The Howling

Year: 1980

Director: Joe Dante

Written by: John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless

Threat: Werewolves

Weapon of Choice: Silver Bullets

IMDb page: IMDb link

       The Howling The Howling

Rish Outfield's reviews
Though the monster effects weren't as impressive (by today's standards) as the same year's American Werewolf in London, make-up master Rick Baker focused on a more wolf-MAN rather than "American' Werewolf"'s WOLF-man. This isn't a bad film, though there's some lesser-quality special effects, a couple of dumb fake scares, and annoying 70's music (even the lighting was evocative of that decade). The great things here are appearances by Dick Miller, Slim Pickens, Roger Corman, and Forrest Ackerman. Also, Dee Wallace holds a special place in my heart. And there's a lovely naked wolf-chick. Unfortunately, the creature at the end looked like what would happen if Chewbacca mated with an Ewok. What was up with that?
Best Scare: Actually, the titular sound. It was really chilling.
I'd Recommend It To: All lycanthrope fans.

The tyranist's thoughts
Interestingly enough this was release the same year as An American Werewolf in London and also features make-up/creature effects by Rick Baker. Unfortunately it is very apparent that his best work went into London and not much was left for The Howling. Still the movie has a very good story and an interesting ending. I found it easy to care about the characters and their imminent demise. It isn't a terribly frightening movie, but they did a good job on making that howl a little creepier than normal.

Sequel
Owes everything to/rips off earlier film
Sequel setup skull
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
MTV Editing
OTS skull
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex skull
Death associated with sex
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location skull
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise skullskull
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer skull
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Toilet stall scene
Victim locks self in with killer
Killer is in car with victim skull
Cat jumps out
Fake scare skull
Laughable scare
Blood hits camera
Beheading
Killer doesn't stay dead skull
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence skull
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
No one believes only witness skull
Blood fountain
Poor death effect
Excessive gore skull
Music detracts from scene skull
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie skull The Wolf Man
Future celebrity appears
No one dies at all
Death in first five minutes skull
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives skull
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
What the hell? skull

Total Skulls: 18

Other movies in this series:
Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf
Howling III: The Marsupials
The Howling IV: The Original Nightmare
Howling V: The Rebirth
Howling VI: The Freaks
Howling: New Moon Rising