Howling, The (1980)
Starring: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, John Carradine
Director: Joe Dante
Synopsis: Cracking good werewolf film boasts great sense of humour and terrific special effects
Reviewed by: Omar Khan


"an absolutely spiffing werewolf movie" Time Out

 "outrageous" Creature Features

 "hip, well made" Maltin's

 "terrific horror film" Blockbuster Video

 "mixes comedy and horror much more successfully than American Werewolf. Howling is one of the most involving, compassionate, and memorable horror films made during the 80's" Splatter Movies

 "a low budget homage of the highest order" Empire

 

 

This slice of werewolf mayhem comes perilously close to being the finest werewolf film ever made. It has almost everything one could wish for: genuinely frightening horror sequences, superb transformation effects, a marvellous score by the consistently underrated Pino Donaggio, excellent performances and, above all, a screenplay overflowing with wit and affectionate nods to the great werewolf films that came before it.

Best of all, Joe Dante accomplishes something remarkably few directors have managed—he blends horror and comedy without allowing either to undermine the other.

The film opens magnificently.

Television reporter Karen White (Dee Wallace) agrees to wear a concealed microphone while meeting a notorious serial killer known as the Smile Killer, who promises to show her something she will never forget.

Pino Donaggio's haunting circular musical theme, laced with those unmistakable whispering breaths that became one of his trademarks, immediately establishes an atmosphere of irresistible menace. It is seductive, mysterious and quietly evil, drawing both Karen—and the audience—ever closer towards something dreadful.

Even here, however, Dante cannot resist slipping in a joke.

As Karen enters a seedy adult bookstore, every male customer suddenly disappears with remarkable speed.

Moments later she confronts the killer inside a peep-show booth, where she witnesses something so utterly horrifying that it remains one of the film's finest moments. Before events spiral completely out of control, police burst in, rescuing Karen and killing...whatever happened to be sharing the booth with her.

Traumatised by the experience, Karen is persuaded by psychiatrist Dr George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, in splendid form) to take a break from city life at an isolated therapeutic commune deep in the countryside.

Karen and her husband Bill (Christopher Stone, who would later marry Dee Wallace in real life) arrive at what initially appears to be an idyllic woodland retreat populated by an assortment of colourful, slightly eccentric residents. Among them is the alluring Marsha, whose interest in Bill is anything but subtle.

Before long, thick Hammer-style mist begins rolling through the surrounding forests.

The wolves begin to howl.

Something is very wrong.

Dante deliberately embraces the atmosphere of the classic British Gothic horror films at this point, and it works beautifully. The creeping fog, lonely cabins and distant howls create an increasingly oppressive atmosphere before the horror gradually begins tightening its grip.

Bill soon succumbs to Marsha's advances, and during one of the film's most memorable sequences their passionate encounter appears to dissolve into something disturbingly animalistic as bodies twist and mutate in the flickering firelight while wolves howl outside.

From then onwards Karen slowly uncovers the horrifying truth about the commune before realising that she may already be far too deeply involved to escape.

The film gathers momentum with remarkable confidence. The horrors steadily escalate while Dante continues to lace proceedings with a wonderfully mischievous sense of humour, culminating in one of the most satisfying finales the werewolf genre has ever produced.

What makes The Howling so special is that the humour never comes at the expense of the horror.

Unlike so many later films, Dante never asks us to laugh at his monsters. The comedy grows naturally out of the characters and situations while the werewolves themselves remain genuinely frightening. That delicate balance is extraordinarily difficult to achieve, yet Dante manages it almost effortlessly.

One can already glimpse the style that he would later develop further in films such as Gremlins and Small Soldiers, although here the horror remains firmly in command. The Howling is never a comedy masquerading as a horror film.

It is a horror film first and foremost.

The laughs are simply an unexpected bonus.

For werewolf enthusiasts it is nothing less than essential viewing and, alongside An American Werewolf in London and Wolfen, stands as one of the towering achievements of the genre.

Quite simply...

the wolf has rarely howled more magnificently.