Harefooted Halloween: The Howling

What I Liked: The werewolf transformations are cool with plenty of morphing animatronic head movement, crazy rubber latex and elaborate makeup effects.  This was achieved by the master Rob Bottin (The Thing (1982), RoboCop) who worked under the indomitable Rick Baker (Star Wars, Videodrome, Men in Black) before breaking out with this picture.  Baker did An American Werewolf in London the same year and the transformation scenes are very similar.  Wolf in London was done a little smoother and better but that’s only natural due to more years of experience.  Bottin does a fantastic job with all the effects in The Howling though and shows why he’s so damn good.

What I Didn’t Like: The camera work and editing is a bit haphazard.  The opening for example is really confusing with shots of a television program being taped intercut with other folks trying to listen in on a CB radio.  It took a long ass while before I realized the people listening to the radio were cops engaged in a sting operation to catch a serial killer.  They’re using this TV news anchor (Dee Wallace (Halloween (2007), The Lords of Salem) as bait because the killer is stalking her.  That could’ve been so much clearer.  Plus there are many awkward edits and shots inserted that don’t seem to make much sense, like the burger being fried on the flattop over the end credits.  Wha?

Not the best acting all around.  And I gotta say that it’s so weird to me that Dennis Dugan, future director of screwball comedies like Problem Child, Brain Donors and Happy Gilmore has a big supporting role in this.  Turns out he was a successful actor before he became a director.  Now I know.

Overall Impressions: It’s an alright werewolf picture.  The story isn’t anything great and the execution is mostly barely competent.  But the effects work is very good and might be worth checking out just for that.

Joe Dante is a hard one for me.  I’m not the biggest Gremlins fan (the sequel is better in my opinion) but The ‘Burbs and Innerspace are awesome.  They’re inventive ideas done with the right tone.  I like Dante’s sense of adventure but I don’t always agree with how he tells the story.  The Howling is another one of his movies that isn’t bad but still falls a little short.

It ain’t no Dog Soldiers that’s for sure.  If you’re looking for the best damn werewolf movie that’s the one to see.