THE HOWLING
I'd like to see a were-rabbit movie called "The Hopping"

  This is the only werewolf movie I've ever strongly liked.  The werewolf is a creature much harder to romanticize than the vampire, which I believe is why werewolf movies never quite caught on like vampire movies did.  Based on the book by Gary Brandner (never read it, but it's probably the book most singled out as the worst horror novel of all time), scripted by Terence Winkless and critically-adored indie-hero John Sayles, this doesn't romanticize the beasts, or even try to eroticize them (despite a scene were a copulating couple gets hairy).  It just presents them, slightly tongue-in-cheek, as scary monsters, and director Joe Dante pulls it off well.

The Howling's opening credits sequence is quite striking, but only after repeated viewings (or reading a revealing review like this), which reveal the wispy, slightly distorted snippets of speech (played over television static) to be samples of dialogue from later in the film.  It's a very creepy effect.

Dee Wallace (soon to be Wallace Stone) stars as Karen White, a news anchorwoman who volunteers herself to be the bait for the capture of Eddie Quist (Robert "the holographic doctor" Picardo), an elusive serial killer who will talk to her, and only her.  He lures her into a seedy porn shop where, in a booth lit by the flickering light of a rape flick, he says she can finally look at him.  We don't get to see what she sees, but c'mon, this is a werewolf movie - and the cops shoot Eddie down as soon as they pounce in the door.  Soon Karen is at a rural retreat organized by her psychiatrist (Patrick MacNee), and Eddie, well, nobody can find his body, and the drawer it was kept in at the morgue is all clawed up on the inside.

The Howling is reportedly loaded with in-jokes and more gags than you can shake a wolvesbane-covered stick at - many of the characters are named after werewolf-movie directors, for example.  I dunno, I found scarcely a chuckle in here - Dante sure gives this one a stark, bleak look and atmosphere, only pausing for amusement with the requisite Dick Miller cameo, closing credits played over a frying hamburger, and the clever twist at the end, which poses a not-unreasonable question: how can you really convince the public at large of danger from something they don't believe in?

It sure feels like a horror movie to me, with the best werewolves I've ever seen - more wolf than man, and convincingly lifelike, too.  Never mind that people in this movie tend to just stand there like dumb shits while wolfification takes place before them.  The effects and makeup (by Rob Bottin) are really excellent, probably better than even An American Werewolf In London.

Two themes seem to be at work here - that of conflict between the primal and the civil (same conflict we see in every werewolf movie), and that of society's relationship with a news media more interested in entertaining than informing.  This isn't always subtle (wired for sound, reception from our intrepid reporter is choppy due to "all that neon out there"), but it's pointed, particularly with that news-broadcast ending.

It just works.  When the overwhelming majority of werewolf movies have had the unfortunate tendency to suck ass, it's pretty refreshing.

The Howling inspired (to date) six sequels, none of which appear to have anything to do with any of the others, except all having werewolves.  Directed by Joe Dante, who recently limped out of a 5-year absence with Small Soldiers, which is sure to make you wish he'd stayed absent.  Gotta love that poster art, too - when I was a kid and horror movie posters pleasantly scared the crap out of me all the time, this one stood out above almost all others.  

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