It’s been noted before that 1981 was a good year for werewolf movies. True, you had Wolfen, The Howling and An American Werewolf In London, and while Wolfen and Howling are entertaining, and better than average, An American Werewolf is the one worth remembering.
Which isn’t to say that Joe Dante’s stab at a werewolf picture is without merit. It’s clever enough, with plenty of in-jokes sprinkled throughout. And the werewolf effects are actually quite good for the period. And, let’s face it: the film spawned six sequels. So either it was a very cheap name to license for derivative knock-offs, or something about the film resonated with the general public. Or possibly both. It’s actually, when all is said and done, a pretty good monster movie at the end of the day. It just suffered through the misfortune of being released very closely to one of the best monster movies, and one with a similar theme at that.
The meat of The Howling is strong as well. Karen White, a news reporter has been contacted by a serial killer, and with police protection she goes to meet with him. It is presumed that he nearly rapes her before being killed by the police, but she can’t actually remember what happened, and his body has vanished from the morgue. A helpful celebrity psychologist (played by Patrick Macnee, classing up the joint immensely) encourages Karen and her husband Bill to spend some time at “The Retreat”, a private colony he runs in northern California for his patients. Once there, Karen is further traumatized by strange howling noises in the woods, and Bill is seduced and turned into a werewolf by, well, a woman who dresses like this to go to a barbeque:
Which really doesn’t say much for Bill.
Eventually, Karen and a friend from work end up killing or burning to death most of the werewolves, but not before Karen is bitten. To warn the nation of the dangerous werewolf menace hiding amongst them, she turns into a wolf on live television and gets shot to death.
That whole “werewolf as sex” thing come to the fore here. Count the number of times a character says “repression” if you doubt me. A significant amount of time is spent at the start of the film showing the audience a pornographic movie clip. And Karen’s husband gets bitten by a werewolf because he goes catting around while his wife recovers from being assaulted. And, of course, there’s the notorious sex scene where Bill and the druid priestess wannabe actually turn into wolves while having sex. So, again, there’s some strong and engaging material here, slightly hurt by a subtly misogynistic tone weaved through it. It was a just a case of, in hindsight, bad timing.
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I just rewatched this a few months back and was surprised at how good the transformation effects were. They aren’t in the same league as “An American Werewolf on London” of course, but they were very tactile and nasty. The subcutaneous bubbling is such a visceral, uncanny effect. I loved it.
Are the sequels any good? I think I watched a bunch of them a decade ago, but I can’t remember anything about them.
HOWLING II is one of the most spectacularly bad movies ever made. It’s practically a spoof.
Can’t speak for the others.
Isn’t this the one where Patrick Macnee and Barry Corbin (I think?) have the argument about whether they should hide from humans or hunt them that culminates in Corbin declaring, “Humans are our cattle!”? I remember really enjoying that, the “what is the werewolf’s place in the modern world” aspect.
Yes, this is the one with that scene. It’s the culmination of that whole “repression” theme that runs through the film.
I love monster movies, and especially werewolf movies. It’s a shame that there aren’t many good ones.
And I’d just like to say that there isn’t really anything wrong with a little misogyny. Or a lot of it.