Newscaster Karen White (Dee Wallace), traumatized after being attacked by the oddly hairy serial killer, Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo), is sent to a woodland retreat by her psychologist, George Waggner (Patrick Macnee). Accompanied by her husband, Bill (Christopher Stone), Karen meets a strange collection of locals, including a suicidal old man (John Carradine), a sexy back-to-nature beauty (Elisabeth Brooks), and the sheriff (Slim Pickens). While the forest is filled with the sounds of wolves, Karen’s co-workers Chris and Terry (Dennis Dugan, Belinda Balaski) investigate the disappearance of Eddie Quist’s body and the possibility that he is a werewolf.
After more than three decades of drek, and not even much of that, 1981 saw the rebirth of the werewolf film with the near-sacred (for werewolf fans) trinity of An American Werewolf in London, Wolfen, and The Howling. All three were remarkable leaps forward in storytelling and effects, though it didn’t take much to leap ahead of Moon of the Wolf.
The change most often discussed deals with makeup and transformations. Gone were the days of stop-motion hair growth. Now it all happened on-screen in real time using air-bladders and animatronics. Hair grew, claws extended, and even a muzzell appeared. It looked fake bordering on silly, but it was onscreen. This technology dominated werewolf films until CGI took over starting with An American Werewolf in Paris.
A much more interesting change was in the basic storyline. Before 1981, almost all werewolves felt themselves to be cursed. They were bitten and they didn’t like it. Their fight was to keep their humanity. The Howling introduced the werewolf pack. The wolves were primitive and they liked it that way. That change made the plot something different, and more complex than the sub-genre was used to.
Joe Dante focused on making a straight horror film. There’s lots of screams, mental breakdowns, running through the forest, nightmares, blood, hiding, and then even more screams. This is a fairly dark movie, in contrast to the semi-comedic An American Werewolf in London. It is also one of the earlier post-modern horror films, with winks and nods to genre fans; characters know the old movies and even watch The Wolf Man as well as a Big-Bad-Wolf cartoon, and keep a photo of Lon Chaney Jr. A number of the characters are named after directors of previous werewolf films, and cameos abound from the likes of Forrest J. Ackerman, Roger Corman, scriptwriter John Sayles, and Dante himself. There are also meatier roles for famed genre actors John Carradine and Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers). None of that lightens the tone, but lets you know that this isn’t an old-time film.
Besides the genre changing elements, there is a lot to like in The Howling. Though the cinematography isn’t crisp (it has that ’70s production look), it is attractive. The sets and locations have the proper feel, and there is plenty for the easily frightened to jump at. There is also the sensual Elisabeth Brooks in a sex scene that should bring warmth to all viewers. Brooks made far too few movies, though she did appear in the excellent ghost story, The Forgotten One.
The weakness of the film is in its leads. Wallace (later Wallace-Stone as she married her co-star) plays Karin as feeble and whiny, but not in a consistent way and rarely with a varying tone to her voice. Stone takes it further, showing no sign he realizes the cameras are rolling. I think he was checking his blocking in most scenes. The gap between them and all of the spot-on performances of the supporting cast is too large to ignore. I didn’t care what happened to Karin and Bill because I never believed in their characters. Luckily, there is a lot of time spent with the more able actors, but it does hold the film back from being a real classic.
It was followed by a string of mostly unrelated sequels that have become jokes in the horror genre: Howling II, Howling III, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, Howling V: The Rebirth, Howling VI: The Freaks, Howling: New Moon Rising