September 11, 2018
Written by: Gary Brandner, John Sayles, Terence Winkless
Starring: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan
Budget: $1,000,000
Quote: "A secret society exists, and is living among all of us. They are neither people nor animals, but something in-between."
Trivia: Because to their work in this movie, Joe Dante and Michael Finnell received the opportunity to make the movie (1984) for Steven Spielberg. That movie references "The Howling" with a smiley face image on a refrigerator door. Eddie Quist leaves yellow smiley face stickers as his calling card in several places all through this movie. Also James MacKrell's character as news reporter Lew Landers appears in both "The Howling" and "Gremlins", which suggest both movies share the same universe.
I hadn't seen this movie for over twenty years. Looking back at it, I was probably eight and way too young to watch the film when I did. I do remember this movie had the first full frontal nudity I had ever seen. Thanks Elisabeth Brooks! More recently in my teens and twenties I've seen a couple of the wonderfully bad sequels: the marsupial one and some other goofy one. After watching the original I have to say I really liked it. Sure, it's slow getting to the good stuff but I found myself caught up in the stories of the odd characters. Also, it has some of the best makeup and special effects of any werewolf movie, aside from maybe An American Werewolf in London (Both movies came out the same year and Rick Baker was originally supposed to do the special effects on The Howling but left to do An American Werewolf. We was replaced by Rob Bottin who did some amazing work).
The film begins with Karen White, a television journalist, going out to meet the murderous man named Eddie who has been stalking her. She is wearing a wire and is acting as bait for the police who are hoping to capture Eddie. She meets him in a porno theater when the wire cuts off transmission. The police and her husband begin to freak out because they don't know where she's at. Meanwhile, Eddie forces her to watch a video of a woman being raped. When she finally turns around she screams (we're assuming he's a werewolf now) and the cops shoot Eddie. She suffers amnesia and spends the rest of the movie having small flashbacks of what she might've seen.
In order to recuperate, she's sent to a hippy commune place called the Colony full of weirdos. One seduces her husband (in that full frontal nude scene that was forever ingrained in my young mind) and the rest just act like weirdos. Eventually, we find out they're all part of some werewolf cult and now her husband has gotten the werewolf banged into him (Werewolf STDs). Now that we have Karen in the midst of a werewolf cult guess who shows up? Fucking Eddie. He's a wolf too. After a bit of fighting, some great transformation scenes, and the entrance of our hero... the boyfriend of Karen's friend Mr. Whatshisface, the werewolfs are shot by silver bullets (how'd he know?) and burnt in a cabin. Some escape but Ms. Karen White goes on tv to warn the world about it and transforms on camera before being shot. The world watches, shrugs, and moves on to watching sports.
What I loved about the film, aside from the incredible special effects... Mr. Rob Bottin, you're a genius... is the homage that director Joe Dante pays to classic horror movies and the little inside joke wolf references that permeate the movie. The characters are named after classic movie directors and characters. There is a photo of Lon Chaney in one of the character's office, and throughout the film there are wolf references. Several characters eat wolf chili, Allen Ginsburg's The Howl is seen at one point, etc.
What I hadn't expected is the sexual themes of the film. The werewolf is a metaphor for the animalistic and primitive nature that lives within the heart of us all. The werewolf transformation is what happens when we give into these urges both sexual and violent. The cult's overall message was to give into these urges. I don't know, maybe this is a theme throughout most werewolf movies, they were never really my jam.
After the initial scene its a little slow to get to the good werewolf stuff, but it pays off in the end. What's your thoughts?!
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