The 1981 film, The Howling, takes place at The Colony.

The Colony is a lovely place, a nice resort out in the middle of the countryside.  It’s a place that celebrity therapist George Waggener (Patrick Macnee) sends his clients so that they can recover from trauma.  It’s a bit of a grown-up version of the ranch to which Dr. Phil used to send juvenile delinquents.  Of course, the Colony is full of adults and they’re an eccentric bunch.  I mean, one of them — named Erle Kenton — is actually played by John Carradine!  That’s just how eccentric the place is.  Sheriff Sam Newfield (Slim Pickens) keeps an eye on the place but everyone knows that there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to The Colony.  Dr. Waggner does good work.

Karen White (Dee Wallace) is a Los Angeles news anchor who was held hostage by a serial killer named Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo).  While she was with Eddie, she was forced to not only watch videos of Eddie’s crimes but she also saw something happen with Eddie that terrified her to such an extent that she has blocked it from her mind.  Karen was rescued by the police but she is haunted by nightmares.  Dr. Waggner arranges for Karen and her husband, Bill Neill (Christopher Stone, who was married to Dee Wallace when they co-starred in this film), to spend some time at the Colony.

Bill loves the Colony, especially after he attracts the eye of Marsha (Elisabeth Brooks), the resort’s resident seductress.  Karen, however, is less enamored of the place.  The Colony feels off to her and she’s not happy about the howling in the distance or the fact that Bill has suddenly started to grow distant from her.  Could it be that The Colony is actually crawling with werewolves and that Bill has become one of them?  (It’s totally possible and, to The Howling‘s credit, it doesn’t waste any time letting us know that.)  Karen’s friend, Terry Fisher (Belinda Balanski), and her boyfriend, Chris Halloran (Dennis Dugan), do some research of their own into Eddie Quist, The Colony, and whether or not werewolves exists and they meet a helpful bookstore owner named Walter Paisley (Dick Miller).

To understand the approach that director Joe Dante and screenwriter John Sayles take to The Howling, one needs to only consider the names of some of the characters.  George Waggner.  Bill Neill. Terry (which can be short for Terence) Fisher.  Fred (or is that Freddie) Francis.  Erle Kenton.  Sam Newfield.  Jerry Warren.  All of these characters are named after horror film directors.  This is the type of werewolf film where Chris Halloran has a copy of The Three Little Pigs sitting on his desk.  Veteran actors like Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, and Kenneth Tobey show up in small roles.  Roger Corman mainstay Dick Miller plays yet another character named Walter Paisley and he kicks Forrest J. Ackerman out of his bookstore.  Roger Corman himself plays a man making a phone call.  After a werewolf is shot on live TV, the program immediately cuts to a dog food commercial and we see a blank-faced child telling his unconcerned parents that someone just turned into a wolf.  The Howling was made by people who obviously love B-horror and that love is present in every frame of the film.

Like Dante’s Piranha, The Howling is a film with a sense of humor but it’s not a comedy.  The werewolves are still impressive, even forty-two years after the film was first released.  The character of Eddie Quist (“I’m going to give you a piece of my mind”) is a terrifying monster and the sight of his signature smiley face will fill you with dread, especially when it shows up in a place where it really shouldn’t be.  The film cynically ends on a note of noble sacrifice that will apparently not make much difference, with the suggestion being that human beings are either too distracted or too jaded to realize that there are monsters among them.  The Howling is a fast-paced and well-directed homage to B-horror and it’s still terrifically entertaining.