Silver Bullet (1985)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Stephen King, based on his novelette Cycle of the Werewolf
Directed by Daniel Attias
Starring Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim, Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn

Released by: Paramount
Rating: R
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Skip it

Tarker's Mills is a sleepy little town that really hasn't had that much bad stuff happen to it. I mean, the worst thing about it is the town drunk...until now, that is. It seems that someone or something is killing people off, on just about every full moon. Marty Coslaw (Haim) and his sister, Jane (Follows), are the only ones in the town that actually believe the culprit is a werewolf. Everyone else is trying to solve this mystery as though it were just any regular type of serial murderer. Marty also has another little strike against him, though. He's been bound to a wheelchair all of his life. His Uncle Red (Busey) has a special place in his heart--right next to Jack Daniels--for little Marty, so he builds him a hot rod of a wheelchair to get around in. Anyway, Marty has been noticing some striking similarities between this werewolf and a prominent member of the town...and that could put him in some serious danger.

This is yet another one of those cases where the book is oh so much better than the movie. Even the best sometimes miss the mark, and this screenplay was one where King did. But that's not the main problem here. The direction of this film is absolutely horrible. It's almost as though the cast was told to play every known stereotype imaginable. The actors themselves didn't help that much, because they followed through on the direction and then some. It's obvious that the character who's the werewolf is the bad guy from the moment we are introduced to him on screen. There seems to be a slight effort to make us believe that it's one of the other townsfolk who's always fighting with the law, but it just doesn't work out.

Busey, it seems, was typecast in the role of the alcoholic, here-again-gone-again uncle who Haim is always looking up to. Haim is every bit bubble gum and absolutely no depth at all. No, if there is a reason to watch this movie, it's to see the werewolf special effects. There is one gratuitous scene where everyone in the congregation of a church begins to turn into a werewolf and, for the time, the special effects were outstanding. It's just a shame that there couldn't have been a movie around them to put everything together in a nice, tight package.

The DVD has nothing to help the film out. There should have been something about the special effects listed here as a bonus feature, but no dice. Carlo Rambaldi has done some amazing things with special effects in his lifetime and there is absolutely no mention of him on this disc at all (apart from the credits, of course). It would have been nice to have King up for an interview or something, although I'm sure he's busy "retiring" these days. Indeed, you'd think there might have been some interviews from the time the film came out or something.

The sum is that I'm recommending this one as a skipper. If you loved the movie as a kid and want to see it again just for old time's sake, just go out and rent it. Only the die hard King completist would want this for their collection.