To quote directly from the Encyclopedia, "Perhaps it's because it's something so primal and real, like something dark that we keep squashed down deep within ourselves". From the ancient world to the modern day, the werewolf resonates with audiences because of what it represents - the darker side of ourselves. From the tales of Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh to Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, the werewolf has endured and has had yards spun about them and creatures like them time and time again.
Our subject today, Stephen King's Silver Bullet is but one such tale. However, it is a rather unique one, wedged right into the middle of the 1980s, more known for its slasher film craze and less for films that focus upon classic monsters.
However, it does in many ways feel like a spiritual twin to another film I've covered here before, Fright Night. In many ways, feeling more like a small town version of that movie. However, while Fright Night was a homage to classic horror in the vein of the Universal or Hammer horror films of the 1930s to 1950s, Silver Bullet is a great deal more straightforward. Our young hero Marty (Corey Haim) isn't a horror fan who finds himself with the trouble of a vampire next door, but rather a werewolf stalking through the woods of his hometown of Tarker's Hills, Maine.
The story begins with narration from Marty's sister Jane (in the film played by Megan Follows, in voice-overs played by Tovah Feldshuh) taking about her rather tumultuous relationship with Marty...and about a series of murders that took place in the town. The first one being a railroad worker who gets decapitated...by a werewolf. The coroner rules it an accident, seeing as the man was a drunk, and that the man must have laid his head on the tracks and it got decapitated by a train...very cleanly. But he is only the first. Several more will happen, some more shocking than others, before Marty and Jane manage to find out what's going on...and stop it.
From here on, there are more spoilers. If you haven't seen the movie and still wish to, I urge you to turn back now.
...done? Okay, here we go.
After the second victim and third victim - a pregnant teenager who was trying to kill herself anyway and an asshole who really, really had it coming - get offed by the werewolf, the fourth victim turns up: a child. An eleven year old child. Full stop. Usually, anyone under the age of eighteen in a horror movie is protected by the censors. Also, to be entirely fair, the body is never fully glimpsed and only then at a distance. However, it is very clear that Stephen King wanted to go there, and I applaud him for it. It ups the stakes by showing that literally no one is safe from the werewolf in this movie.
After the boy (who happens to be Marty's best friend who he has all of two scenes with) is murdered, the mob from Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers shows up and gets three of its members eight-sixed by the werewolf (including one being beaten to death with his own baseball bat)...which is a little confusing when you find out who the werewolf is, but we'll cross that bridge in a moment. So it comes down to Marty, Jane, and his crazy uncle Red (Gary Busey) to hunt it down and bring an end to this whole thing. This is helped somewhat when Marty manages to hit the werewolf in the eye with a firework when it attacks him, escaping in his wheelchair.
...oh, yes. Marty is a paraplegic. He spends most of the film in a wheelchair...and later a rocket-powered wheelchair that...yeah, okay. It's time to address that particular elephant in the room. Stephen King films get a lot of flack for unintentionally hilarious moments in them, whether it's through a plot point or hokey acting or the writing. However, Silver Bullet plays a lot of things completely straight and there's really not that much to make fun of in the movie...except for the "werewolf beats man with a baseball bat" scene and, of course, the aforementioned rocket-powered wheelchair.
But, even so, both things further the plot somewhat. Jane later finds the bat to corroborate their theory as to who the werewolf is, and the wheelchair is used for an admittedly very, very tense scene in broad daylight where the werewolf tries to run Marty off of the road. And with that said, it's finally time to get around to just who the werewolf is. As I've given a spoiler warning long before this point, I can tell you that it's the Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill). That's right, it's Stilgar from Dune, ready to give these kids an asskicking the likes of which even GOD has never seen!
Unlike the rather loud, upbeat character of that David Lynch film, Lowe is...creepy. Even without being the wolf, he is incredibly creepy and has a very commanding presence - again, a villain very much on par with Chris Sarandon in Fright Night. He is a monster not by his own desires, but by necessity. Lowe sees himself as doing the work of God, saving sinners from ending their own lives and suffering eternal damnation. The scene where he says this pretty much assures that he has gone completely crazy, and not really in the traditional bashing of religion that Stephen King often goes for in his work.
Lowe actually does have layers to his character, he's not some evil villain who delights in the mayhem and destruction that the wolf causes. In fact, just before the climax (after he's murdered seven or so people), he's actually attempting to lock himself up in his garage when the Sheriff (played by Terry O'Quinn) comes around to check up on him and he escapes. The Sheriff, by the way, who is apparently so bad at his job that the lynch mob from earlier happened and he has only one deputy for an entire town...and didn't bring him when he went to check on the supposed serial killer.
Worst. Cop. Ever.
The last ten minutes or so are indeed a little tense. But in the end, well...you know that Jane survives because she narrates the story. Luckily for us, Marty does not share the same fate as his friend nor does Gary Busey - who actually takes on the werewolf hand to hand in a scene. And, of course, well...the titular Silver Bullet finds its mark, and the Reverend's horrific life comes to an end. Peace comes to him at long last.
That being said, we're not quite done as there's a lot to unpack here - namely the question of whether, in fitting with our theme for Horror Month 2018, the Reverend Lowe is a man or a monster? Well, looking back at the beginning of this review, the werewolf often represents our id. The shadow that whispers into our ear all of the dark and terrible things that we want to do without consideration of others. Our self-interest, our base wants, and so on. It is clear that Lowe is very conflicted by his existence as a werewolf. At about the halfway point in the film, following the brutal murder of several members of the mob, he has a dream in which everyone in his church turns into werewolves and sets themselves upon him, with Lowe waking up screaming and begging God to end it.
At the same time, however, it is only at the very end of the film that he is shown trying to lock himself away or anything of the like. Unlike many threads about werewolves, it is clear early on with him that he is well aware of what he does as the wolf...which makes him going after the mob confusing, as I mentioned before. He is in the scene when the mob is leaving, trying to convince them to not go out into the woods...which he journeys into as a werewolf and murders at least three of them rather brutally (well, two of them. The baseball bat death is beyond hilarious).
However, Lowe justifies his actions to Marty at one point, insisting that at least one of his kills was him doing the work to save souls for God (while not trying to justify any of the other killings). Justified murder is still pretty soundly murder, though, and it's clear that Lowe is several fries short of a Happy Meal. Perhaps it wasn't his choice to become a werewolf, and while he did try to lock himself away to prevent further killings, he only did so when there were seven bodies behind him and he knew someone was onto him. He also had no qualms about pursuing and trying to kill Marty in the daytime outside of being the werewolf.
This all considered, I would say that Lowe is definitely a monster, somewhere in the vein between Dracula and Frankenstein. While he does show some remorse and guilt for his actions, it clearly was not enough to keep him from committing further atrocities to the point where he was trying to use a contrived justification for it that fell flat. Perhaps even to him. While not an outright monster who delights in what he does, Lowe is a beast that goes further out of necessity, that need to preserve itself above all others without any consideration for anything outside of itself.
The id, unchained.
The acting is particularly decent, with only one or two questionable moments (and, for a Stephen King piece, that is rather rare). Special note goes to Gary Busey for playing the awesome uncle stereotype, even going through a bit of an arc as he tries to be both confidant and a positive role model to Marty (after Marty's mother gives him the riot act for his drinking). This is also probably the only film where you can say the sentence "Gary Busey is the sane and rational one" un-ironically. While he doesn't do the "not now kiddo" trope as is so often used to drive the plot along, he tries to come up with other explanations for what might have happened.
When the evidence mounts up though, even if he doesn't quite believe that Lowe is a werewolf, he does help out and at least tries to check things out. He's even the one who gets the silver bullet melted down by a "wizard of weapons", who it's implied knows exactly what's going on. I'm sure that King explains that somewhere in Dark Tower. In the case of Gary Busey playing Uncle Red, though, it's a definite win. The guy gives a great performance and is just over the top enough that it doesn't descend into straight camp.
Both Corey Haim and Megan Follows also give excellent performances as Marty and Jane, respectively. For child actors, they do exceptionally and give quite a bit of life to the characters. Early on, Jane resents Marty quite a bit - having a great deal of responsibility for his well-being heaped upon her by their parents, and feeling as though Marty's treated better because of his condition - and so goes through a bit of an arc through the story. Marty, likewise, isn't the saintly child you'd see so often in stories like this, but he isn't a total asshole either. He really feels just like a normal eleven year old.
Also of note is Reverend Lowe, as I've mentioned before. Everett McGill has a very commanding presence and is quite terrifying when the need be arises. While his scenes blending in with the rest of society are well-done, he absolutely shines in the scenes where he needs to be menacing, such as when Jane discovers him the night after Marty attacked him with fireworks in wolf form...and he now has bandages over that very same eye. Or the scene where he corners Marty on a condemned bridge, stalking forward and getting a rather chilling villain speech. I would say that his scenes as the werewolf are just as chilling...but he doesn't really have more than just the one.
Beyond the aforementioned dream sequence in which an entire congregation of werewolves pounces upon the Reverend...there is not a great deal of werewolf in this werewolf movie. This was apparently partially because of an argument between Stephen King, producer Dino de Laurentiis, and the original director, Don Coscarelli about the design of the wolf. King wanted something that was not as distinctive as your typical werewolf, something that was not some kind of hulking behemoth. Laurentiis wanted the more traditional design. Coscarelli, since pre-production was already falling behind schedule, went ahead and filmed all the non-werewolf scenes...and then promptly resigned when the future of the film became uncertain, replaced with Dan Attias.
Just a funny little bit of trivia that I know you don't care about, but just might explain what we see...or don't see, rather.
The werewolf that we get in the film is...nothing special. It definitely doesn't have a distinct look like the werewolves in the Howling franchise or others. We also, beyond Lowe's dream sequences, don't ever see it clearly until the very end, nor do we see it transforming. Even what should have been a big rampage scene - the mob being attacked - is undercut in that we don't ever see the creature beyond the occasional limb (including one holding a baseball bat and whacking a man to death). While not seeing it in some ways does make it scarier...I really wish that we could have seen more of it, and that it really could have been more distinctive.
It's final transformation (and only one in the film) is...not great. It really shows a lot of the glaring flaws of the day as far as special effects go. Then again, with the aforementioned problems of getting the suit together, it really could have been a lot worse. Just one minor nitpick in what is a really, really good film that should be a Halloween staple.
If you haven't seen it, do so! It's on Google, YouTube, Amazon...and DVD and Blu-Ray in many a place. Find it! Watch it! Enjoy it!
Silver Bullet is brought to us by Dino de Laurentiis and Paramount Pictures.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
No comments:
Post a Comment