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Post by janntosh on Mar 31, 2021 18:16:56 GMT
recently celebrating its 40th anniversary and came out in the same year as An American Werewolf in London interestingly enough. The film was directed by Joe Dante fresh off Pirahna and later director of Gremlins and co scripted by future Oscar nominee John Sayles and was a rather low budget film even for its time. The film has a genuinely creepy and foreboding atmosphere for the most part and some scary looking werewolves brought to life with fantastic practical effects by Rob Bottin (The Thing). Unfortunately, the film kind of peters out nears the end with a weak climax and conclusion. Being very low budget you have to wonder if they just ran out of money. Still if you want a decent werewolf movie with some great practical effects you will probably enjoy this one overall also, one has to wonder if Spielberg is a fan of this movie has he cast the lead, Dee Wallace, as the mom in ET the following year and hired Joe Dante to do Gremlins also, the film was followed up by a surprising amount of DTV sequels
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Post by Stammerhead on Mar 31, 2021 18:23:54 GMT
I enjoyed this a lot more than the other werewolf film and I liked the ending.
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Post by lenlenlen1 on Mar 31, 2021 18:47:53 GMT
I liked The Howling a lot. And I liked that Dee Wallace becomes the most beautiful werewolf I'd ever seen at the end of the movie.
You guys remember Wolfen? Another '81 wolf movie. Year of the wolf! LOL
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Post by wmcclain on Mar 31, 2021 19:39:35 GMT
The Howling (1981), directed by Joe Dante. When a TV reporter agrees to meet a serial killer in the sleazy sex district, the interview is worse than she could have imagined. In fact, her mind can't accept what happened and she can't remember the details. But she is having nightmares and needs to get away for a while... to an odd retreat run by a celebrity shrink. After 20 minutes of this intriguing setup, it turns more comical and I found it hard to care very much. I remember liking this when it was new, probably because: - new life for the werewolf genre
- that werewolves need counseling was funny, as was their rebellion against their pop-psychology guru
- ambitious pre-CGI transformation scenes; also see An American Werewolf in London (1981) and The Company of Wolves (1984) from the same period.
- a nudity-and-passion scene by the campfire
- a fun selection of old-timers: Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Kenneth Tobey, Dick Miller
What hurts the story: - dividing the narrative into the two couples could have been better handled
- the end of the campfire scene has animation so rudimentary you wonder why they bothered
- the theater audience jeered the final transformation when Dee Wallace turns into a cute werewolf; that was really stupid
This had an "R" rating. In the porno-shop scene we see "enough" of a rape-and-bondage film. I'm not recalling anything like that in other movies of the time. Available on Blu-ray from Shout Factory with two commentary tracks and other extras.
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Post by petrolino on Mar 31, 2021 21:19:36 GMT
Nice movie.
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Post by politicidal on Mar 31, 2021 23:03:27 GMT
I liked it better than An American Werewolf in London.
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mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,054
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Post by mgmarshall on Mar 31, 2021 23:08:03 GMT
I wanna stress this- you do not wanna check out any of those sequels.
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Post by Prime etc. on Mar 31, 2021 23:25:36 GMT
We saw it at a drive-in and had to come back another day because it was too busy. The audio commentary for this is worth a listen, especially when they get to the campfire scene and Christopher Stone has to make excuses while wife Dee Wallace isn't sounding too enthusiastic. She also says when they did the barn scene someone put nude women on the upper tier and she said "no way I am doing this scene with nude women there" and they removed them and she said to Joe Dante; "How could you have done that? I am surprised at you." and he had to make excuses to appease her wrath. The sequels I have seen are awful although one of them had a neat werewolf but they really went down in quality. Direct to video movies lost a cinematic look to them. They look so cheap.
The movie shown in the porno scene was shot specifically for the movie--although they used actual news footage of murder victims.
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Post by Captain Spencer on Apr 1, 2021 3:05:37 GMT
I've always been a fan of The Howling. Creepy atmosphere, top-notch cast, and amazing creature effects/transformations. Possibly the scariest-looking werewolves in movie history. And I actually didn't mind the Dee Wallance "cute doggy werewolf" at all; that was something different. But what I didn't like was the animated part and the claymation werewolves at the end.
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Post by James on Apr 1, 2021 3:37:09 GMT
Pretty underrated. It's debatable whether this or American Werewolf in London is my favourite werewolf movie. While London has the better script and overall characters, I think the werewolves in this film are more frightening and badass and the film has a more chilling tone.
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Post by darkreviewer2013 on Apr 2, 2021 7:05:48 GMT
Not a fan, although it has its merits. The werewolves look phenomenal and the setting was just perfect. The transformation scene was really something else. Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the generally weak, muddled script and characters. The whole thing sort of just meanders for much of its runtime. And the ending was very, very off. An excellent example of a movie with a strong premise but weak execution.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on Apr 3, 2021 7:00:22 GMT
I wanna stress this- you do not wanna check out any of those sequels. And to miss out on so much campy and cheesy b-movie fun? Not to forget, the sexy as hell, Sybil Danning as a 1000 year old werewolf witch, a triggerhappy Reb Brown, screaming his lungs out, and of course, the legend that is Christopher Lee, still managing to deliver the goods, even if everyone else around him, seems to treat their parts, like they were starring in a parody. The third one, well, also shot by the same director as the second one, is also quite a wild and fun ride, even if it actually tries (believe it or not) to be taken way more seriously, which makes some of the cheesy and hilarious parts, even funnier: Alright, I have not seen everyone of the later Howling sequels, but I love the first three, as the first is of course the best, yet the two following films, are just so damn entertaining and fun to behold, while the one which came after those, seemed to try an remake the original, but of course, with a much lesser budget/talents involved, the film came off as a rather uneven and quite boring adventure. I guess I have seen, at least 1 or 2 of the later 80s or early 90s Howling films, but this time, they were just bad, not funny or "scary", but more boring and I am not sure, if I will ever bother with what came after that.
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mgmarshall
Junior Member
@mgmarshall
Posts: 2,054
Likes: 3,308
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Post by mgmarshall on Apr 4, 2021 3:53:21 GMT
I wanna stress this- you do not wanna check out any of those sequels. And to miss out on so much campy and cheesy b-movie fun? Not to forget, the sexy as hell, Sybil Danning as a 1000 year old werewolf witch, a triggerhappy Reb Brown, screaming his lungs out, and of course, the legend that is Christopher Lee, still managing to deliver the goods, even if everyone else around him, seems to treat their parts, like they were starring in a parody. The third one, well, also shot by the same director as the second one, is also quite a wild and fun ride, even if it actually tries (believe it or not) to be taken way more seriously, which makes some of the cheesy and hilarious parts, even funnier: Alright, I have not seen everyone of the later Howling sequels, but I love the first three, as the first is of course the best, yet the two following films, are just so damn entertaining and fun to behold, while the one which came after those, seemed to try an remake the original, but of course, with a much lesser budget/talents involved, the film came off as a rather uneven and quite boring adventure. I guess I have seen, at least 1 or 2 of the later 80s or early 90s Howling films, but this time, they were just bad, not funny or "scary", but more boring and I am not sure, if I will ever bother with what came after that. Okay, I will grant you those first two are some good cheesy B-movie fun, but I assure you it is just pure crap for five movies straight after that, including that Twilight-infused reboot.
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