Dino Delaurentiis is name that would appear in front of strange and awesome films especially in the horror genre and if a genre fan saw that name appear before a film you knew you were either in for a quirky treat like Army of Darkness or something really weird yet love able like Flash Gordon. In this huge production repertoire were a slew of Stephen King adaptations ranging from beginning filmmakers at the reigns to the likes of David Cronenberg giving us the Dead Zone. One such film which has a pretty stellar production and acting team would be Silver Bullet. A Corey Haim and Gary Bucey starring flick written by King himself based in his story Cycle of the Werewolf and helmed originally by Phantasm's Don Coscarelli! I am an unabashed fan of both Corey's, love Stephen King and think Don Coscarelli is one of the greatest imaginations to ever grace a silver screen. However just as Delaurentiis giveth, he may also taketh! Thus we are given a very fun and evocative werewolf film that possibly could have been more.
A small quiet little town enters into the summer with a slew of murders that at first are thought to be accidents but as the bodies pile up in mysterious ways the townspeople question their ways of life and the abilities of the local law enforcement to protect them. In the center of this hysteria is wheelchair bound Marty, his sister Janie and their uncle Red. Though Marty cannot walk his uncle being the great engineer of cars that he is has built him a motorized wheelchair to get him around town so he never feels like he can't do as much as the other kids. However because he is "babied" his older sister Janie is very jealous of him as she blooms into the angsty years of a teenage girl who doesn't want to spend all her time taking care of her paraplegic little brother. Their uncle Red has also had troubles of late as he is newly single and constantly drinking to the chagrin of his sister Nan, Marty and Janie's mother. With this small family being in such dramatic turmoil in their household already, the intensity of their stress is heightened by the murders of their friends and neighbors as the third murder is Marty's best friend. The town begins curfews and restrictions as the townspeople become paranoid even sending out mobs of people to hunt for the killer at night when the murders take place. Marty too wishes to find the killer believing him to be something much more deadly. To cheer Marty up Uncle Red builds him an even faster motorized chair called the Silver Bullet which is as fast as a car! Marty being a young child wanting distractions from the horrors of the real world takes the Silver Bullet out for a spin only to run into a monstrous werewolf that almost kills him. Marty takes it upon himself to figure out who the werewolf is and avenge his friend as the town becomes too terrified to do anything.
Like most of Kings works he really invests you in the characters and the casting in this film carries them even further. While the movie starts out with a murder we watch this town in ignorant bliss as this slice of Apple Pie America walks around openly trusting everyone without a care in the world. Once that seal of freshness is broken it gets really ugly as the town descends into madness, but it's mostly told through the childlike eyes of Marty and through the narration of Janie as an older woman who remembers the town fondly. It's one of those few movies that is truly child horror, you can't help but feel for Marty and his perseverance to be a normal kid in his dysfunctional family and be able to do all the things the normal kids do. Haim really carries King's character into a loveable level that is the heart and soul of the film. Bucey I love in just about everything because before and after his motorcycle accident he always brings great quirks and a great level of expertise to his characters. He himself felt such a kindred connection to Uncle Red on the film that he Ad libbed a lot of the dialogue which was approved by Stephen King himself! "Holy jumped up bald headed Jesus Palomino!" Being such classics delivered by Bucey.
As much as I love this movie and the characters within it, I did say Delaurentiis can taketh and taketh he did. King and Dino heavily disagreed on the construction of the werewolf and it's look. Famed Italian special FX artist Carlo Rambaldi, whose credits include designs for Alien and E.T, worked with King to design a very ambiguous werewolf that was very plain and hard to see which would in a sense leave more to the imagination of terror than actual physical presence. Dino of course didn't want any of that which delayed the production for quite sometime forcing Coscarelli to begin shooting without a werewolf. I don't know how much he filmed of the characters without the wolf but the setbacks eventually caused him to leave and was replaced with Dan Attias on his directorial debut for a full feature.
I would assume Attias would have shot most of the "horror" elements in the film and while I love Coscarelli they are very well done scares. My favorite scene is when the mob of angry townspeople goes into the woods to hunt down whatever is killing them and a fog covers most of the terrain very creepily. The townspeople accidentally fall victim to bear traps and other dangers in the forest before they are taken one by one down to the forest floor through the fog by hairy arms blood gushing and screams muffling. Body parts fly through the fog as they try to make their last stand against the beast!
My favorite thing about the movie is the werewolf itself, not that it is the best looking werewolf ever committed to screen but because the beast is treated almost like a serial killer. The Cycle of the wolf refers to the human side slowly being engulfed by the animal side becoming more and more feral. A little over half way through the movie Marty discovers who the werewolf is by hitting them in the eye with a firework when they are the wolf. This gives way to one of the most nerve racking sequences as Janie goes around town trying to find someone whose missing an eye under the pretense of collecting cans for the church. After the reveal the wolf in human form tries to murder Marty by day trying to run him and the Silver Bullet off the road in a great car chase that culminates into a very intense confrontation where the Silver Bullet runs out of gas and the killer speaks to Marty justifying the murders as good deeds to the town and the performance is so sick and sadistic that translates into the character work of the werewolf in full beast form.
While a lot differentiates from the novel, these were choices made by King himself and the core concept of the cycle of the wolf as that almost serial killer is still there. The biggest differences is in the book the wolf apparently spoke and while I think that would've been cool in the film it would have detracted from the performance of the wolf itself and taken away from the terror presented by the actor portraying the wolf. While it definitely has its flaws in creature design and FX work as well as a sordid production history, Kings stories permeate through and sell the film perfectly with thanks both too Attias and Coscarelli and the atmosphere of the film in aesthetic, sound design and shot structure feels all its own for a classic horror story.
22 Days til' Halloween! Halloween!
22 Days til' Halloween! Silver Shamrock!
