The Howling (1981)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless, based on the novel by Gary Brandner
Directed by Joe Dante
Starring Dee Wallace-Stone, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Belaski, Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, and Robert Picardo

Features:

• Running audio commentary with director Dante and actors Wallace-Stone, Stone and Picardo
  
• "Unleashing the Beast: Making The Howling" multi-part documentary
  
• Deleted Scenes
  
• Outtakes
  
• "Making a Monster Movie: Inside The Howling" Documentary
  

Released by: MGM Home Entertainment
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes
My Advice: Own It

Karen White (Wallace-Stone) is a television news woman who goes out on a limb for a really hot story. It seems that there is a serial killer on the loose and she has landed an interview with him. Unfortunately, the story never happens because of the fact that the police got there just in time to save her life, but at the same time, kill the man. She is haunted by nightmares about the incident, so her shrink sends her to a place simply called "The Colony," a kind of commune out of town where she can relax and recover from the incident in the peaceful woods. But the woods are anything but peaceful.

What is nice about this horror movie is that it spends a great deal of time dealing with the fact that White was very nearly scared to death by something that she barely saw. It doesn't focus on the werewolf, but rather focuses on the effects that this creature has on those who have encountered it. For its time, the special effects were amazing, but by today's standards, they are pretty bad. If someone wanted to do a killer remake of this film, they could, but it would only work if they stuck to the original formula. The original bit seemed to come from the fact that they were under a limited budget and couldn't afford to spend a lot of money on werewolf effects, but when they did use them, man is it effective. Again, the movie doesn't go for the cheap Jump Out And Get You Every Two Minutes type of suspense, but prides itself on the fact that they really take their time in developing a true sense of unease with the audience. You actually find yourself more worried about the fact that nothing scary has happened in a while and sort of create your own tension--as it should be.

Well, the DVD is pretty cool. First of all, the first thing I ran across was an easter egg that took me to a very tongue-in-cheek interview with character actor Dick Miller, which was hilarious. The first "orthodox" feature is the commentary track with pretty much the whole gang...and this is really the problem with it; there can be too much of a good thing. Most of the time, Dante takes the lead on the track, with everyone else throwing in random comments here and there. This makes for a jumbled mess most of the time, and you really have to wade through a bunch of crap to get to the neat comments that are spattered throughout the track.

The documentary called "Unleashing the Beast" is broken up into several segments (the best one carries the subtitle "I Was a Latex Werewolf"). This is a very thorough docu that starts out with the history of werewolves on screen and evolves quickly into how this project came about over twenty years ago. If you are a fan of the movie, you will really enjoy this documentary. It is incredibly well done and a great addition to the disc. The other documentary is titled "Making a Monster Movie," which appears to be a vintage documentary. I'm basing this assumption on the fact that all the clothing styles are very dated. It's just a series of interviews with various cast and crew members. It's not as good a documentary as the first one on the disc, but it offers a different perspective on the film. With the combination of the two documentaries, you get a real sense of how the filmmaker's perspectives of the film have changed over the years.

The deleted scenes are put together in a very rough way. There is no menu that you can choose from, they simply flow from one to the other. And, just like is usually the case with deleted scenes on DVDs, it is obvious as to why these were cut from the film. I just think that it would have been nice to have had some kind of commentary track with them to provide some more insight. The outtakes reel is pretty good, but it's mostly just little petty stuff that went wrong on the set. There are a couple of shots of the werewolf transformation scene where the latex makeup exploded off the actor--which are pretty funny, but that's really about all it's good for.

So, this DVD is very much worth owning. It's got some great special features that are very well laid out. If you are a fan of the movie you won't be disappointed to plonk down that coin.