The Howling (1981)

The Howling is a 1981 werewolf-themed horror film directed by Joe Dante. Based on the novel of the same name by Gary Brandner, the screenplay is written by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless. The original music score is composed by Pino Donaggio.

Karen White (Dee Wallace-Stone) is a Los Angeles television news anchor who is being stalked by a serial murderer named Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo). In cooperation with the police, she takes part in a scheme to capture Eddie by agreeing to meet him in a sleazy porno theater. Eddie forces Karen to watch a video of a young woman being raped, and when Karen turns around to see Eddie she screams. The police enter and shoot Eddie, and although Karen is safe, she suffers amnesia. Her therapist, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee), decides to send her and her husband, Bill Neill (Christopher Stone), to "The Colony", a secluded resort in the countryside where he sends patients for treatment.

The colony is filled with strange characters, and one, a sultry nymphomaniac named Marsha Quist (Elisabeth Brooks), tries to seduce Bill. When he resists her less-than-subtle sexual overtures, he is attacked and bitten by a wolf-like creature while returning to his cabin. He later returns to find Marsha waiting and the two have sex by the campfire in the moonlight. During the encounter, their bodies have undergone a frightening transformation as they both shapeshift into werewolves.

After Bill's wolf bite, Karen summons her friend Terri Fisher (Belinda Balaski) to the Colony, and Terri connects the resort to Eddie Quist through a sketch he left behind. Karen also begins to suspect that Bill is hiding a secret far more threatening than marital infidelity. While investigating, Terri is attacked by a werewolf in a cabin, though she escapes after cutting the monster's claw off. She runs to Waggner's office and places a phone call to her boyfriend, Chris Halloran (Dennis Dugan), who has been alerted about the Colony's true nature. While on the phone with Chris, Terri is attacked and killed by Eddie Quist. Chris hears this and sets off for the Colony armed with silver bullets.

Karen is confronted by the resurrected Eddie Quist once again, and Eddie transforms himself into a werewolf in front of her. She escapes, and Eddie is later shot by Chris with a silver bullet. As it turns out, however, everyone in the Colony is a werewolf. These werewolves can shapeshift at will; they do not require a full moon. Karen and Chris survive their attacks and burn the Colony to the ground.

Karen resolves to warn the world about the existence of werewolves, and surprises her employers by launching into her warnings while on television. Then, to prove her story, she herself shapeshifts into a werewolf, having become one after being attacked at the Colony by her husband Bill. She is shot by Chris on live television, and the world is left to wonder whether the transformation and shooting really happened or if it was the work of special effects. It is also revealed that Marsha Quist escaped the colony alive and well.

Director Joe Dante put many in-joke references in the film, including subtle references to wolves (The Big Bad Wolf from Walt Disney's The Three Little Pigs (1933) is seen on TV, Sheriff Newfield is seen eating Wolf Brand Chili, a copy of the Allen Ginsberg book Howl appears, a mention of disc jockey Wolfman Jack).

Furthermore, many characters in the film are named after horror film directors who directed other films that featured werewolves, including George Waggner, who directed The Wolf Man (1941). Others include R. William Neill (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Terence Fisher (The Curse of the Werewolf (1960), Freddie Francis (Legend of the Werewolf (1975), Erle Kenton (House of Dracula (1945), which co-stars John Carradine, who plays Kenton in The Howling), Sam Newfield (The Mad Monster (1942), Charles Barton (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Jacinto Molina (La Marca del Hombre Lobo (1968) and Lew Landers (The Return of the Vampire (1944).

Dick Miller's bookstore owner Walter Paisley gets his name from Miller's starring role in the low-budget horror film A Bucket of Blood (1959).

The film's screenwriter (later director) John Sayles, Dante's former producer Roger Corman and science fiction and horror film personality Forrest J. Ackerman all have cameos.

Though the film has been noted for its semi-humorous screenplay, it began life as a more straight forward 1977 novel by Gary Brandner. After drafts by Jack Conrad (the original director who left following difficulties with the studio) and Terence H. Winkless proved unsatisfactory, director Joe Dante hired John Sayles to completely rewrite the script. The two had collaborated before on Dante's 1978 film Piranha. Sayles rewrote the script with the same self-aware, satirical tone that he gave Piranha, and his finished draft bears only a vague resemblance to Brandner's book. Winkless still received a co-writers credit along with Sayles for his work on the screenplay however.

The cast featured a number of recognizable character actors such as John Carradine, Kenneth Tobey and Slim Pickens, many of whom appeared in genre films themselves.

The Howling was also notable for its special effects, which were state-of-the-art at the time. The transformation scenes were created by Rob Bottin, who had also worked with Dante on Piranha. Rick Baker was the original effects artist for the film, but left the production to work on the John Landis film An American Werewolf in London, handing over the effects work to Rob Bottin. Bottin's most celebrated effect was the on-screen transformation of Eddie Quist, which involved air bladders under latex facial applications to give the illusion of transformation. The Howling also features stop-motion animation by notable animator David W. Allen, and puppetry intended to give the werewolves an even more non-human look to them. Despite most of the special effects at the time, the silhouette of Bill and Marsha having sex as werewolves is quite obviously a cartoon animation.

Due to their work in The Howling, Dante and producer Michael Finnell received the opportunity to make the film Gremlins (1984). That film references The Howling with a smiley face image on a refrigerator door. Eddie Quist leaves yellow smiley face stickers as his calling card in several places throughout The Howling. A second reference to The Howling in Gremlins comes at the end of the film when the TV anchorman Lew Landers (played by Jim McKrell) is shown reporting on the gremlin attack in Kingston Falls.