My Favorite Horror Movie – ‘The Howling’

I have so many favorite horror films, but if I had to pick the crossroads of where I was never the same again, it would have to be when I saw The Howling. There’s always that defining moment for anyone that has a lifelong love of horror films. How it comes to be is unique for everyone, but there’s usually one common thread. Something in the film universe forever alters your perception of absolutely everything else. To use another film reference, you’ve just swallowed the red pill and there is no going back. It happened for me on so many levels with the 1981 film, The Howling. Joe Dante’s legendary werewolf flick was a contemporary of An American Werewolf in London (which I also love), but The Howling was my point of no return. 

American Werewolf In London seemed charming and tongue in cheek. David Naughton stumbling through lycanthropy while crushing on very hot local girl, having his late best friend be his conscience like an undead, rotting Jiminy Cricket, and all of it set to songs with the word “moon” in them. I loved it, but it didn’t unsettle me. Then I saw the bare bones trailer for The Howling – one that didn’t show anything from the film at all – and when I did see it, I could never unsee it again. It was dirtier and sleazier, and it clearly had the independent feel from all the Corman people involved with it, but they also had a little money and a lot of creativity to do some revolutionary effects that are still pretty ground breaking today.

Another brilliant detail about The Howling is how many social undertones about human nature there are in the film. It starts in a peep show/adult book store with Dee Wallace (Cujo 1983) as the innocent involved in a sting operation to nab a country wolf that came to the city to play serial killer. When they trace his origins, it just happens to be the same commune that Dee Wallace goes to to recover from the trauma of catching him. That same commune is filled with upper middle class thirty somethings that are trying the snake oil of becoming werewolves instead of crystals or primal scream therapy. They can rationalize that it’s okay to turn into monsters as long as they keep feeding off cattle instead of humans. The old guys and the slutty girl there know better. Being a werewolf was all about the ID. When the hunger and the libido kick in, even the good ones go bad and the reformed ones go worse. 

The Howling had a dude cheating on his wife by banging some hippie chick in front of a campfire while they both turned into salivating werewolves, and he was one of the new, respectable guys that had just gotten there. It’s a pretty nihilistic film, especially the ending. Dee Wallace was the martyr and transformed on live TV to try to expose the evil for what it was, but in the end, no one even noticed. Maybe because she was still pure of heart is the only reason I can think of as to why she looked like a Shih Tzu and everyone else looked like hairy devils. The Howling became the apex predator of werewolf films for me, and the only other movie that even came close to that was Dog Soldiers. Eight foot tall werewolves walking around on two legs are much scarier than ones that just look like big dogs. After all the sketchy sequels that came after The Howling (part 2 gets a pass just because it has Christopher Lee, a new wave ’80s band in the beginning, and it’s off the rails weird), I would love to see a remake as brave as the original to show some serious animal savagery in the ranks of suburbanites.

From then on, I knew what I loved about horror, and why I could never let it go. From how society and morality can crumble during a zombie apocalypse to how one ugly vampire can show up in a Norman Rockwell town and suddenly everyone is a window floating bloodsucker, horror is the manifestation of our biggest fears of chaos, betrayal, and victimization, but also our hope or acceptance of if we might or might not overcome it. Whether in print or on film, horror is one of the purest representations of the human condition, even if has to do with monsters.

So there you go. Thanks for coming along with me on how that one werewolf flick sparked all the random musings you might find here. Cheers and long live horror!