I always thought that Joe Dante’s 1981 horror film, The Howling, has been overlooked just a little bit due to it’s release being the same year as John Landis’ own horror film, An American Werewolf In London. Both were werewolf films and both were good in their own right.
Dante’s film has been called silly by some critics, but it was the more serious of the two with Landis’ own film mixing in more black humor in the narrative than Dante’s which took on a more traditional approach to the werewolf horror. Even the transformation scene from both films took on opposite sides in terms of mood and tone. Where Landis’ film treated the scene with both a mixture of horror and camp (due to the music playing in the background) in The Howling the scene went for full-on horror.
This has been one of my favorite horror scenes and it’s all due to the work of the very person who made John Carpenter’s The Thing such a memorable piece of horror filmmaking: Rob Bottin.
This man should be handed every award for every effects work he has ever done and will continue to do. It’s a shame that he hasn’t done anything of note since 2002’s Serving Sara, but until Hollywood decides that if they want great practical effects paired with advancing CG ones and hire Bottin once again we can always fall back on his past work such as the one’s he did for The Howling.
Through the Shattered Lens 
This is a great scene. I had forgotten this came from the same guy who created the awesome effects in “The Thing”. I liked “The Howling” pretty well, and I’ve seen it three times. I did think the end was odd and inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the film. As you indicated, “The Howling” was straightforward horror, as compared to “American Werewolf”. But having Dee Wallace turn into a Yorkshire Terrier during her newscast…were we supposed to take that seriously? It seemed like last-minute attempt at humor from the director, out of which someone should have talked him. The on-air transformation was an interesting idea, and it may have been in the source book, but why turn her into an adorable pooch?
1981 was a great year for updated werewolf cinema, with the release of both of those films. “The Howling” is a cool film, due mostly to Bottin’s work. I do think “American werewolf” was better on pretty much all counts, though. I found it more entertaining overall, it had more memorable acnes, its transformation scene was at least as good, the scary parts were scarier, and Jenny Agutter was naked. (I am also a fan of hot naked English nurses.) And the “American Werewolf” would have those spindly-legged, skinny-clawed “Howling” werewolves for lunch. But they’re both cool films, with great special effects, and they are two of the best werewolf films ever.
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I think the last scene was suppose to show the world how ignorant it’s been when it comes to the “real world” that they don’t think exists, but it’s execution could’ve been better. Like you said she looked more like a Yorkie than a “rip your throat out” werewolf. At least they could’ve used a Huskie or grey wolf as her werewolf form.
I like all of the werewolf films of 1981 which also included the very underappreciated Wolfen. I think I prefer The Howling because it was more straight out horror. They could easily have added some black humor into the narrative the way Landis did for An American Werewolf in London, but it wouldn’t have fit. I think I liked the idea behind The Howling more with werewolves trying to stay under the radar by gathering in wilderness communes.
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Yeah, “Wolfen” was good, too, though not exactly werewolf. And I agree, it is underappreciated.
I liked the “revelation” idea at the end of “The Howling”, to show the world the truth; just confused by the cute appearance of the transmogrified heroine. Yes, if you’re gonna go dog for your werewolf model, Husky would work better than Yorkie. 🙂
And I agree, I would not have wanted arbitrary humor in “The Howling”. It had a menacing atmosphere to it, and attempts at comic relief would have diluted that.
Where else can one discuss 80’s werewolf films? What a great site.
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Actually, Wolfen is a werewolf film, but not the traditional European kind. It’s a play on the Native American skinwalker legend.
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I stand corrected. I remember that now.
I was just thinking about “Wolfen”, and that concept it explored regarding residual consciousness after decapitation. It was referenced in an historical context early in the film – the warriors of some early civilization would behead their enemies, and then show the headless torsos to the victim’s detached head. At the end of the film, after the obnoxious please commissioner, or whatever he was, had his head bitten off by a wolfen entity, his eyes and mouth were still moving.
I think this may have been discussed here a couple of years ago on a review of “Wolfen” by Leonard. It’s what I remember most about that film.
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Yeah, Leonard and I both reviewed it awhile back. I think Wolfen in terms of storytelling was the best of the three in 1981. There wasn’t anything great about it overall, but the filmmakers just made a very good film that stuck to its chosen themes of wilderness fighting against an encroaching “civilization”. I will admit that the way they shot scenes from the point of view of the wolfen was a nice touch.
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