Werewolf fans can usually be divided up into two categories: those who prefer “An American Werewolf in London” and those who prefer “The Howling”. Obviously, fans of an entire sub genre can’t so easily be bisected like that, but as far as generalizations go it’s fairly accurate. For my money, I’ve always been “An American Werewolf” kind of guy, but “The Howling” never fails to swoop in at the number two spot on my charts.
After a traumatic encounter with a rape-happy stalker named Eddie (Robert Picardo), anchorwoman Karen White (Dee Wallace) loses all memory of the event. Taking some advice from her doctor (Patrick Macnee), Karen and her husband (Christopher Stone) leave for a secluded wilderness retreat to hopefully overcome her problem. All the folks at the retreat seem pretty weird at first, but Karen doesn’t know the half of it. Her coworkers, Chris (Dennis Dugan) and Terry (Belinda Balaski), do some investigative research and come to a startling conclusion: everyone at the wilderness retreat is a blood-thirsty werewolf. Everyone except Karen and her husband, that is.
There are a couple reasons I prefer John Landis’ 1981 werewolf offering over this, Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf offering. I won’t clutter my “Howling” review with praise for “An American Werewolf in London” (I’ll save that for my “American Werewolf” review), but to boil it down to one primary advantage, I felt that “American Werewolf” carried the scenes without werewolves much better than “The Howling” did.
My only real qualm with “The Howling” is that it can be kinda boring for the first forty-five minutes or so. At least, after the bit with Eddie is over with, I mean. “American Werewolf” managed to carry the “dull” points with a great sense of dark comedy, but “Howling” plays things fairly straight and can get a little sleepy. Of course, that’s only for the first forty-five minutes. Once the werewolves actually show up, things kick into high gear.
If “The Howling” has one advantage over “American Werewolf” it would have to be the design of the werewolves themselves. I love the four-legged werewolf as seen in John Landis’ flick, but I still prefer my werewolves to trot around upright. The werewolves in “The Howling” are especially menacing, and the fact that we’re presented with an entire group of them at the film’s conclusion only multiplies the dread. The ears being so long and pointy can at times make them look more like werebunnies than werewolves, but you’ll get over that fairly quick.
The transformation sequences are absolutely phenomenal, with some of the best use of prosthetics I’ve ever seen. Eye-candy aside, it does take a little long; the protagonist of the film just stands there and watches like she has nothing better to do as her nemesis takes ten minutes to fully mutate. At one point, she even looks away in what I think was meant to be abject terror, but instead Dee Wallace just looks like she’s getting bored and searching the room for anything more interesting.
There are a handful of rather humorously ill-conceived effects, I have to admit. There’s a scene where a pair of werewolves are having a sex scene in front of a roaring fire. We get a look at their silhouettes as they transform from humans to canines, but the transformation is actually animated and looks about as convincing as a Saturday morning cartoon. I’m also not particularly fond of the appearance of the female werewolf who shows up at the end of the flick. She’s very silly-looking and comes off more like Sweet Polly Purebred on steroids than anything else.
“The Howling” is one of your quintessential werewolf flicks and without a doubt one of the best ever filmed. It might very well be my favorite Joe Dante flick outside of “Gremlins”. Just, you know, avoid the sequels. All five of them.
Grade: B- (as in “Be wary of group therapy sessions, as you’ll probably get mauled to death”.)
After a traumatic encounter with a rape-happy stalker named Eddie (Robert Picardo), anchorwoman Karen White (Dee Wallace) loses all memory of the event. Taking some advice from her doctor (Patrick Macnee), Karen and her husband (Christopher Stone) leave for a secluded wilderness retreat to hopefully overcome her problem. All the folks at the retreat seem pretty weird at first, but Karen doesn’t know the half of it. Her coworkers, Chris (Dennis Dugan) and Terry (Belinda Balaski), do some investigative research and come to a startling conclusion: everyone at the wilderness retreat is a blood-thirsty werewolf. Everyone except Karen and her husband, that is.
There are a couple reasons I prefer John Landis’ 1981 werewolf offering over this, Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf offering. I won’t clutter my “Howling” review with praise for “An American Werewolf in London” (I’ll save that for my “American Werewolf” review), but to boil it down to one primary advantage, I felt that “American Werewolf” carried the scenes without werewolves much better than “The Howling” did.
My only real qualm with “The Howling” is that it can be kinda boring for the first forty-five minutes or so. At least, after the bit with Eddie is over with, I mean. “American Werewolf” managed to carry the “dull” points with a great sense of dark comedy, but “Howling” plays things fairly straight and can get a little sleepy. Of course, that’s only for the first forty-five minutes. Once the werewolves actually show up, things kick into high gear.
If “The Howling” has one advantage over “American Werewolf” it would have to be the design of the werewolves themselves. I love the four-legged werewolf as seen in John Landis’ flick, but I still prefer my werewolves to trot around upright. The werewolves in “The Howling” are especially menacing, and the fact that we’re presented with an entire group of them at the film’s conclusion only multiplies the dread. The ears being so long and pointy can at times make them look more like werebunnies than werewolves, but you’ll get over that fairly quick.
The transformation sequences are absolutely phenomenal, with some of the best use of prosthetics I’ve ever seen. Eye-candy aside, it does take a little long; the protagonist of the film just stands there and watches like she has nothing better to do as her nemesis takes ten minutes to fully mutate. At one point, she even looks away in what I think was meant to be abject terror, but instead Dee Wallace just looks like she’s getting bored and searching the room for anything more interesting.
There are a handful of rather humorously ill-conceived effects, I have to admit. There’s a scene where a pair of werewolves are having a sex scene in front of a roaring fire. We get a look at their silhouettes as they transform from humans to canines, but the transformation is actually animated and looks about as convincing as a Saturday morning cartoon. I’m also not particularly fond of the appearance of the female werewolf who shows up at the end of the flick. She’s very silly-looking and comes off more like Sweet Polly Purebred on steroids than anything else.
“The Howling” is one of your quintessential werewolf flicks and without a doubt one of the best ever filmed. It might very well be my favorite Joe Dante flick outside of “Gremlins”. Just, you know, avoid the sequels. All five of them.
Grade: B- (as in “Be wary of group therapy sessions, as you’ll probably get mauled to death”.)
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