SILVER BULLET (1985) - Stephen King howls at the moon.

DIRECTED by Don Attias & Don Coscarelli.

SCREENPLAY by Stephen King based on the novella 'Cycle of the Werewolf' by Stephen King. 

STARRING  - Gary Busey as Uncle Red,  Everett McGill as Reverend Lester Lowe,  Corey Haim as Marty Coslaw,  Meggan Follows as Jane Coslaw,  Terry O' Quinn as Sheriff Joe Haller,  Bill Smitrovich as Andy Fairton,  Robin Groves as Nan Coslaw,  Leon Russom as Bob Coslaw,  Lawrence Tierney as Owen Knopfler,  Kent Broadhurst as Herb Kincaid,  Heather Simmons as Tammy Sturmfuller,  James A. Baffico as Milt Sturmfuller,  Joe Wright as Brady Kincaid,  Tovah Feldshuh as Adult Jane/Narrator.

PLOT - In the small Maine town of Tarkers Mills, every full moon a murder takes place.

It starts small at first - the town drunk is found decapitated near a rail track and everyone just assumes he fell onto the tracks in a drunken stupor and was hit by a train. However, the deaths continue and it soon becomes obvious that somewhere out there, once a month, a killer strikes.

When young, disabled Marty Coslaw's best friend Brady becomes the latest victim events begin to escalate. The inhabitants of the town go into a frenzy, demanding instant justice from the beleaguered town Sheriff.

Marty believes the killer to be a Werewolf as the killings only happen once a month, his sister Jane and his Uncle Red think he's being ridiculous though. That is until one night when Marty himself is attacked by the Werewolf. Marty narrowly manages to escape with his life by blowing the Werewolf's eye out with a firework. To Marty and his family it soon becomes obvious who the Werewolf really is...the town's very own Reverend Lowe appears to suddenly be missing an eye.

A deadly game of cat and mouse begins between Marty and Reverend Lowe - a crippled child versus a man who can become a monster when the full moon rises and is fastly becoming a human monster when the daylight hours reign. Reverend Lowe will stop at nothing to keep his sinister secret hidden...

DIALOUGE  -  Uncle Red - "What the heck you gonna shoot a silver .44 bullet at anyway ?"

PERFORMANCES  - Gary Busey is an actor with an eccentric personna known for giving eccentric performances and as such is perfect casting for the role of Uncle Red.

Red is young Marty's favourite uncle, although Marty's overprotective mum (Robin Groves) doesn't particularly approve of this bond. Red is a heavy drinker (possibly an alcoholic) with a string of failed marriages behind him. He likes to tell inappropriate jokes and has weird social skills (much like Busey in real life). Marty of course thinks he's the coolest thing since sliced bread (and rightly so).

The relationship between Marty and Red is the linchpin around which much of the film revolves. Busey and Haim (as Marty) seem to have a realistic bond between them and make for a convincing uncle and nephew. The great thing about Red is that unlike the other adults he doesn't patronise Marty or speak down to him because of his disability. He treats him like an equal and this is probably the reason Marty thinks he's so great. For a drunk, Red has way better parenting skills than Marty's actual parents who pride themselves on being "responsible adults". They could definitely learn a thing or two from Red.

Considering Corey Haim was only about 12 years old at the time he does a really good job at playing Marty. Marty is a young boy with lots of problems - he's confined to a wheelchair (it's never revealed why, presumably he was born that way), his parents are overprotective of him (especially his mum) and he has a fractious relationship with his older sister Jane (Meggan Follows). Jane is jealous of the attention that Marty gets because of his disability, she comes over as a bit of a spoilt brat at first but as the story progresses it becomes obvious that she really does love her brother deep down. Jane narrates the story to us as an adult, it's interesting to note that she refers to Marty in the past tense in the narrated voice over - maybe the poor little fella didn't live into adulthood due to his illness. It's sad but lends the story extra resonance if this was the intention.

Marty's problems become even worse when he survives the Werewolf attack and discovers the creature's human identity. In a move that he probably could have thought through a bit better, Marty starts sending Reverend Lowe "anonymous" letters (it's so obvious that it's him though - after all who else could it be ?). These letters basically say " I know who you are and what you are. Kill yourself." This of course sends the Reverend over the edge and he tries to kill Marty before he can reveal his secret.

Lowe is played by Everett McGill and he gives a great performance. Lowe starts off seeming like a normal small town holy man, a respected pillar of the community. Our first hint that something is amiss comes when we see a nightmare that Lowe has one night. He dreams that he is delivering a sermon to the townsfolk and they all start turning into Werewolves. Even this could be read as anxiety about the killings from a caring man though. It's not until we see him for the first time with his eye bandaged up that we know for sure that it's him. Lester Lowe is the Werewolf. It's a great scene.

Lowe's sanity then begins to crumble, especially when Marty starts bombarding him with poison pen letters. Lowe snaps and tries to kill Marty (hardly fitting behaviour for a man of the cloth). The transition is complete - Lowe is now a monster both inside and out. McGill brings a brooding sense of cold, callous evil to the lost Reverend. A truly sinister turn and a great villain. The Reverend is much scarier in human form than he is in Werewolf mode.

Terry O' Quinn is also good as the town Sheriff Joe Haller. Haller is watching his town crumble into anarchy and vigilanteism as the population live in fear over the attacks. He's a decent and dedicated lawman who is way out of his depth (he's probably only used to handing out speeding tickets and locking the town drunk up in the cells on a Saturday night). You at first think he's going to be the main hero of the movie but he gets murdured by a wolfed up Lowe about halfway through the film.

SFX - A quick word about the Werewolf. He's...not great. The face is nicely animated but...well...just look at him...

He looks more like a bear than a Werewolf. I think the problem is that he's too friendly looking, he's a big cuddly teddybear of a monster.

Apparently the film studio wasn't happy with the Werewolf either resulting in a forced change of director. Even after that they still kept the weird looking monster.

More effective are the transformation scenes, they're not American Werewolf in London quality but they still work and look OK. The best transformation scene is probably the dream sequence where we see the whole damn town turn into Werewolves...

Great stuff.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Right off the bat we get the first killing when town drunk Arnie Westrum is decapitated with one swipe of the Werewolf's claws...

One month later Stella Randolph is torn to shreds in her own bedroom. She was pregnant too, so technically that counts as two kills for the Werewolf...

Next month it's abusive redneck Milt Sturmfuller's turn. The Werewolf pulls him through the floor of his porch and impales him with a plank of wood...

Next young Brady Kincaid is killed whilst flying his kite. The film draws the line at showing us a murdured child so we get to see his blood spattered kite instead...

This killing makes the town go apeshit. A vigilante squad is formed. Wolfie takes them down...

One of the vigilantes - Owen - gets beaten to death by his own baseball bat. A Werewolf using a baseball bat as a weapon - not something you see everyday...

Next it's the Werewolf's turn to get a taste of his own medicine. Marty blows his eye out with a firework...

The Werewolf uses the baseball bat again. This time to get rid of the Sheriff...

Finally - the Werewolf attacks Marty for a second time and this time gets his other eye blown out by Marty with the film's titular silver bullet (Marty's a good shot for a little kid). This kills the Werewolf, it's body transforms back into human form and after one final jump scare the disgraced Reverend Lowe finally dies - leaving behind an eyeless naked corpse...

RATING  - Silver Bullet is no classic but it does have a lot of charm.

It's let down a bit by its ropey looking Werewolf and the pacing is slightly slow in parts. It also lacks some of the best moments from the original novella.

However, it's well acted, tells a good story, has a memorable villain and is overall a lot of fun. I'm giving it 3 and a half lycanthropic vicars out of 5. A good solid monster movie.

POSTER/VHS/DVD ART  -

That Werewolf just loves his baseball bat.

I love how the one thing all the various covers have in common is that they never show a clear image of how the Werewolf actually looks in the film, they just knew he didn't work very well.

And finally here is the cover to the original novella Cycle of the Werewolf. This book features some stunning illustrations by the late great Berni Wrightson, probably THE best horror comic artist of all time. It's well worth a read just for the artwork alone. Plus the story's great too and its short enough to read in a single sitting. Give it a read and make Stephen King even richer.