I know there’s only a few days left until the end of the month but I’m going to promise this is the last werewolf movie I’m going to watch. I realized that in all my lycanthropy I’ve poured into this spooky season, I’ve never watched this 1981 “classic”. I don’t necessarily say that ironically, but I’m also not entirely sure how iconic this movie is in reality. I’d have to imagine it has a relatively dedicated fanbase. It’s one of those 80’s horror movies with just the right blend of elements that later Gen X and older Millennials tend to hoist up in many respects. It’s got some familiar faces for sure and some of those hallmark Joe Dante touches that will definitely take you back to those sweet 80’s years in relatively short order. But is this precursor to Gremlins any good in the grand scheme of things? Let’s get into it and find out, shall we?
What I will say about this movie is that I don’t think it’s bad. I don’t necessarily know that it’s good but I think it’s more than a matter of perspective. I mean, that definitely plays a role obviously. But that’s just how preference in general matters. But I think this is one of those movies that WHEN you watch it for the first time plays a big part of how enjoyable this movie is. Most movies get a bump from nostalgia anyways, but I submit that there are some movies that can be make or break simply because of whether you first watched it as a kid or didn’t watch it until later in life. Like Top Gun. Great movie. I’m not going to say anything bad about it. But I didn’t watch it as a kid. I watched it for the first time in my 30’s. So I don’t have a lifetime of not just nostalgia for the movie but the collective appreciation history that comes with having seen it at a much earlier age. I feel like The Howling has a lot of that too. It’s not a movie for kids. It IS a movie for 12-13 year old boys from 1981. Actually thinking about it, it kind of feels like this movie was made especially for that age range no matter who is watching it. But if you were that kid that was born in the late 60’s and was really hitting the prime of puberty right around the beginning of the 80’s, this movie would have been a perfect take at that time for that audience.
It’s not to say that the only thing this movie has to offer is low hanging fruit that only an adolescent mind would appreciate, but that definitely feels like the bones of the movie. There’s some interesting aspects of the investigation Dennis Dugan, future director of Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy, and his female counterpart do into the lore of werewolves. My favorite part of the entire movie are the two short scenes featuring Dick Miller, Gremlins’ Murray Futterman, as a purveyor of occult books and sundries. He’s not necessarily a sage believer in the sordid roots of the werewolf but he is happy to make a buck off the volumes Dugan and company purchase. Also setting up a final showdown with some silver bullets he later returns for near the finale of the film. However, I will say that this movie does suffer from sort of that aimless wandering a lot of horror movies do through this time period. They have a point that they’re going to try and make. They’ll pad the premise with scenes that appear to be relatively cohesive. But in the end it’s just a gigantic macaroni necklace assembled by an eager kindergartener in my estimation.
If I had to point towards my biggest gripe of the film, it’s one that really hangs heavy over movies like this, especially from the 80’s. It boils down to the fact that you’re purporting to have legitimate actors and actresses in the film and yet none of them seem to even know what it is meant to look like pretending to be a person on the screen. Like as soon as Dante shouts “Action” everyone collectively forgets how to people. Nobody seems to really talk like they would with another person. Emotional expression is either sparsely sprinkled like a casserole desperately searching for a measure of seasoning to give it any kind of depth or the alternative where actors are so over the top that it’s like drinking from a firehose. It’s this feast or famine regimen that the movie provides that doesn’t ebb or flow with any natural inclination. The split of the story lines is interesting enough but it never feels like it comes back together in a meaningful way. Its all over the place much of the time and it just comes off herky jerky as it sputters through the 90 or so minutes of run time.
One thing I would really like to give them credit for is the practical effects. I will shovel on a good bit of praise as you aren’t having to merely interpret werewolves via shadows or implication. There’s no abundance of first person camera work that alludes to werewolves but we never see them. And when we do, There’s a lot of really impressive work that goes into the various stages of transformation. Now bearing in mind that I’m more than happy to heap on a good bit of praise for this fantastic make up and special effects work, they almost swing it too far in the opposite direction. At one point I felt like I was watching a Family Guy parody of a tremendously deliberate transformation sequence. Robert Picardo, an actor Dante worked with at least a couple times, has an extended series of shots where we witness the shedding of his humanity as he elects to change into his werewolf self. I’m pretty sure I clocked the entire thing at just shy of 3 minutes. It seems like that’s a relatively short amount of time. But the whole thing is this prolonged transition where it almost feels like you keep watching the same thing happen but in different angles. You’ll swear you already saw his snout protrude out of the middle of his face, clearly stretching the rubber molds and mock ups of the actor. The first time you see it, the whole ordeal is disturbing but well done. But then it’s like they reset and you watch it again from a different angle. Then flash to pulsating eyes and forehead, only to watch a human mouth seemingly begin the mutation once again. It’s not overtly gory, per se. But its just the self indulgence in the sequence that beleaguers the point to where it feels like the dead horse is calling you, pleading to simply put it out to pasture. We get it. There’s a LOT of moving pieces and art forms and makeup utilized to change a person into a werewolf. And the finished product is pretty impressive too. I just think they delivered a bit too ostentatiously for my tastes.
In the end, I think I feel comfortable giving this movie a 5.7 I don’t know why. It’s a little better than a 5.5 but it’s not really knocking on the door of a 6 at all. So it sort of rests there in that upper middle space of the 5 range. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s not a particularly good one either. It is a movie really. That’s mostly what it is. I didn’t have a bad time watching it. But I’m in no hurry to purchase it or give it a rewatch. I have no plans to invest in further sequels. I got all I needed from the first one and I’m fine with that. Joe Dante is a man who has always delivered when it comes to creatures. I didn’t go back to look and see how long he had been at it prior to this film but I think this is a fine outing for him and a reasonable nod to his capability. I know some people probably revere it and had it not come out against the competing “American Werewolf in London” it probably would have really savored the praise the market would have had for it. But it doesn’t rise to that level or do anything in particular to overtake it. 40 years later, it’s serviceable with the lens of understanding this is most definitely an 80’s movie. It’s a product of it’s time and it’s relatively enjoyable outside it’s heyday but it certainly shone the brightest when it first came out. So this will conclude our werewolfing for 2025. I promise. even if I come across another one, I’m not going to watch it or review it. I’m werewolfed out for now. So until we show back up tomorrow, I’ll catch you on the flip side.
