As Good As It Gets

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The Howling is a movie in love with movies. Watching it, one comes away with the purest of joy, a celebration of past horror movies to come without ever talking down on the past, like worse movies such as Scream. In a year that also gave us the seminal An American Werewolf in London and the near forgotten Wolfen, it still stands out as something unique and different while whore heartedly embracing the past.In Los Angeles, KDHB news anchor Karen White (Dee Wallace, The Hills Have Eyes, E.T., Cujo, Critters, Popcorn, The House of the Devil) has become he story, as she's being stalked by Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo, Legend, The 'Burbs, Innerspace), a serial killer who leaves behind a smiley face as his calling card. Cooperating with the police, she becomes part of a sting operation to catch him inside a scummy, scuzzy, 70s porn theater. He forces her to watch a video of him raping and killing a girl, then makes her turn to face him. Whatever she see freaks her out so badly, she suffers from amnesia. Just before Quist can kill her, the police open fire, killing him.Karen's therapist, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee, John Steed from The Avengers) has a private resort named The Colony where he sends his patients. She and Bill, her husband, schedule a visit and meet all manner of insane folks, like Erle Kenton (John Carradine, star of more movies than this article will ever be able to catalogue), an old man who keeps yelling that he wants to die, and Marsha Quist, a sex maniac who tries to seduce Karen's husband. While trying to run away, a wolf attacks him.Karen's had enough, so she calls in her friend Terri (Belinda Balaski, who has appeared in nearly every one of director Joe Dante's movies), who connected Eddie Quist to The Colony (me, I would have guessed that since his sister is there).Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/08/04/the-howling-1981

After TV host Karen White survived an encounter with a demented mass murderer, she suffers from nightmares and panic attacks. In order to recover, she travels to the countryside and joins the so called "Colony" – a community of mentally ill people. At night she hears the howling of wild animals, and she becomes more and more stressful. The members of the Colony seem to hide something. But what is it? (Psst! It has something to do werewolfs!)"The Howling" has some nice ideas and cool special effects, but it pales in comparison to John Landis' iconic horror comedy "An American Werewolf in London", which premiered in 1981 as well. The last third of "The Howling" is pretty entertaining, though. There is a suspenseful chase, a shootout and bit of gore. But you'll have a hard time taking all of this seriously. It's just a bit too sleazy and plain. Some scenes are trash-tastic: werewolf sex, yay! The sequence where a man transforms into a werewolf is epic: The special effects are impressive and scary up to this day.The most interesting part of "The Howling" is its ending: It is cynical and genuinely funny. Other than that, unless you are a horror buff, there is no good reason to watch this over "American Werewolf".

**WOLF HOWL!** 1981 was a great year for horror movies. There's "An American Werewolf in London" look what reviews it got. Now here comes "The Howling". I was too young to see this film at the time. But I heard on how good it was. A great cast was put into the film, and it did just fine. Dee Wallace plays a reporter who uncovered a story which seems to have a sinister secret. After the attack at the adult store, she gets severely traumatized. When her boss takes her and her husband(Christopher Stone,1942-95) to a private resort so she can recover from the incident she was in. Unbeknownst to her, the resort has a secret, and so does her husband. One of the members of The Colony, Marsha Quist (Elisabeth Brooks,1951-97) the nymphomaniac seduces the husband with beastly results. Then there's a attack by a animal. When Karen(Wallace) calls her friend to come by, she calls her boyfriend to warn him about The Colony. Not only the man who was shot in the adult place a member, he was also, a werewolf. Everybody in the resort are werewolves. After they were wiped out by the boyfriend and Karen, she would go back to work and warn the media about werewolves and their existence. She would become one of them, after her own husband attacked her. Questions asked,"Is it real? Or special effects?" I'm not telling... This movie was great. I think it topped, the other werewolf film. It can bring out the wolf in you! HAHAHAHA!!! But seriously, I enjoyed it! 5 stars

I am a horror connoisseur. I watch a whole lot of horror movies. My favorite mini-genre of horror is the werewolf film. I have been obsessed with werewolves since I was a little guy. Unfortunately, I probably can't even come up with 20 great werewolf movies. Though Hollywood has glutted us with vampire and zombie flicks, the werewolf remains a rarity. I believe part of that is the struggle people seem to have to craft a unique werewolf story. The other part is the challenge of presenting a believable werewolf makeup that looks good. Joe Dante was able to accomplish both of these things (with help from Rob Bottin, of course).Dee Wallace (who is gorgeous in this movie) is a news reporter who has been receiving phone calls from a serial killer named Eddie Quist. She helps the police to set up a sting operation to try to capture Quist, but it doesn't go as planned and she is almost killed before the police save the day and kill Quist (or did they?). Now, she has memory blocks and nightmares, so her shrink advises her to go to a new age camp to get the help she needs. Only there is much more to this camp that it seems and it might just be a village full of werewolves.What Dante does well to begin with, story-wise, is to avoid the origin story. This was a prerequisite of most werewolf movies before this, that all followed the blueprint created in WEREWOLF OF London. Hero gets bit by werewolf, hero becomes werewolf, movie focuses on the tragedy of his/ her situation. Literally, they pretty much all followed that blueprint until THE HOWLING. By bringing us something fresh, Dante brought something new to the formula that has helped it to stand the test of time.Dante, also, crams this movie full of easter eggs for fans. Beginning with the casting choices. Kenneth Tobey (the hero of THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD) is a cop in the beginning. Patrick Macnee as the doctor. John Carradine as an aging werewolf. Slim Pickens as the sheriff. Even more so are the myriad werewolf references. Go through the list of character names and you will notice that almost all of them are named for directors of classic werewolf pictures. The backgrounds are full of little wolf references, from the books they read to the chili they eat, it's like a Where's Waldo of werewolf lore and so fun for a werewolf nut like myself to dig through each time.The makeup is maybe my favorite werewolf design of all time. Most early films used the "hairy guy" approach (think WEREWOLF OF London or THE WOLFMAN) where we get a guy on two legs with some extra yak hair. There was the cheap way out of using an actual dog (THE BEAST MUST DIE) or even AN American WEREWOLF IN London uses a creature that is basically just a dog. When I imagine a werewolf in my nightmares, neither are the monster I see. It should be an almost perfect amalgamation of the two creatures and THE HOWLING gives us that. Rob Bottin created something damn near perfect for this movie that I still haven't seen topped (DOG SOLDIERS comes close). If I have one nitpick it is the ears, which are too large, but I'm being too picky now.The film keeps the action tight and the suspense at a maximum. We start to realize that there are more than one monster in these woods and it adds a terror of not just the werewolf(s) at the door, but the very fact that the heroes are up against an entire colony, adding that one vs all mentality that brings a whole new level to the plot complexion. It all wraps up in one heck of a climax.There are weak spots, brought about mostly from the limitations of the budget. The animation in the sex scene is really bad. It was bad then and looks even worse now. The claymation used in the final chase is, also, very obvious. It's not EVIL DEAD bad, but it's not good either. Still, these small moments do not take away from the mastery of the special effects on display in this movie.It's a shame that the movie will, really, forever live in the shadow of AN American WEREWOLF. Being released in the same year as what is, admittedly, a superior movie it never got a fair shake, but this movie remains one of the 5 best werewolf films of all time and one of the greatest horror films released in the 80s.