The Werewolves come out to play on Shudder

Werewolvery gets its due on Shudder in June, and how could I not want to get a little wolfy in the early summer? I have come to the conclusion that The Howling (1981) has so many goodies that tickle my fancy.

*Joe Dante almost kills Brenda Balaski as much as Stuart Gordon did his wife in their movies! Her torn apart torso laid bare inside the Colony’s barn worship chamber (where Doctor Waggner encourages her lycan tribe to “go and unwind”, having encouraged them to channel their violent impulses and resist the urges to kill and feed from humans) is just a gruesome sight, with her chest cavity displayed, her flesh torn away.

*Revisiting this after watching the Dee Wallace segment on In Search of Darkness III really added an exclamation point on her reaction to her husband’s complaint towards her sex scene in Shadow Play (1986) considering his erotic, very naked sexual encounter with actress Elisabeth Brooks’ Marsha Quist. I had forgotten just how long and into it Christopher Stone and Brooks were, with that full kiss, close embrace, and full naked bodies. Brooks is fully frontal nude which I shouldn’t forget but often do until I am reminded by her disrobing, luring Stone to her eventual werewolf fuck. That wolfy fuck sure hangs on the memory, with the fur, growls, sharp teeth, and eye contacts. And even some werewolf animation, big howling, and full moon to close the scene.

* Joe Dante was in the perfect position to benefit from still-alive legends like John Carradine (just wanting to end it, burn himself on the bonfire, alleviate his hunger for human lunchmeat, telling Doc Waggner that they have to be what they are, to embrace their beast and go on the hunt), Forrest Ackerman in Dick Miller’s bookstore with his Monster magazines in hand getting told to buy something (haha!), The Wolf Man (1941) getting love on the telly as Dennis Dugan and Balaski (lovers in the film that work together at Kevin McCarthy’s television station) are in bed, McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, returning to work for Dante again after Piranha) irked at his news reporter/broadcaster (Dee Wallace) for having a breakdown (unable to perform in the front of the camera due to her werewolf trauma in the sex booth inside the pornography store after Picardo’s werewolf serial killer wanted to give her the “gift” he has), Slim Pickens as a very southern sheriff (I just love hick sheriffs in California rural towns) still providing the expected “aww shucks, golly gee” presentation with the cowboy hat and charm that hides the same beast many others attending the Colony, Kenneth Tobey (The Thing from Another World, later to appear in a small part for Dante again in Gremlins) as a cop in LA looking for Dee Wallace’s whereabouts (eventually watching as his partner fires into the sex booth when hearing Picardo’s Eddie inside), Noble Willingham as a member of the Colony “providing the BBQ”, and James Murtaugh (the daddy predator whose rape of his daughter in The Rosary Murders caused her to commit suicide after she suffers moral panic preying on priests) as the husband of Margie Impert’s friend to Dee Wallace during her Colony stay

*Even if the werewolf transformation of Picardo’s Eddie is absurdly long and Wallace’s Karen White had plenty of time to get away, Dante gave Rob Bottin carte blanche to really “stretch” it out to the fullest. And the number of werewolves, too, are in abundance. If you want werewolves, Dante and Bottin give them to you. I just can’t complain too much with this movie. It doesn’t hit with all horror fans. It does for me.

*Yes, the names of the characters and how Sayles’ “refined script” (not to mention his amusing performance as a coroner conversing with Dugan and Balaski about Picardo’s [missing] corpse) coincides with Dante’s desire to give a lot of love to the werewolf movies before, so I certainly appreciate and admire including the homage approach and including particular notable faces in the cast – such as Patrick Macnee as the “mind doctor”. And, of course, Dee Wallace starring in the film added another title on her resume. She had a great agent.