Count?  12, at least.  Number of Killers?  Three.  Boob Count?  Two.  Cheap Thrills?  1.  Actual Spooks Given?  1.  Rating?  3 out of 5 stars.  I dug it, and I bet you will too. 

Moon of the Wolf (1972)

        “It wasn’t wild dogs that killed Ellie.”  Alright so this week, I’ve decided to check out a few werewolf films.  Because I recently became addicted to Hemlock Grove and have publicly stated that HG has the best werewolf transformation I’ve ever seen, I decided that it was time I view as many werewolf movies I can just to see if my public statements were accurate.  The first movie I selected was Daniel Petrie’s Moon of the Wolf (1972).  Being a TV movie from the 70s, I truly didn’t expect that the movie would have a lot of gore, or super fancy special effects. That being said, the movie was shot fairly well from a cinematography standpoint.  The sound was a little low-quality (my speakers were all the way up and I could barely hear), but the movie definitely had a southern charm to it that was really inviting and kept me interested.

            I truly dug the French ‘loup garou’ twist to the tale, it made the story more mystery than thriller, and enhanced the authenticity to the Louisiana setting.  The film is not very long, one can watch it in about an hour – which is very appealing to people that cannot dedicate three hours to a film.  The old, sprawling southern home reminded me of Tarantino’s Django Unchained, and further contributed to the bayou feel of the flick.  The costume and décor all made sense for the period and location.  David Janssen’s chest hair was a little wild, though – so much so that I had him pegged as the werewolf in the beginning of the film.  He smartly portrays Sheriff Aaron Whitaker, the man pursuing the killer with all his might, right up to the end.  Barbara Rush does a smashing job as Louise Rodanthe, opposite Janssen.   

I like that the ‘smell of sulfur’ can disorient the werewolf and rend him powerless for a bit.  That was a cool twist that I didn’t expect.  The makeup, I am sorry to say, was the worst aspect of the film.  The werewolf looked…well…all the cheese.  But at least the director seemed to know this because the camera selections a few times were purposely blurry or far away from him.  And I suppose that lends credibility to my statement about Hemlock Grove being wicked awesome concerning the transformation from man to wolf.  I still dug this film though, and recommend to anyone looking for something mysterious (‘whodunnit?’) to watch.  Body Count?  Four.  Killers?  Two.  Boob Count?  Zero (made for TV movie).  Cheap Thrills?  Zero.  Actual Spooks? Zero.  Though I was impressed to see some blood in the film, I must say.  Rating?  2 out of 5 stars.  Not a bad werewolf mystery film, but it didn’t quite have the teeth I look for in my werewolf flicks.