Entry 130: Silver Bullet (1985)

Silver Bullet (1985)

Dir: Daniel Attias

"Whenever the moon is full...it comes back!"

 

 The Netflix series Stranger Things has had all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork to sing the praises of 80's coming-of-age genre flicks like The Goonies, Stand By Me, the It miniseries and even the underrated Explorers, but there's one similar film I've noticed never gets brought up...Gas up your high-octane wheelchair and shut your door when the full moon rises, we're heading downstairs to "tap the rockies," Basement of Sleaze style with Silver Bullet!

In 1976, all isn't well in the sleepy New England hamlet of Tarker's Mills.  As the little woodland town celebrates the bicentennial, a vicious killer emerges every full moon to mutilate a new victim.  As the victims have no shared traits, local law enforcement agents (led by sheriff Terry O'Quinn, The Stepfather, TV's Lost) are baffled by the crimes.  Out setting off fireworks late one summer night, paraplegic adolescent Marty (the late Corey Haim, The Lost Boys, License to Drive) is attacked by a bestial figure that he manages to drive off with a bottle rocket to the eye.  Marty has a distant relationship with his parents, and an antagonistic one with his teenage sister, Jane (Megan Follows, the titular character from TV's Anne of Green Gables), but is tight with his deadbeat, alcoholic uncle Red (Gary Busey, Predator 2, Point Break).  Convinced that the beast that attacked him was a werewolf, Marty convinces Jane to help him to canvas the town for eye-injured individuals.  Jane discovers that benevolent preacher Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill, TV's Twin Peaks, The People Under the Stairs) is rocking a new eye patch, and the two put aside their sibling rivalry and attempt to convince the skeptical Red to help, while the desperate Lowe does his best to off poor Marty!  As the killings continue, Marty and Jane finally convince Red to procure the titular weapon and help them lay a trap for the shapeshifter on Halloween night...

Silver Bullet is never spoken of with the same reverence as fellow 80's werewolf flicks The Howling, An American Werewolf in London and (to a lesser extent) Wolfen.  While I wouldn't go so far as to call it an overlooked classic, it IS a good, mostly effective movie, though it suffers from some significant problems.  Most damning is its treatment of the Reverend Lowe character, though McGill (a favorite 80s/90s character actor of mine thanks to his work with David Lynch) does his best with the role.  The idea of a "man of the cloth" uncontrollably becoming a murderous monster by night is an interesting one and, early on, the film has Lowe express regret for his actions and explain that his victims were chosen from people that he, as a Christian, found "already damned (an alcoholic, a woman who had confessed to him her desire to commit suicide, a child beater)."  In these early scenes, Lowe can be read as a "holy redeemer," a man who justifies his murderous affliction as a means to "save" victims who might've otherwise been doomed to eternal hellfire.  In the beginning, the film also takes great pains to show the werewolf only killing "innocent" people who are actively out to do him harm.  This all goes out the fucking window, however, as soon as Marty and Jane discover Lowe's true identity and he becomes just another boogeyman, attempting to kill poor Marty relentlessly even during the day in his "human" form (the car vs. wheelchair scene is, admittedly, suspenseful).  The movie is also plagued by a comic relief scene in which a group of bumbling rednecks attempt to hunt the werewolf during a foggy night, which is tonally in-congruent with the rest of the film.  Director Attias (who never made another feature, but went on to become an Emmy-winning television director for shows such as The Wire) brings a great sense of fear and dread to the werewolf attack scenes, but his work on the rest of the film is flat and TV movie-like.  The performances are all solid, with kudos going to Busey, not yet in the constant self-parody phase of his career, as a man willing to set aside his own demons for those of his nephew.  I guess I should mention Stephen King; he adapted (VERY loosely) the screenplay from his own (excellent) novella, Cycle of the Werewolf.  At the end of the day, Silver Bullet isn't perfect, but is certainly worth a watch for fans of werewolf films or 80s coming-of-age horror flicks.  Just don't skip The Howling for it!