Bonus Monster Movie of the Week: The Howling (1981)

THE HOWLING (1981)
Director: Joe Dante
Genre: Werewolf movie

THE MOVIE

Werewolf movies came of age with Joe Dante’s The Howling. Gone were the days when you could glue some hair onto someone’s face and slap some fangs on them and call them a werewolf. This movie along with An American Werewolf In London, (released a few months later) moved werewolves away from the traditional “wolf man” characters and towards a more monstrous and lupine design. Both movies feature elaborate transformation scenes that pushed the limits of pre-CGI special effects and make-up technology. Both movies featured work by legendary special effects artists: The Howling features effects by Rob Bottin who also worked on John Carpenter’s The Thing, and American Werewolf features effects by Rick Baker, who has worked on everything to the first King Kong remake and Star Wars to The Nutty Professor and Tropic Thunder. The Howling, however, opened first and spawned six sequels (most direct to home video).

The Howling is the story of TV anchor Karen White (not to be confused with 70’s horror actress Karen Black) played by Dee Wallace Stone who is being stalked by what she thinks is a run-in-the-mill serial killer (Joe Dante regular, Robert Picardo). With the cooperation of the police, she attempts to set him up by agreeing to meet him in an adult bookstore. The cops arrive just as he is about to show her something horrible. He is shot dead in front of her and she sees something she cannot shake but cannot exactly remember either. After having a breakdown on live TV, Karen and her husband are advised by a friend to visit The Colony, an isolated commune. This commune at first glance appears to be a vaguely Wiccan, Northern California post ‘60’s nature retreat.


Karen White becomes increasingly disturbed by little things around her in The Colony that somehow remind her of her attacker, such as the eerie howling that fills the night and the unexplained animal carcasses that she stumbles across. She begins to suspect that her husband is having an affair with a local nymphomaniac/proto-Angelina Jolie. Meanwhile Karen’s co-worker is researching the mysterious stalker and discovers connections to The Colony, which turns out to be a werewolf community. Curiously, the movie hints at internal political rifts between different factions of the werewolves but this is not explored in much depth. Having escaped the werewolves but having been bitten by one, Karen makes an emergency news broadcast in which she warns the world of the werewolf menace before turning into one on camera.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The real centerpiece of The Howling is the make up and special effects work of Rob Bottin who attempts to get as close as possible to that ultimate holy grail of pre ‘90’s werewolf movies: the cut-away free transformation sequence. We take it for granted now from everything to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to the craptacular Underworld movies. But back in the day, you could not do a transformation like this without cutting away several times. Bottin’s puppets/dummies/make-up manage to do so much in single shots that cutaways are limited. Of course the result is transformation sequences that are amazing and intricate but also long, ostentatious, and painful. I mean, seriously, bring a book. This woman sits there for like ten minutes while Robert Picardo transforms, and it's like, "What the hell are you watching this for? Run!"

The resulting werewolves are actually pretty cool and scary (although vaguely bunny-like). They actually look like a cross between a man and a wolf, which is a novel departure from werewolves that either looked exactly like wolves or, more often, Kenny Rogers.



MOSTERS FEATURED

A whole pack of werewolves.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

I like Dee Wallace Stone’s dramatic on-camera transformation at the end of the movie. Although it is contrived, illogical, and the rest of the movie doesn’t support the tragic tone with which it is presented, it is a very memorable moment in the history of horror movies. Although, I think she transforms into some kind of Terrier.

SEQUELS

There were six sequels to this movie; apparently each one is exponentially worse than the one before it.

THE TRAILER



SEE ALSO

An American Werewolf in London 1981 Silver Bullet 1985

Does anyone remember Fox's 1980's TV show Werewolf? It was literally one of the first FOX shows. Back when people used to make jokes about the Fox "network."