The Cardboard Dog Halloween Movie List Part 6: Werewolf Movies

The beast that walks among us. The Lycanthrope. The Wolfman. One of cinema's most famous and tragic monsters. To combat the current myth that werewolves like to spend their spare time in the club-house hanging out topless with other werewolves, this list has been complied. It has five of the very best werewolf films that cinema has yet to offer...

Top 5 Werewolf Movies

5. The Beast Must Die (1974)

The absolute coolest werewolf movie ever made. This is another Amicus production and has a great concept which actually deserves and requires to be updated. Basically, we have an extremely wealthy businessman turned hunter, Tom Newcliffe (an ace performance by Calvin Lockhart) who gathers a group of individuals to his country pile – as he believes one of them is a werewolf and he's in the mood for a hunt! The score is straight out of a Blaxploitation movie and the action has more than a few fine set pieces to be proud of. The most unique part of this entry? The Werewolf Break. Thirty seconds to collect your thoughts and deliver your guess as to who the hairy murderer has been all along. The film has character and is criminally underrated, however some lovely people have decided that the movie deserves a moment of glory and as such, is being shown at the Ulster Hall on Sunday 3^rd November – do try to check it out. Yo, Hollywood, this one needs remade.

4. Silver Bullet (1985)

Or Gary Busey meets the Werewolf. Two awesome things about this movie. Gary Busey is crazy Uncle Red and Corey Haim is in it as cute-as-a-button Marty Coslaw. The story is once more set in Small Town America, this time in a town at the mercy of a werewolf with locals getting offed every full moon. In time, the beast is injured by young Marty as he sets off fireworks while completely alone in the woods. At night. During a spate of werewolf attacks. FFS. Anyway, like Steven Seagal, the beast is now out for justice and makes Marty his number one priority. Marty then tries to convince Uncle Red that he's being stalked by a werewolf – then the real fun begins.

3. Dog Soldiers (2008)

A complete surprise in that it came from nowhere AND was a predominantly British production. A film that benefited from a strong cast of likeable characters, gloomy setting and great premise, Dog Soldiers is a mix of Assault on Precinct 13, Aliens and Zulu – all flavoured superbly by director Neil Marshall. The movie follows a group of British squaddies as they find themselves under siege by a pack of werewolves in a remote farmhouse in the Scottish Highlands. The film majors on tension and humour, and you'll be on the edge of your seat as the makeshift barriers crumble and the beasts claw their way in.

2. The Howling (1982)

As luck would have it, this movie was released in the same year as our top movie, An American Werewolf in London AND also happens to be one of the best werewolf movies made (also reviewed in an earlier post here). The action is set in America and centres around a young couple who seek quiet reflection in the Californian woods. Bad luck for them, there's demonic howling at night that can only be coming from evil lycanthropes. As the nightmare unfolds around the couple, it really is a battle between man and beast – a creature at the top of the food chain. The visual effects aren't as good as An American Werewolf in London but what effects are? The horror is there and some really creepy set pieces too. All from the director of Gremlins.

1. An American Werewolf in London (1982)

Regarded as a classic amongst fanboys and general horror fans, An American Werewolf in London is still one of the very best in horror films. Horror and humour are an effective combination and director John Landis combines the two very well. Opening with two American students travelling through rural England, the film gathers pace as soon as they arrive in East Proctor – a small village terrorised by a werewolf every full moon. Upon being told to leave the local pub, the students are both attacked; one dies and one is bitten, cursed to become a werewolf. The story expands as the cursed student recovers in a London hospital, time getting closer to his monstrous transformation (which BTW is still the best transformation scene to date). Great scares and visual effects that are a real spectacle – enjoy!

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Review: The Howling (1981) Spoilers...

The Howling (1981)
Dir: Joe Dante
Cert 18 / Running time 91 mins

1981 was a good year for some folks. Ronald Reagan became POTUS and Prince Charles married young Diana Spencer. OK, not so good for her I guess... That aside, it was also a good year for werewolf movies, the best in fact. Honestly, you wait for an iconic werewolf movie to come along and you get two at the same time!

The movies I'm referring to are of course John Landis' American Werewolf in London and Joe Dante's The Howling. The focus of this particular post is to honour the release of The Howling on Blu-Ray (albeit in USA and Canada) on June 18th.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Gary Bradner (which I finally read last year) and tells the story of a young couple who suffer a traumatic attack and are advised to duck out of the rat race for a while to enable them to get back on track. Unfortunately the location they hope will solve their problems ends up being somewhere that would test even Bear Grylls to his limit (I'd like to see his quick fix for fending off a pack of werewolves using only the blubber of a seal and some camel urine). As with many film adaptations, there are loads of differences between the book and the movie; in this instance Karen is a journalist instead of working in the hotel industry - if you want a truer reflection of the book, try the overlooked Howling IV

The movie wasn't that well received upon it's theatrical release. Much like John Carpenter's The Thing which was released shortly afterwards, The Howling was to simmer away for a few years before gaining a strong cult fanbase.

The two leads Christopher Stone and Dee Wallace, playing the aforementioned young couple, Karen and Bill were actually a real life couple; which may explain how they work so well in the movie. Wallace brings a vulnerability and sweetness to her performance which serves to enhance the tension as she tries to cope at her wits end and ultimately finds it in herself to deal with the unfolding horror. Stone is equally effective as the husband who gets led astray by Elisabeth Brooks, the local Jolie-esuqe nympho-lady-werewolf. The rest of the cast are well assembled and there's plenty of eye candy for geeks (Patrick Macnee of The Avengers, John Carridine of House of Dracula and much more similar fare, Kevin McCarthy of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers... it goes on). Macnee is spot on as the affable, paternal Dr. Waggner (another reference) the psychiatrist who is in charge of The Colony; the secluded retreat where he suggested Karen and Roy take their vacation. Waggner attempts to instill a new age philosophy amongst his "gifted" patients by bringing them to the Californian coast and subjecting them to group therapy sessions.

"Ah, theres the file I was looking for, couldn't lay my hands on it anywhere - cheers!"

Part of Karen's therapy involves regressing into the traumatic event she has tried to forget, while Bill hangs out with the menfolk, doing manly things. On the surface it all appears to be just what the couple needed but it's all underscored by the eponymous howling every night, which has the effect of freaking Karen out to the point where she suspects something's wrong. The howling itself is quite creepy and does a lot for the atmosphere of the film. Soon, Bill is bitten by a wolf (oh dear) prompting Karen's best pal Terry (Belinda Balaski) to rush to The Colony for moral support. Its a move Terry soon comes to regret as her investigative journalist instincts kick in; she discovers that Karen's original attacker lurks within the woods of the forest retreat. Her nosiness leads to one of the film's best / scariest scenes. The monster Terry is confronted with is formidable and would probably kick the ass of Naughton's American Werewolf. After that scene its strange to think that this is the same director who gave us kids movies like Gremlins, Explorers and Small Soldiers.

As with any werewolf movie the money shot is the transformation scene. The timing of the release of American Werewolf in London meant that everyone remembered Rick Baker's (still) stunning transformation scene - and rightly so. But a young Rob Bottin gave us a great scene, original, gross and still startling; the camera soaking up Eddie Quist's tortuous change.

The film's only real letdown is it's finale. After having escaped from The Colony (but not without being bitten by her newly lycanthropic husband), Karen decides to expose the hidden community of werewolves living among us by turning into one during a live news bulletin. Its a great idea and would've been fantastic - had she not actually turned into a care bear. She looks like one of Bungle's cousins. The whole house of cards would've fallen down right here had the rest of the film not been so good. Anyway...

Unlike it's counterpart, The Howling spawned many sequels, all steadily declining into obscurity - but its a testament to the idea which The Howling conceived; what if the werewolf isn't just one poor cursed soul looking for reprieve, but instead there was a pack out there, made up of those who looked at it not as a curse but a gift? That they imagined themselves the very top of the food chain and enjoyed the slaughter?

For better or worse, werewolves are enjoying a bit of a renaissance but it comes at a cost. In recent years, the image of the werewolf has been recast into a buff young teenager, while the monster itself is more akin to a force of nature to behold in awe instead of terror. Where's the horror? The wolfman needs rehab. Hooray for The Howling being released on Blu-Ray, as old as it is it feels refreshing these days.

Awesome new artwork - always helps

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