Based on the best-selling novel by Gary Brandner, this horror film makes effective use of the classic werewolf tale. Dee Wallace stars as Karen White, a popular female reporter in Los Angeles who cannot escape the horror of a traumatic experience that she suffered while trying to capture Eddie Quist (Robert Ricardo), a dangerous serial killer. When her psychologist (Patrick Macnee) recommends a retreat to "The Colony," up the Northern California coast, she reluctantly agrees, hoping to recover from her nightmarish visions. Karen and her husband (Christopher Stone) arrive at the remote retreat and are shocked at the bizarre behavior of the motley crew of residents. Lurking in the ominous Northern California woods, blanketed by fog, strange sounds can be heard at night, luring the members of the retreat into the forest. In anguish, Karen stumbles on the deadly secret of the community: when sexually excited, they turn into werewolves! The horrified journalist tries to escape from the retreat, battling the lair of leering lycanthropes in a fight for her life. Superb special effects add to the picture, with several shocking human-to-monster transformation sequences.
(10 votes)
2.
"One Of The Best Werewolf Movies Ever Made" -Los Angeles Magazine
Don't even try to run away, because by the time you hear "the howling" … it's already too late! With intense suspense, biting humor and "amazing special effects" (Us Magazine), this riveting tale of primal terror sinks its teeth into your deepest fears and never lets go!
Severely shaken after a near-fatal encounter with a serial killer, TV newscaster Karen White (Dee Wallace, E.T.) takes some much-needed time off. Hoping to conquer her inner demons, she heads for "the Colony," a secluded retreat where her new neighbors are just a tad too eager to make her feel at home. Also, there seems to be a bizarre link between her would-be attacker and this supposedly safe haven. And when, after nights of being tormented by savage shrieks and unearthly cries, Karen ventures into the forest to find answers, she makes a terrifying discovery. Now she must fight not only for her life… but for her very soul!
(10 votes)
3.
An instant werewolf classic, The Howling was directed by Joe Dante, a graduate of Roger Corman's school of low-budget ingenuity who had gained enough momentum with 1978's Piranha to rise to this bigger challenge. He brought along Piranha screenwriter John Sayles, too, and recruited makeup wizard Rob Bottin to create what was then the wildest on-screen transformation ever seen. With Gary Brandner's novel The Howling as a starting point, Sayles and Dante conceived a werewolf colony on the California coast, posing as a self-help haven led by a seemingly benevolent doctor (Patrick Macnee), and populated by a variety of "patients", from sexy, leather-clad sirens (Elisabeth Brooks) to an old coot (John Carradine) who's quite literally long in the tooth. When a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) arrives at the colony to recover from a recent trauma, the resident lycanthropes prepare for a howlin' good time.
Dante handles it all with equal measures of humour, sex, gore, and horror, pulling out all the stops when the ravenous Eddie (Dante favourite Robert Picardo, later known as The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager) transforms into a towering , bloodthirsty werewolf. (Bottin's mentor Rick Baker would soon raise the make-up ante with An American Werewolf in London.) As usual in Dante's movies (qv. Gremlins), in-jokes abound, from characters named after werewolf movie directors, amusing cameos (Corman, Sayles, Forrest J Ackerman), and hammy inserts of wolfish cartoons and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". It's best appreciated now as a quintessential example of early-80s horror, with low-budget limitations evident throughout, but The Howling remains a giddy genre milestone. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
(10 votes)
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