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The Howling (1981)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
5/03, 12/08, 3/22
12/08:
Ah, more werewolf films...zzzzzz.
The Howling is no exception as it's more of the same as shown in Wolfen and An American Werewolf in London.
The acting is standard, but I've never been a fan of Dee Wallace. Her real-life husband, Christopher Stone, looks like
Tom Atkins.
The plot is basic, leaving no room for creativity. To best sum up the premise, it's
Invasion of the Body Snatchers on
Friday the 13th campground with werewolves for peapods. No wonder why
Kevin McCarthy made a cameo appearance.
Apart from the naked bimbo, the werewolf transformation is the only good thing going. Taken from IMDb, one commented: "There
are numerous werewolf references scattered throughout the picture, but I've been bored stiff to care looking for them." Amen.
All in all, The Howling is a by-the-numbers werewolf flick with not much of a story.
3/22:
The only reason why The Howling gets any respect is the landmark werewolf transformation.
Before that happened, the filmmakers would either have the actor wear a wolf suit or shoot the scene frame-by-frame while moving
or adding something one at a time which was slow and laborious. Enter Rob Bottin who took over Rick Baker's job
after he left for An American Werewolf in London. He created the werewolf effect by using "air bladders under latex
facial applications to give the illusion of transformation." It was the beginning of the modern werewolf film cycle for
the 80's.
Unfortunately, The Howling is a boring movie with numerous wolf references and the weakest possible climax for the
finale. Dee Wallace isn't bad-looking, having been paired up with her real-life husband Christopher Stone. However, when
his character died at the end, there's no proper closure. Ditto for the adultery. Several legends appear: John Carradine of
The Grapes of Wrath, Kevin McCarthy of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Dick Miller of
A Bucket of Blood who retains his old character's name: Walter Paisley. Some of them are named after real-life horror
movie directors.
The quality of writing is noticeably high because of John Sayles who has a terrific cameo as the morgue attendant. Terence H.
Winkless may be credited, but it's Sayles who rewrote the script competely which is the reason why Dick Miller comes off
looking great. There are terrific lines as "Honey, you're from Los Angeles. The wildest thing you've ever heard is Wolfman
Jack. This is the country" and "You can't tame what's meant to be wild, doc. It just ain't natural." John Sayles will go
on to do way better stuff than this.
It's interesting to hear various alternative therapies reeled off by Donna which are as follows: assertiveness
training, E.S.T. (Erhard Seminars Training), T.M. (Transcendental Meditation), scientology, iridology, and primal scream. The
first is learning how to be confident or communicate in a confident way while the second is described by The Bad Fads Museum:
"If you are insecure or unhappy with your life, you need to allow someone to verbally [sic] abuse and degrade you
until you feel you are of no value—then you can be rebuilt into a useful member of society." The third is sitting
twenty minutes twice a day with eyes closed while the fourth is a duh, the fifth is looking into the person's iris of the eye
for any health issues, and the sixth is basically screaming your head off. Every one of them has zero empirical evidence in
terms of effectiveness and therefore can be written off as, at best, waste of money and, at worst, dangerous.
All in all, to take on The Howling is to witness the state-of-art werewolf transformation; otherwise, it's average
as horror movies go.