Post by someoldguy on Dec 4, 2019 16:33:12 GMT -5
I cannot believe there has not been a thread about this movie but I sure cannot find one. Anyway, there is one now.
I first saw Silver Bullet some thirty years ago and did not care for it. It just seemed more of a caricature of werewolf movies and there had already been too many of those, albeit unintentional. I re-watched Silver Bullet just now and have modified my opinion to a considerable degree. Not completely, mind you. But I like it better now.
The movie is filled with stereotypes to be sure. The drunken rifle-toting vigilantes, the small-town sheriff and his fat deputy, the minister who tries to stop the hunt, the wacky drunk uncle. The last one is played delightfully to the hilt by Gary Busey. Who the werewolf might be is pretty obvious early on and it is not long into the movie before there is no doubt about that. But who believes kids?
Ah yes, Stephen King and his kids. Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It. In the case of Silver Bullet, it is kids who save the movie. Without them, and especially without the young Corey Haim in a starring role, this would have been another low-grade B movie. Seen through the eyes of a 10-year old kid in a wheelchair, the monster in the closet, under the bed or in the dark outside the window that grownups will not believe in is truly scary. Throw in a motorized hot rod of a wheelchair (courtesy of crazy uncle) that allows the kid to be isolated far from home where the ‘boogeyman’ can get him without adult protection and you have the salvation of the movie. The various silly plot devices - such as that road going wheelchair and the fireworks thing - are no longer so silly. (Some other things are still silly such as the horror movie staple of waist deep fog where the monster hides.)
I appreciate Silver Bullet more now than I did then, probably because these days I have learned to see what tricks the writer or director etc. used in making the film. Thirty years back I was just a passive viewer, not an active participant peeking behind the curtain.
I first saw Silver Bullet some thirty years ago and did not care for it. It just seemed more of a caricature of werewolf movies and there had already been too many of those, albeit unintentional. I re-watched Silver Bullet just now and have modified my opinion to a considerable degree. Not completely, mind you. But I like it better now.
The movie is filled with stereotypes to be sure. The drunken rifle-toting vigilantes, the small-town sheriff and his fat deputy, the minister who tries to stop the hunt, the wacky drunk uncle. The last one is played delightfully to the hilt by Gary Busey. Who the werewolf might be is pretty obvious early on and it is not long into the movie before there is no doubt about that. But who believes kids?
Ah yes, Stephen King and his kids. Carrie, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It. In the case of Silver Bullet, it is kids who save the movie. Without them, and especially without the young Corey Haim in a starring role, this would have been another low-grade B movie. Seen through the eyes of a 10-year old kid in a wheelchair, the monster in the closet, under the bed or in the dark outside the window that grownups will not believe in is truly scary. Throw in a motorized hot rod of a wheelchair (courtesy of crazy uncle) that allows the kid to be isolated far from home where the ‘boogeyman’ can get him without adult protection and you have the salvation of the movie. The various silly plot devices - such as that road going wheelchair and the fireworks thing - are no longer so silly. (Some other things are still silly such as the horror movie staple of waist deep fog where the monster hides.)
I appreciate Silver Bullet more now than I did then, probably because these days I have learned to see what tricks the writer or director etc. used in making the film. Thirty years back I was just a passive viewer, not an active participant peeking behind the curtain.
Le Loup-Garou Qui Rit
