Flicks: The Howling (1981)

What? Where "wolf"? Oh yeah - there wolf.

A Happy Fangsgiving to all with Joe Dante's (Gremlins) The Howling (1981). The original Howling was indeed directed by Mr. Joe Dante of Gremlins (1984) fame and based on the novels by Gary Brandner.

The movie follows female tv reporter Dee Wallace (Elliot's Mom in Spielberg's ET (1981)*) who investigates a series of gory murders committed by a serial killer. The killer attempts to wolf down victim after victim after metamorphosizing and changing into a burly, hawngry werewolf.

Robert Piccardo (later to be featured as an innocuous medical hologram in Star Trek Voyager) stars as Eddie the outcast werewolf. After being presumed dead, the result of the reporter setting him up, Eddie and his commune dwelling werewolf pals swear revenge starting with a cameo by John Carradine as Crazy Old Man.


Makin' it with a were-chick is a risky business but totally worth it.

The make-up by Rick Baker of American Werewolf in London (1981) fame, transformation effects and bold usage of T+A made the original film near and dear to many a gorehound's heart.

The Howling became a franchise of sequels, five in the 80's and two more in the 90's with increasingly plummeting production values. The series culminated in seven uneven installments - adding veteran actor Christopher Lee in part two of the hair-raising series subtitled: Your Sister Is A Werewolf.

The Howling Series:
The Howling (1981)
The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985)
The Howling III: The Marsupials (1987)
Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988)
Howling V: The Rebirth (1989)
Howling VI: The Freaks (1991)
Howling VII: New Moon Rising (1995)

References:
IMDB, The Howling
Eccentric Cinema, The Howling
Horrorphile, The Howling

The Howling Video-On-Demand available at:

The Twilight Zone: The Shadow Man (1985)

The Shadow Man, Episode 23 from season one, was directed by Joe Dante, who also directed The Twilight Zone Movie (1983) Gremlins (1984), and the original Howling (1981), is an interesting tale of a bullied kid who seeks a particularly strange and vicious revenge on a schoolyard bully.

Danny (Jonathan Ward) is the smartest and least-liked kid in school. A group of jocks, led by dumb jock Numero Uno "Eric" ambushes Danny to frighten him to death. Danny seeks a literal and frightening revenge when a mysterious Boogie Man-like entity crawls out from under Danny's bed that night. The demon indentifies himself as the Shadow Man. The being swears allegiance to Danny that he will never harm the person under whose bed he lives. Then, the Shadow Man leaves.

The next day, Danny tells his friend about the Shadow Man but his friend dismisses it. Later, Danny hears about two children were attacked by what witnesses say was a maniac that looked like a "shadowy man". That night, Danny falls asleep but wakes up as the Shadow Man, after reassuring Danny again, roams out into the night. Leanne, the girl he has a crush on, needs help in Algebra, so he goes to her house to help. She's impressed that he would come out with all the shadow man attacks going on.

Danny, knowing what he controls the Shadow Man, decides to schedule a fight with Eric the bully. Eric shows up, and so does the Shadow Man. As Eric the bully runs off Danny, unafraid, stays. Unfortunately, this Shadow Man starts choking Danny. Danny, asks, in shock, why the Shadow Man is hurting him.

The Shadow Man informs Danny that he is "a Shadow Man from under someone else's bed..." as Danny chokes to death in his icy hands.

References:
Wikipedia,Twilight Zone: The Shadow Man
Postcards From The Zone, 1.23: The Shadow Man