Smiley face stickers are a clue to a murderin' werewolf, known as Eddie Quist, prowling the streets of L.A. Dee Wallace is the terrified TV anchorwoman, Karen, who has to confront Eddie and it leads to a porno store with a peep show booth! The cops arrive, shots ring out, blood is spilled and it appears Eddie might be dead. Such an opening scene could easily pass as a cheap, junky, exploitative slasher flick particularly in the early 1980's. Don't be fooled because "The Howling" is a nearly goofy horror-comedy with the mildest of serious overtones. It is director Joe Dante playing the game by almost decimating all genre conventions and he keeps the werewolf tongue firmly in its cheek. Ahhh, and those werewolf transformations.
The setting has an otherworldly quality as it is set in a colony somewhere in the California countryside. The supposedly rehabilitative colony owned by a renown therapist (Patrick MacNee) is actually a piece of beautiful scenery occupied by local odd ducks such as John Carradine playing a lonely man who wants to end it all; the local smiling sheriff (Slim Pickens); a peeping tom-type who already looks like a werewolf (Don McLeod), and most memorably a Wiccan-looking nymphomaniac named Marsha Quist, Eddie's sister (Elisabeth Brooks exuding mystery and sex appeal in equal droves), who has her eyes set on Karen's protective husband (Christopher Stone). These colony denizens like to party with barbecue and beers but they also have a touch of the lycanthropy in them - they transform into huge werewolves. They tear your skin, disembowel you and also enjoy sex. What a weird colony!
"The Howling" is not be taken seriously but there are moments that are more spooky than scary with a grain of wicked humor throughout. Eddie Quist as played by Robert Picardo remains a fearsome killer who doesn't stop from transforming even when acid is thrown in his face - his particular fascination with stalking Karen is never made clear but, then again, it need not be. When he says without a trace of irony, "I want to give you a piece of my mind" and actually pierces his brain - yuck! There is also some funny business with Dick Miller as a bookshop owner with dozens of books on all sorts of subjects including werewolves ("They are worse than cockroaches!"). For inside jokes (other than the placement of books like Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," of all things, and footage of Lon Chaney, Jr. from "The Wolf Man"), there are some nice digs at the world of broadcast journalists pre-"Broadcast News" and dozens of amusing cameos from the likes of Roger Corman to Kenneth Tobey to even cinematographer Michael Chapman who lensed "Raging Bull."
What works in the film best is the visual imagery of this Californian colony in the woods - it has a sense of the forbidden and is reminiscent of a fairy-tale setting. You half expect to see Little Red Riding Hood in many of the moonlit-night scenes. We hear more howling in the woods than we actually see the superwolves themselves, a clever touch and a budgetary issue according to director Joe Dante. But this helps the film more than it hinders and we get an amazing werewolf transformation of Eddie Quist as his sickly pale skin pops on his forehead and his canine mouth protrudes - easily some of the best effects you will see along with "An American Werewolf in London," which was released the same year.
I shan't leave out Dee Wallace, a remarkably good actress who shows enough vulnerability and flashes of courage in Karen to make us care (though one scene where she reacts to her dead friend leaves a lot to be desired). She holds this movie together along with her then-husband Christopher Stone (who passed away in 1995). Also well used is Joe Dante regular Belinda Balaski as a journalist and photographer who pieces together the mystery of this colony. The werewolves howl on cue and some of them like their hamburgers rare. Really rare.
No comments:
Post a Comment