Stephen King's Silver Bullet (1985)

I decided to squeeze in another movie today for two reasons. First, because Teen Wolf was so disappointing, and second, because I have too many Halloween movies I want to see before the month is out. For those reasons, I decided to watch Stephen King's Silver Bullet in an attempt at getting a somewhat good werewolf movie tonight. Silver Bullet brings an interesting combination of today's earlier movie, and yesterday's The Lost Boys, as it not only has a werewolf, but it also stars Corey Haim! Without any further delay, lets get this full moon on the rise!


Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim) and his sister Jane (Megan Follows) live in a small peaceful American town. Everyone knows everyone and they all care for each other as much as they care for themselves. At least, until the nightly killings start happening. People are dropping like flies, and it isn't long before folks are packing up and leaving town. Marty, being an 11-year-old kid with a very active imagination, links his fears of the killer with the fact that they started on a full moon night and tells his Uncle Red (Gary Busey) he's worried it might be a werewolf. To cheer him up, Red builds Marty a new wheelchair which is now closer to a motorcycle than a wheelchair. It's a good thing too, because if Marty is right, he might need it!

Marty's new wheels! Ironically called "The Silver Bullet"

Right off the bat I was more than happy with the movie because the brutal killings start almost immediately. We also get to see the town devolve into panic and chaos as more and more killings happen. I liked that it kept happening to random townsfolk, which means we get multiple "stalking" scenes which are really quite frightening and creepy. There's also a decent amount of blood, without going overboard with guts and insides. Another thing I liked was that we don't see the werewolf for a very long time. Only glimpses in shadows, or cracks of light, or a claw in the mist. It keeps the suspense high and the imagination filling in the scariest parts of the monster for you. The monster is revealed at the end though, and it turns out to be a good thing it wasn't shown that whole time.

The werewolves in the mid-movie nightmare look quite good

This is possibly one of the only things I can really complain about with the film: the look of the werewolf. The movie does so well not to show you the wolf until pretty much the very last scene, so it's not until the ending that this super stupid looking monster shows up. It's really confusing too, because halfway through, we see someone's nightmare in which everyone in the town turns into werewolves before they all attack together. The effects on these people as wolfmen and wolfwomen are actually really good and looked cool. I wrote extensively on my feelings of werewolf movie costumes in my review of Dog Soldiers in which I mention how werewolf fans have to be fairly forgiving when it comes to the look of their favorite movie monsters. In this case though, it just looked really bad.

The actual werewolf looks absolutely terrible. What happened?

When I found out Corey Haim was in this, I was a little worried after watching The Lost Boys. He was quite annoying in that movie, but this time around he was much younger, and I thought he did a much better job. I never found him annoying, and I was actually worried for the little guy several times. I thought Gary Busey was also really good as crazy but trustworthy Uncle Red. I wish I had an uncle who made me gas-powered escape vehicles and gave me bags of fireworks! Also, Megan Follows did pretty well as the older sister who hates her little brother, but stands by him when it really matters. She had a pretty good scream too!

I really enjoyed Silver Bullet, especially after watching Teen Wolf. Werewolves just work far better when they're slaughtering innocent people. Other than the full reveal of the super awful wolf at the end, I really liked the rest of the movie and the mystery in figuring out who the killer was. If you feel you've tapped out most of the werewolf movies out there, like I feel I have, then check out Silver Bullet, it should satisfy your cravings for the hunt!