Stephen King's Silver Bullet

This film has a reputation for being both poor and stupid. Stephen King himself wrote the screenplay and has said a disparaging thing or two about it in hindsight. But it's gained a cult following over the years. And it's pretty easy to see why. It's kind of weird even King doesn't understand why this works when a LOT of his horror screenplays of the era do not.

It works because it's not entirely a horror film. There are also action elements, and the protagonist and his entire family survive the werewolf, which is entirely outside of horror films. There is blood and gore and legit tragedy for some of the characters. But because the heroes themselves remain largely out of it, it's a rare horror film that could be considered a crowdpleaser. You won't feel bad after it's over.

Let me also put another idea into your head that I'm betting King won't admit. Both the screenplay and the movie are better than the book it was based on, "Cycle Of The Werewolf". That was written in the 1980's, a notoriously difficult period for King's writing. He churned out a LOT of very popular books. And a great deal of them were lousy if you judged by quality rather than book sales. "Cycle Of The Werewolf" is one of the worst written. It's not worthless, because the illustrations from artist Bernie Wrightson are so great, but the truth is for a horror book there is absolutely no logic or tension to the story. It's just random bloody stuff happening. Marty only really appears in a big role in two or three chapters. There is nothing in the story to make your spine tingle, much less characters for you to root for to get out of the life or death scenario with the monster alive. I think Silver Bullet fixed every single one of that book's huge flaws while admittedly coming up with a bunch of its own.

Random thoughts:

King is not a solid writer yet. And nothing proves this more than the fact that he doesn't understand the gravity of Marty's handicap. He has him climbing trees (with no way down) and crawling into his upstairs bedroom window. If a character is handicapped, they need the condition to be treated realistically and believably (and seriously). And King wasn't a decent enough writer to know that yet.

Twin Peaks' Everett McGill never really wound up with much of an acting career, but it seems to me everything he DID do was in projects either memorable or bizarre. There are worse small-scale careers to emulate besides his. I remember seeing this movie on TV back in the day, and the bit with the eyepatch always stayed with me. It's why I rewatched it now.

I had a huge crush growing up on Megan Follows from "Anne Of Green Gables". She's also an actress who dropped out of acting at some point, and I've always really liked her.

I was under the mistaken impression that Gary Busey became a punchline because of his on-camera real-life behavior on his later self-titled reality show. No, actually Busey is exactly as incoherent onscreen here as he is in real life. It's amazing he was ever hired for any role at all. He's always been like that.

Speaking of which, I don't like Red. He's a poor substitute for the Uncle in the book, who is useful and actually believes Marty. And doesn't unload the gun's Silver Bullet the second before Lowe attacks. I think the thing I dislike about him most is he gets angry and offended that Marty's mom dislikes him getting drunk and cursing in front of the kid. If he were actually a responsible adult he would already know you shouldn't do that. He certainly wouldn't be arguing against it.

Good we didn't see Brady's death. Good King is decent enough for THAT. His father's pain feels real regardless.

"Cycle Of The Werewolf" is referred to in the credits as a "novellete". Showing that everybody in the 1980's, King included, was stupid. More proof is the snazzy upbeat song "Joyride" being inappropriately placed in the end credits. Yes, the 1980's often had good soundtracks. But I would argue that a lot of those songs they played over the end credits never actually fit the movie in question. Also, "Joyride" the song sucks, so I can't even give it THAT much.

A feel-good action packed horror movie? Yeah, it's hard to argue against why people wound up discovering the film and liking it. Even if the screenplay is kinda stupid. 3 stars.