Midnight Movie of the Week #180 - The Howling

I will admit that I am often far too dismissive of The Howling, which is one of the better horror movies that was released in the 1980s. The biggest faults I have with the movie - which are faults that only exist within myself - is that it doesn't work for me in the same manic and exciting way that similar films of its era do. The Howling is a great werewolf movie, but it doesn't stand above An American Werewolf in London for me; and it's a great film by director Joe Dante, but it doesn't stand above Gremlins or The 'Burbs for me. This shouldn't be a problem - there's plenty of room in the world for very good werewolf movies - but I still find myself occasionally forgetting how good The Howling is anyway.

I open with all of that because I wanted to make myself aware of it as I sat down to revisit The Howling this week. As much as I want to compare The Howling to movies I like more, there's really not a lot of reason to compare what is actually on screen to anything else made in the '80s. Dante's film, co-written by the brilliant John Sayles, pushes the boundaries of werewolf legends and manages to create a new and modern tribute to The Wolf Man without sacrificing its place as a serious horror film. All of those films I mentioned earlier offer their horror with a heavy dose of comedy, but The Howling maintains a straight face in almost every scene.

Dee Wallace stars as a television reporter who gets too deep in an investigation of a killer and finds herself face to face with a madman who doesn't seem entirely human. She is unharmed, but the trauma of the event leads her psychiatrist (named after Wolf Man director George Waggner and played by the fantastic Patrick Macnee) to recommend some time away at a secluded colony down the coast. This colony isn't exactly calming, and Wallace finds herself surrounded by odd and devious characters and deeper in legends about good old fashioned werewolves.

Dante is more well known for making his films playful about their darkness, and the biggest difference between The Howling and what we expect from the director is that the dark side of his story gets preferential treatment this time out. There are some humorous moments and a few macabre and ironic events, but The Howling is first and foremost a cruel horror film. The best example of this comes in the form of Eddie Quist, the antagonist played by a nearly unrecognizable Robert Picardo. In what might be the film's best sequence, a nosy friend of the lead, played by Belinda Balaski, is pursued by a creature that reveals itself to be Eddie and transforms before her eyes. Picardo is a Dante favorite who has been primarily used in comedic or light hearted roles, but his performance as Quist is unhinged and devilish. Sayles and co-writer Terence Winkless give him a couple of gems in the one-liner department as well - after being called crazy he snarls "Oh, I'm much more than that!", for example - which helps Eddie stand out as a neat new twist on the werewolf legend.

Picardo isn't the only shining star in the supporting cast, as the inhabitants of the colony make up one of the more memorable horror clans this side of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Elisabeth Brooks is the visual standout as Eddie's sister who seems to be in heat, while classic names like Slim Pickens and John Carradine add a little bit of fun to the community.  Perhaps the biggest treat of the film is another Dante regular, Dick Miller, reprising his "Walter Paisley" character name as the owner of a book store who happens to know as much about werewolves as his books tell him. It's a neat little twist to have Miller filling in the pseudo-Van Helsing role, and his few scenes help establish the film's balance between modern horror cynicism and classic horror reverence.

Near the end of the film, Carradine's elder member of The Howling's community proclaims "You can't tame what's meant to be wild...it just ain't natural" and does a pretty great job of summing up what this movie does for the werewolf subgenre. Wallace is a perfect foil to this big bad wolf tale, and her ability to emote from opening scene to her big finale reiterates that this sect of werewolves is wild and dangerous. Horror movies that are more tame can work and work well, but there's something pretty great about The Howling's willingness to be wild and primal as it offers it's tribute to werewolves of the past.

Jack and Diane

(2012, Dir. by Bradley Rust Gray.)

A remake in name only of the John Cougar Mellencamp classic (OK, it's not related to the song, but you ALL were thinking it), Jack and Diane is one of those films that just left me shaking my head in confusion. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie, per say, it just means that it's one of those movies that made me stare at the screen and shout things like "WHO ARE YOU?" as I tried to figure out its intentions.

The title characters, despite your preconceived notions, are two teenage girls who quickly and abruptly fall in love during late summer in the city. It's all well and good, except for the disapproving families and the fact that Diane is going away to school in two weeks and - oh yeah - the fact that Diane might also be a werewolf.

Now, if you're like me, you just heard the word werewolf and got really excited. That happened to me when I heard about the movie, I admit it.  There was a time and a place - probably Italy in the early '70s - when abstract and surreal lesbian werewolves were probably a thing. But this one is a far, far cry from what that movie would have been like, because this is actually just one of those teens who are hip and different movies that indie filmmakers love to make these days.

(By the way, I was totally throwing crap against the wall on that "abstract and surreal lesbian werewolves in the '70s in Italy", but the good thing is that you can put "surreal", "lesbian" and "Italian" together with almost anything and throw it into a computer and you'll probably find a movie that actually existed. They're like RSTLNE on Wheel of Fortune when it comes to European horror.)

Anyway, back to Jack and Diane, which the viewer will quickly realize is not really a werewolf film by werewolf film standards.  It's a dramatic love story that does all those dramatic love story things - like making the characters madly in love even though they've said seven words to each other or showing how awkward it is for them to actually express themselves to their beloved even though they TOTALLY love them - while randomly flashing some genetic animations and some bloody noses and a few random attacks from a pop-up monster that never really matters in the plot. I'm probably being a little harsh as I lay this out there, but the folks that are reading this are generally the people like me who are going to jump at the word werewolf and get excited, but unfortunately for them this is a movie where you can't take the world werewolf literally.

Now, of course, the movie's not bad just because it's a slow moving infatuation love story.  Jack and Diane is kept afloat by a good performance by rising star Juno Temple - who rocked one out of the park when last seen in William Friedkin's bizarre Killer Joe - as the unsure and monstrously unstable Diane.  She carries the film as she weighs her desires against her innocence, even if her beau - the tomboy Jack, as played by Riley Keough - is a little more difficult for the viewer to relate to. All of the supporting performances - including a sexually charged cameo by former pop star Kylie Minogue (hey, if my choices are "former pop star" or "co-star of Bio-Dome" I'm going to use the least offensive one) - aren't noteworthy, which probably helps bring out Temple's star more. Unfortunately, she can't carry the whole film to great heights on her own.

Most disappointingly, Jack and Diane just never seems to muster up anything of importance in its plot or in its message. When you consider that the romance is as deep as a Twilight film and the monster metaphors are as hollow as a jack-o-lantern, you're left with the realization that Jack and Diane doesn't really muster up anything of relevance. A good lead performance, an adequate co-star, 12 seconds of monster action, and a hip indie soundtrack do not a movie make.  Jack and Diane is an interesting failure - but it's a failure nonetheless.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #4 - The Wolf Man

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing  Number 8 - Dawn of the Dead  Number 7 - The Evil Dead  Number 6 - Night of the Living Dead  Number 5 - The Innocents

The Wolf Man

(1941, Dir. by George Waggner.)

Why It's Here:

Most people don't list The Wolf Man at the top of the list when it comes to Universal's "classic" monster movies.  I disagree with most people. I think I get too caught up in the tragic drama aspect of this film, because I really buy in to the whole father/son/tortured family thing that we get from Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, Jr. here. And Rick Pierce's magical makeup effects, transforming the lovable Chaney into a wonderfully creepy monster, are a thing of nightmares.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

I don't know much about Maria Ouspenskaya, but I want to give her great grandchildren a hug some day.  The actress who plays the gypsy fortune teller that explains the curse of the werewolf has pretty much the best delivery of an ominous warning in the history of cinema.  It feels so darn real, and sends chills down my spine.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Speaking of Claude Rains and things that aren't at the forefront of the Universal Monsters discussion, let's talk about The Invisible Man.  It has the annoying comic relief of Una O'Conner, which is a problem, but it also has Rains eating up the scenery while occupying none of it.  These two movies are often lost in the shuffle when it comes to Universal Monsters, but both have a lot of drama and some fantastic special effects.

What It Means To Me:

There's not a scare to be found in The Wolf Man today, but it's the story behind this man-turned-wolf tale that represents everything I love about horror movies.  Some belittle the film and think I have it rated about a billion spots higher than it should be, but it's like comfort food to me.  I love the actors and the script and the effects, and that ending is just one of the all-time best "hammer your point home" moments ever. I'll never tire of The Wolf Man.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #10 - An American Werewolf in London

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining

An American Werewolf in London

(1981, Dir. by John Landis.)

Why It's Here:

He's known for comedies, but director John Landis shows off his love for monster movies in An American Werewolf in London and creates something special.  The film expertly balances between classic werewolf traditions and modern teenage comedy, with a perfectly picked cast leading the way.  It's not necessarily a scare fest, but there are some fantastic effects and suspense, and it rates higher on this list because it might be one of the two or three most entertaining horror films out there.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

Literally, the most transformative event the film is probably the physical transformation from American to American Werewolf that happens near the middle of the film.  But my favorite moment that sets the tone for the film, at least regarding its horror, is the sequence when the unseen beast tracks a lone businessman through the London subway system.  It's a great piece of first person horror that reminds us what the film actually is.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

1981 saw a resurgence of werewolf films, with Joe Dante knocking out the surprisingly dark The Howling and Michael Wadleigh putting together the bizarre Wolfen.  The former is the natural companion to American Werewolf, with its tongue slightly in cheek and more great special effects.  And the ending, featuring Dee Wallace cementing herself as a horror icon, is one of a kind.

What It Means To Me:

I've always been enamored with An American Werewolf in London, but it took me a long time to really take the film seriously.  I really feel like the film has gotten better every time I've seen it, and over time I've come to recognize just how well-put together the film is. Y'know how sometimes you get that feeling about how a movie is fun but not really that good? Well, you can stop having that feeling about An American Werewolf in London. I'm here to tell you that it's bloody brilliant.

1981 - The Year The Mike Made Contact

When Eric from over at The Movie Waffler asked me to take part in a little Blogathon he's got going on, I got a little psyched.  The topic, should I choose to accept it, is what he calls "The Year I Made Contact" - asking folks who love movies to talk about the movies from the year in which said movie lover was born. (Like, could I say movie a few more times?  Movie.  There, I did.)

If you wanna go straight to what other people said, click the baby!

When I got offered the chance to write about this topic, I took a moment to ask myself some questions. "Hey, The Mike...do you think the movies from the year you were born had an impact on you?  Like, maybe there's some kind of magical juju in the air that wafted off the movie screen and made you The Mike you are?"  And I was like "Nah, man, that's crazy."  But then I looked at the list of movies I've seen from 1981 (thanks to my good friends over at Flickchart, I can do that kind of stuff easily) and I was like "Whoa, The Mike...1981 and you is like...a magical conjunction!"

(Don't worry, I have Valley Girl-ish conversations with myself all the time. It's totally tubular and also normal for me.  Just run with it.)

Back on topic - 1981.  As far as I can count, there are 50 movies from 1981 that I've seen. And I can say with little hesitation that every single one of them makes me at least a little bit excited.  They're not all excellent films, and some struggle to get anywhere near good, but I swear with all my Mikeness that every movie I've seen from that year has something unique and catchy and attention-grabbing about it.

Jillian Kesner in the kung-fu/exploitation cheese-o-rama Firecracker.

When I try to break down 1981 - which is seriously no easy task for me when I'm this stoked about movies that aren't even good like Firecracker or The Nesting or The Survivor - I see a few distinct categories of movies that fit my cinema lovin' persona.  I'm a little afraid to start this next part - because I know I'm going to forget to mention something my gut thinks is great - but here's a run down of what sticks out (the most) to me from 1981.

Heads will roll - but not float - in Eyes of a Stranger.

The Slashers

As I discussed when I covered The Slasher Movie Book a few weeks ago, 1981 was right in the middle of the slasher movie's "golden age".  There are a few movies from the year that I will watch despite their silliness - stuff like, Graduation Day, The Burning, Hell Night, and Eyes of a Stranger (Oh, man, Eyes of a Stranger is something else!) - but there are also some big dogs of slasherdom too.  Halloween II and Friday the 13th Part 2 both took their brands down defining paths, with the former introducing the family ties between killer and victims and the latter introducing the fully grown Jason.  Both films are highly flawed, but pretty iconic at times, with a couple of the best moments in either series hidden within.  Alongside those films are three of my favorite stand-alone slasher films, My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, and Just Before Dawn.  These are three movies that represent exactly what the slasher was at the peak of its popularity, embracing the cliches while finding unique ways to make viewers love their kind of carnage.

The Non-Horror Stuff

I know I'm all about the genre stuff and the wacky stuff here, but there are a lot of 1981 movies I need to mention to feel OK about myself.  Some are pretty obvious - most anyone talking about 1981 will surely mention Raiders of the Lost Ark, which has to be the year's most popular and enduring film - while others were big hits at the time that are slightly obscure to the masses these days.  Films like Body Heat, The Cannonball Run, Stripes, and The Road Warrior are still loved in circles of movie buffs, but have primarily been relegated to "Movies that people pillage and update to make fresh young movies" status by greedy Hollywoodians and ignorant kids.

I will always miss John Belushi.

For me, there are a few lesser known films from the year that still stick out too.  The fantastic John Belushi, who's still my favorite comedian ever and kind of a hero to me, had his last two movies - the sweet and heartfelt Continental Divide and the zany and psychotic Neighbors - released in 1981, before his untimely death in 1982.  Another comedic favorite, Mel Brooks, released History of the World - Part 1, which is not among my favorite of his films, but is still a cracking spoof at times.  Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, and Rutger Hauer starred in the ridiculously serious serial killer thriller Nighthawks, which stands tall as one of the greatest facial hair movies of all-time.  George A. Romero took a break from zombies with the renaissance fairs and motorcycles epic Knightriders - buoyed by a young and intense Ed Harris - and made a ridiculous premise stick out as one of his better post Dawn of the Dead films.

Hey everybody! It's Ron Perlman!

1981 also featured one of the most unique films I've ever seen; a film that I find endlessly watchable despite little facts like next to nothing happening and no comprehensible dialogue. Jean-Jacques Annaud's Quest For Fire, about cavemen who have to gain and protect fire back in the days long before matches is a one-of-a-kind epic that I dig.  I don't have a clue what it's saying most of the time - but I think I like what it means.  And it's pretty once you get past all the hair.

The Horrors That Aren't All Slashy

While the slashers dominated the horror scene of the early '80s in many regards, there are several horror movies from 1981 that shine in other ways.  But, like the slashers, not all of them are firing on all cylinders.  Ghost Story is swimming in atmosphere and has a dynamite cast of Hollywood legends, but has some pacing issues.  Similar concerns took some spotlight away from Wolfen, in which Albert Finney faces New York City werewolves that have something to do with a Native American ritual - which means the movie's slow and also batstuff crazy.  Oliver Stone wrote and directed (Seriously! Oliver Stone! I'm not making this up!) The Hand, in which Michael Caine (Seriously!) deals with the loss of his hand which is now killing people, a movie that I love dearly but have a hard time defending. Maybe it's the gorgeous Andrea Marcovicci that draws me in and tricks me, or maybe it's the fact that the film is a psychological look at the effect of Thing from The Addams Family going on a rampage.   Either way, I can't stop loving The Hand.

On the more successful side of 1981, we find a couple more interesting horrors.  I'm not the biggest fan of Joe Dante's The Howling - I think it lacks too much of the comedic charm of his other films and is kind of poorly cast - but it's a great throwback to The Wolf Man with Dee Wallace at the top of her game and some great special effects.  Dead and Buried, on the other hand, is exactly my kind of straight-faced horror film, as the combination of writer Dan O'Bannon and director Gary Sherman brings forth an atmospheric and genuinely scary small town horror film. 

Just go watch The Pit and tell me it's not creepy/awkward. I dare ya.

If you're a regular reader of this site, you know that the Midnight Movie of the Week is pretty much my signature post.  I've been running it for 130 straight weeks now, and I wasn't surprised when I learned that no less than six (6!) of the movies I've picked for what I think is a prestigious honor came from 1981.  Among these are two surprisingly shocking horrors featuring mini-sized terrors, The Pit and Bloody Birthday.  The Pit has a little boy who's controlled by his teddy bear and some cave-dwelling trogs, and it's a film that never stops being its own brand of entertaining crazy.  Bloody Birthday is more straight forward, with three evil kids doing evil things for the sake of evil, but it is unsubtle in every way and goes out of its way to show extreme violence around (and sometimes toward) little children.

Though it might not be strictly a horror film, Roadgames features Jamie Lee Curtis in an early role and sports one of my favorite sensational movie posters of all-time.  For the most part, the film is Stacy Keach playing Rear Window from the cab of a semi that's crossing Australia, which makes it one of the most rewatchable films in my collection.  It's been relatively forgotten - it didn't even make the cut in the discussion of Jamie Lee's early roles in Scream - but Richard Franklin's thriller has long been a favorite of mine.  It's also been Midnight Movie of the Week.

The Top Five

When I really - and I mean really, those last thirteen paragraphs were just me warming up - break it down, there are five movies from 1981 that stand out as the gems of the year to me.  (Yes, I know Raiders of the Lost Ark should be here too, but I'm leaving it to the smarter people...and I'm more of a Last Crusade guy, to be honest.)  Here's a brief look at each of them.

If I'm being snooty and not acknowledging Halloween as a slasher - sometimes I like to pretend that it's "above" the moniker since it started the fire burning - Happy Birthday to Me easily takes the bithday cake as my favorite.  Another former MMOTW, the movie only came to my attention because one of those "The Day You Were Born" things my mom hung outside my bedroom had it listed as a popular movie of the time, and I found that terribly ironic.  It's perhaps the Lawrence of Arabia of slasher movies - I swear it's almost two hours long! - but it's got awesome kills, goofy characters, and all the '80s cheese you need. And the kids make references to classic movies, which makes me long for the days when we weren't being force fed so much new crap and we still remembered things like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or High Noon.  But that's another topic for another day...

Part of the reason I'm not so wild about The Howling might be the fact that I am wild about An American Werewolf in London.  I know it would be the nice thing to do if I accepted both movies for what they are - and I do still dig The Howling, dammit! - but An American Werewolf in London just sticks out to me as such a perfect film.  As I once wrote in a piece for the Flickchart Blog, it is truly a "one of a kind" movie with the perfect mix of comedy, action, and horror.  It too pays tribute to The Wolf Man in a great way, and it never keeps me from smiling.

The Evil Dead needs no introduction to most horror fans.  I feel terribly blessed that I, despite my age, found the original film first - unlike most of my classmates in school, who met Ash in Army of Darkness.  The Evil Dead still intrigues me on many levels, as it's one of the most immersive movie experiences I've ever been a part of.  Some remember the series for Bruce Campbell and the gags of the later films - and sometimes I do too - but the original Evil Dead deserves mad love for being a non-stop attack on the viewer.  

Another movie that I love for its bleakness - man, when you get down to it, 1981 was all about how we're doomed - is Brian De Palma's Blow Out.  John Travolta and Nancy Allen star in what looks like an average thriller, but the twists and turns of the plot lead up to a fantastic conclusion that is perhaps the most heart-breaking thing ever filmed.  It's full of De Palma's trademark sleaze and features a psychotic John Lithgow and a slimy Dennis Franz, which makes it the kind of film (Another past MMOTW!) that just traps my eyeballs and never lets them go.

Lastly, we reach the man I admire more than almost anyone - Snake Plissken.  You may call him a fictional character who was played by Kurt Russell, but I call him an ideal.  I call him an institution. I call him the spirit of everyone who's ever been fed up with having to go along with society's expectations and I call him the champion of every man who ever just wanted to sit down and be done with the crap.  I honestly call him a hero.

Escape From New York isn't the best movie of the year by any technical regard, and some may even say it's a little light in the plot department.  Some even knock the one-note antihero, but they miss the things that makes me love Snake Plissken and this film so dearly.  You might see Escape From New York as a silly film that guessed wrong about 1997, but I see it as a statement about society that features a character who has the resolve to stand up against anything.  As I said when I named it Midnight Movie of the Week on a decidedly low day, Escape From New York gives me a satisfaction about my course in life.

Snake Plissken is certainly my champion of 1981, but as I look back at the year I find so many movies to love that represent just what it is I love about movies.  They're not the happy-go-lucky movies that most people prefer - but those aren't the movies that I'm here for.  In an almost fatalistic way, the films of 1981 and I share many of the same opinions on what cinema can be, and this chance to look back at that year's films has been a thrill for me.

Don't forget to click the baby!

As I mentioned at the beginning of this thing - which I really thought would be shorter! - you can check out the rest of the The Year I Made Contact Blogathon over at The Movie Waffler.  So head on over and see what's up. If you have your own site, check in over there and join the party.  Or, you can just tell me what you think of your birth year (or what you think of 1981) in the comments below.  The possibilities, like my love-filled ramblings about 1981, are nearly endless.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #39 - Dog Soldiers

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise

Dog Soldiers

(2002, Dir. by Neil Marshall.) 

Why It's Here:

When I need a bad-frickin'-a-double-crooked-letter horror movie that's packed with action, gore, and macho dudes doing macho things: I need Dog Soldiers.  It's the Predator of werewolf films, taking a tough as nails platoon of soldiers and dropping them into a dangerous countryside during the wrong part of the lunar cycle.  When the film takes on full-fledged siege picture status as the survivors try to defend a remote farm house - well, that's about the point when I start fistpumping and slapping fives (even if there's no one else around).

The Moment That Changes Everything:

Dog Soldiers pretty much starts on a high note and stays there, but I have to mention the wily side character known simply as "Spoon", who puts up a fight that should make little guys around the globe proud.  As we wade through thick accents and wonderful practical effects, we have to take notice of Spoon's encounters with lycanthropes and smile.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Predator and Aliens do similar things quite well (and might be better movies), but they're sci-fi and this is a horror list.  So how about a dose of 28 Days Later (or its pretty good sequel, 28 Weeks Later) to keep the military and British horror theme going?  Dog Soldiers moves at a much quicker pace than that film, but both are frenetic enough to keep viewers on their toes while they're both thrilled and chilled.

(Alternate Choice: Want a "his and hers" werewolf bonanza? Pick up this one and Ginger Snaps, enjoy a bit of military massacre and a bit of teenage girl coming of age.  With lots of extra hair.  Everyone goes home happy!)

What It Means To Me:

Dog Soldiers has been one of those movies that I try to push on everyone I know since the day it was released on DVD.  Comparing it favorably to the films I just mentioned might sound crazy to some, but I'll gladly jump into the battle alongside Neil Marshall's fabulous debut film any day of any week.  It's one of the most watchable movies I know.

Wolfen

(1981, Dir. by Michael Wadleigh.)

First things first - I soooo want that movie poster.  From the ominous taglines to the creepy eye to the bloody title font, it's 100% amazing. 

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about Wolfen the movie.  It seems like I've known about Wolfen all my life, but I only just saw it for the first time this week.  There was a time, years ago, when I was totally excited to see Wolfen - I mean, it was alleged to be a werewolf movie from the '80s starring Albert Finney! - but a chorus of folks who had seen it all told me not to bother because the film was boring and stupid and too long and such.  Now, I've never been one to listen to people when they're clearly drinking Hater-ade, but for some reason I took their bait and avoided Wolfen.  But I knew that, someday, I would have to see for myself - because Wolfen certainly is a film that seems to good to be true on paper.

Finney, whom I've always loved and who makes me cry like a baby in Big Fish (soooo not ashamed), stars as a mentally unstable detective, and is joined on the cast list by a "who's who" of cool folks.  Heat co-star Diane Venora plays his partner/romantic interest, a young Gregory Hines also is featured as an inquisitive medical examiner, and an even younger Edward James Olmos gives a primally charged performance as a young Native American man who is involved in the plot's twists.  As if that's not enough, Tom Noonan (one of my favorite dudes ever!) has a key role and James "Mr. Strickland from Back to the Future" Tolkan and Reginald "I ate twinkies with Bruce and cheese with Urkel!" Vel Johnson show up in bit parts.  As you can see, Wolfen features one of the coolest casts ever put in a horror film.

Oh, and it has a plot too.  Said plot involves the murder of a political heavyweight who - along with his bodyguard and his lady friend - appears to have been mauled by a vicious animal.  Finney, Venora, and Hines are on the case, and Finney's Dewey Wilson quickly becomes wrapped up in the case.  It's a lot like that famous Sherlock Holmes quote about "eliminating the impossible", except that Dewey recognizes that what has happened and the things he learns along the way certainly come from the list of things he once deemed impossible.  The character becomes very interesting as the film dives into philosophical discussions and supernatural spiritual diatribes, and the early section of the film does a good job of creating a fog of intrigue around the mystery at hand.  Olmos also chews up scenery, sporting a look that feels like it came right out of The Warriors while spouting out cryptic ramblings about the hunters and the hunted.

It's when the mystery becomes more - or maybe it's less? - clear that I started to lose interest in Wolfen.  Look, I'm all for horror movies taking a "road less taken" and coming up with their own unique story, but Wolfen - well, I'll just say that Wolfen takes a really radical turn about an hour into the film; a turn that took me out of the film a bit.  Perhaps it was confusion over the film's incredibly abstract revelations, or perhaps it was confusion over Olmos dancing around with his little Edward James flopping in the camera's face, or perhaps it was something else.  Did I want a traditional story from Wolfen? I don't think I did, but I can't help feeling a little bit cheated by how drastically non-traditional the story turns.  I can't tell you what the film settles on, of course, but you can be assured that it is a) not a werewolf story and b) not like many things you've ever seen before.  And when mixed with some poor pacing - this film certainly is too long - and some dated special effects that would work better six years later in Predator, Wolfen loses a lot of the momentum it built up in its first hour.

In the end, I still found myself digging Wolfen despite being put off by some of the plot's turns.  Writer/director Michael Wadleigh - who was most famous for documenting Woodstock for Warner Brothers - keeps the film kind of poetic throughout, and I found myself more interested in what comes next than I was annoyed by the special effects or confused by the spirit animal talk.  I'm not left thinking that this is something I should have gone out of my way to see, but I am glad I finally gave it a spin.  And there's even a part of me that kind of wants to give Wolfen another go, just to see if it makes more sense to me now that I know where the plot is going. 

So basically, you need to see Wolfen to see if it's for you.  (It is on YouTube, apparently!) And maybe you need to see it twice.  Dammit Albert Finney, couldn't you have just dealt with normal werewolves?  This got weird.

The Universal Horror Experience - The Wolf Man

(Note from The Mike: Y'all love Universal's Monster flicks, right?  Well, The Mike does.  And it seems like it's about time to do something about it.  So welcome to a new feature at FMWL - The Universal Horror Experience.  Now I know that most of these films have been talked to death, so I hope to do something fresher than just saying "OMG YOU GUYS, these movies are like important".  In said feature, I hope to discuss my experience with these monsters, to review some of the sequels I've yet to see, and to talk about some films that follow up on Universal's original scarers.  For example, we're gonna start the Universal Horror Experience with....)

My love affair with Universal's monsters started with them existing as more of an idea than an actual entity.   I first really learned about them by reading those orange backed books about the monsters at the library - if you grew up in the '80s, you probably know those books. I read front to back about Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong, Godzilla, etc....but for some reason I don't remember caring much about the Wolf Man.  Frankenstein's monster was always the big brute, Dracula's always been the suave devil....but then there was The Wolf Man, who I always kind of wrote off as a side character in my youth. (Except I knew that he had gnards.  Thanks, The Monster Squad.)

But when I started to get into the movies during my teen years, The Wolf Man quickly jumped out at me as a favorite.  Where Frankenstein and Dracula were paring down their source materials to film lengths, The Wolf Man was taking something that hadn't been done too often - though Werewolf of London did precede it by six years - and using it to create a third icon to keep the money flowing in for Universal Studios.  In doing so, many of the things we've come to believe about werewolves - like their struggles with silver and humanoid appearance - were unleashed upon audiences for the first time.  I don't mean to slight The Mummy, The Invisible Man, or The Creature from the Black Lagoon (who was still 15 years away from existence) when I say The Wolf Man is above them as a top dog in the horror 'verse - but it's since become a special favorite to me.

The Wolf Man won me in part through its monster, but there was a whole lot more going on in the film.  Lon Chaney Jr. stars as both the furry beast and the seemingly harmless - aside from a bit of peeping - Larry Talbot, who returns home to his father after the tragic death of his brother in a hunting accident.  The Talbots are obviously a big deal in the small town they inhabit, which makes Larry a high profile individual - particularly when he's caught up in a love triangle with a local girl (the fetching Evelyn Ankers) and the accidental murder of a gypsy named Bela (aptly played by Bela Lugosi).  Larry is wounded badly by the beast that Bela appears to be, and we all know what that means these days.  (If you don't, check out An American Werewolf in London - which cites the film as a reference on screen - and get back to me.  Or, y'know, just watch the movie.)

Chaney's performance is certainly raw by Hollywood standards, but the younger Mister Chaney would make a career out of harnessing that off-kilter persona.  Though Chaney got his first big break two years earlier as Lennie in the first film adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (opposite a young Burgess Meredith), the mixture of his size and stature with his ability to play meek and scared - plus a dose of his famous father's legacy - made Chaney a favorite with Universal after his initial turn as The Wolf Man.  Chaney would go on to portray Frankenstein's monster, The Mummy, and the Son of Dracula in following Universal horrors.  Though those roles would establish him as a horror 'verse fixture, but his original turn as Larry Talbot catches Chaney at his most human - at least until his swan song performance in former MMOTW Spider Baby.

The problem with Chaney, according to many horror fans, is that he most certainly is not an iconic presence like Karloff and Lugosi before him.  I won't argue that point, but I think he gets a lot of help in making The Wolf Man work.  The supporting cast includes Lugosi and Ankers but also big names Claude Rains and Ralph Bellamy, and each actor works well within Curt Siodmak's tragic script.  The biggest assist in creating the legend of The Wolf Man probably goes to makeup specialist Jack Pierce, who designed the look of the beast and supervised the exhausting process of creating the film's transformation from man to wolf.  

With this convergence of talents supporting the star, The Wolf Man jumps off the screen as a tale of horror with a Shakespearean bit of tragedy and more human drama than many horrors of its era.  While the film adaptations of Frankenstein and Dracula can be mistaken for one-man shows thanks to their iconic leads, the superior cast and script behind The Wolf Man push it to the top of my go-to list of classic horrors.  I'm glad I shook the near-sightedness of little The Mike, because he remembered The Wolf Man primarily as the thing that scared Stephanie Tanner that one time on Full House.

FMWL's 12 Midnights of Christmas: 12 Werewolves Gnashing (By From Beyond Depraved's Joe Monster!)

Joe Monster, your horror loving host at the fantastic From Beyond Depraved, has been one of FMWL's greatest supporters throughout 2010, and has been a true inspiration to me as I grow as a writer.  A young man with an incredible knowledge of filmed, written, and spoken horror of years gone by, Joe also has a strong love for one of my very favorite beasts - the werewolf.  Here, he honors the lycanthropes he loves, and offers up 12 vicious hairballs.  Keep on howling, Joe!

FMWL's 12 Midnights of Christmas presents: 12 Werewolves Gnashing 

By Joe Monster of From Beyond Depraved

We all know that lycanthropes love nothing more than romping around in the winter snow, sniffing evergreen trees and playing their Werewolf Games. Oh, and consuming the flesh of the innocent! Christmas is a ripe time for the shapeshifters to dine on us tasty humans, and they use every honored tradition of the holiday to gain the advantage.

A group of carolers knocking at your door and sounding like a pack of dogs? Well, you better bust out the silver bullets, cause those furry bastards are just trying to get in the house so they can slay belles.

The neighborhood bullies better not force one of their helpless victims to eat a pile of yellow snow, because chances are that’s marked werewolf territory and they’ll soon find out that they’ll be getting something a helluva lot worse than coal this year.

And you remember when you took your kid to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and they screamed their heads off during the entire ordeal? Well pay attention, dude, there’s a salivating set of canine jaws underneath that white beard just ready to munch on something other than cookies.

Lock the doors, hide the children, and pray to God that the big man in red remembered to pack his wolfsbane this Christmas Eve, because the werewolves are here and they want to stuff their stockings and their hairy faces with human skin! Ho ho no!  

1. Will Randall- Wolf

Perhaps the most charismatic (and certainly oldest) werewolf to make the list. Poor Will is given a nasty bite while driving through the winter snow and the next thing you know he’s got a wee bit of an aggression problem and also enjoys pissing on the legs of his fellow employees. One of Hollywood’s greatest badasses playing a frothing, snarky shapeshifter? Sign me up!

2. The Werewolves on Wheels- Werewolves On Wheels

These guys technically count as a collective group of werewolves, but they’re just too awesomely ridiculous to pas up. Everyone knows you don’t piss off the roadside cult of Satanists, not even if you are Hell’s Angels! But that’s what these leather-clad bullies do, and in the end pay the price by having a hairy malady placed on their heads (though to be honest with you the fur probably doesn’t make much of a difference).

3. Dr. Wilfred Glendon- Werewolf Of London

The moon may call out the beast within botanist Wilfred Glendon, but just make sure that he’s not late for his tea and biscuits! Henry Hull plays a rather proper lycanthrope; he even has the decency to dress properly for the weather as opposed to the typical werewolf habit of streaking through the streets! Don’t let that fool you though. This monster has a set of canines with your name on them, especially if you try to nab one of his flowers.

4. Eddie Quist- The Howling

Now here’s a fella I can relate to. Eddie is pure scum, a murderous, raping scoundrel who deserves a bullet to his brain… and that’s before he transforms! Somewhat of a rarity in the gallery of tragic skinwalkers, Eddie delights in his unrestrained evil and doesn’t give two wolfsbane buds for anyone who has a problem with that. A villainous human hunter if there ever was one, Eddie is bad through and through. I appreciate that quality of character.

5. The Desperate Wolfman- The Monster Squad

This poor sap wasn’t even important enough to get a name for his human form. The only thing that does matter is that he can reassemble himself after a stick of dynamite blows him into itty bitty pieces of fur. Oh, and that he has NARDS! He may be nothing but a mindless slave under Dracula’s dark control, but this Wolfman is seriously one crazy mofo. From his Superman-esque transformation in the phone booth to his epic death by double-barreled shotgun, this dude has awesomeness emanating from his hairy chest.

6. Tony Rivers- I Was A Teenage Werewolf

Ah, teenage angst! Tony’s parents found out the hard way that it was safer just to let their kid keep himself locked in the bathroom for however long he wanted, because the fanged, meticulously combed beast that had been their son has some serious hormonal rage going on. Just whatever you do… don’t make him angry! High school’s a tough time for us all, so let’s take comfort in the fact that no matter how bad things get, at least we’re not a raging monster wearing a letterman’s jacket. 

7. Waldemar Daninsky- Mark of the Wolfman, et al.

It’s Paul Naschy as everyone’s favorite Polish beastie! I like to think of Daninsky as the flighty, little brother to all these other werewolves: he is constantly wrestling with other monsters, ceaselessly drooling a mixture of canine saliva and man meat, and leaping off the walls in mad furies of wanton destruction. And his human counterpart isn’t so hard on the eyes either (cartoonishly audible wink). Waldemar can be summed up with two words everytime mention of his name comes up: HELL YES!  

8. Lester Lowe- Silver Bullet

A wolf amongst the sheep, indeed. Reverend Lowe is a sneaky werewolf, hiding under the guise of his human form in the day to keep his hairy hide covered from the vengeful rednecks that occupy his small town. He’s not necessarily evil, but he’s also not opposed to munching on some children in order to protect his hoary identity. Okaaay, maybe he is a bit of an ass. But what self-loving lycanthrope doesn’t enjoy a little careless slaughter here and there? Also: eye patch. Big points.

9. David Kessler- An American Werewolf In London

David is a hunky sweetheart, the type of guy that you’d take to dinner with the parents. It’s a shame that an unfortunate run-in on the English moors ensures that David’s future dating days are just about through. But don’t let that scare you off, ladies. This bachelor is still eligible and has a lot of things going for him. He’s totally cool with getting dinner, he’s capable of cuddling, and his random visions of all his massacred victims are sure to be a hit on Family Fun Night. Plus, keep an eye out for inexplicable glimpses of his firm bum when the moon’s out.

10. Leon Corledo- The Curse Of The Werewolf

Ahh, the other Spanish wolfman. To be fair, Oliver Reed lacks the authentic ethnic flavor for his cursed character, but he makes up for it with lots of intense sweating and manic shouting at his girlfriend’s face. Leon’s rabid counterpart is quite the red-blooded adventurer though, as he’s not adverse to scaling roofs, tearing jail cells to smithereens, and stalking maidens while adorned in a gloriously poofy shirt. Sometimes I’m not sure if Leon’s wolf-form is going to challenge someone to a sword fight or a salsa contest, but I’m sure he could probably win both.

11. Lawrence Talbot- The Wolf Man

Do I really have to give a reason for this one? Lon Chaney was like the hairy father I never had, and watching him stomp across the foggy forests (on his tip toes for some mysterious reason) made me cheer out in crazed enthusiasm. Right from the tip of his permed Jew fro down to the bottoms of his horny toes, I love Talbot with every ounce of my heart. He made me want to become a werewolf once I grew up (an occupation I still believe exists) and made me realize that even a man pure in heart could turn into a wolf when the autumn moon was bright. Cheers, sweet prince.

12. The Huntsman- A Company Of Wolves

The Huntsman is probably the most wolfish human on this entire list. He is devastatingly handsome, devilishly charming, and completely homicidal. He is, as grandmother Angela Lansbury warns, a man who is hairy on the inside. He’s sweet as sugar plums when Red Hood first meets him, but the progressing winter’s night reveals the monster inside the Huntsman… literally. In a completely awesome moment, the wolf tears its way out the fleshy shell by first shoving its snout through the Huntsman’s open mouth. Can you say traumatizing? Definitely the one lycanthrope you don’t want to catch yourself with on Christmas night, and the leader of this pack of werewolves who are guaranteed to make any holiday season a living nightmare from Hell. 

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Once again, many thanks to Joe Monster for joining in FMWL's reindeer games!  Do yourself a favor and head over to From Beyond Depraved for some truly fantastic insight into the horror genre.  And, while you're thinking, feel free to talk about Joe's lycan friends and your favorite werewolves in the comments below!  Until next time, BEWARE THE MOON!