Ravenous nymphomaniacs with prevalence for violence and poor education, the Howling’s main pack hounds of colonized werewolves bring to us the psychological and supernatural elements we see in werewolf based movies of today. What I loved the most about the original Howling was that it wasn’t just a creature feature relying solely on its main characters to add depth to the blood thirsty individuals hunting them down. Writer John Sayles gives us a more progressive take on the werewolf and our understanding of their behaviors as he separates first the violent nature of man himself then adds the additional notion of an animal based instinct or drive behind the aggressive behavior.

            The educated but biased ramblings of therapist Dr. Waggner; who has been helping news anchorwoman Karen White deal with obsessive serial killing fan Eddie Quist, mumbles on in the begging about repression and human psychosis while Karen is out and about wired up for her date with Mr. Quist. A man willing to be upfront about his preferences from the get go, Eddie sets about placing smiley faced stickers on each little hot spot he wishes to take Karen (sexual pun intended) before finally meeting her in a booth in the back of a sex shop to see one of his favorite movies.

            Shy and a little under dressed, Eddie keeps Karen in the dark (literally) while he tries to woo her with sweet whispers of adoration and want in her ear as they watch the quarter driven flick in front of them. It is no surprise that Miss White is married and her unhappy husband Bill Neill, along with the police, decides to separate the unevenly matched lovers just as Eddie makes his move and exposes his rather hairy nature to Karen. A few bullets and screams later and Karen’s heading home with her hubby while Eddie takes an express ride to the morgue.

            Left so embarrassed she can’t even remember her date with Eddie, Karen talks to Dr. Waggner who suggests this city born and bread girl should go and spend a weekend with her hubby at  “The Colony”, his woodland retreat for some of his more in need patients to get her wits back. Taking the city out of the girl has never been this hard as Karen spends her time on the way to & on her first night at the colony whining about all the animalistic noises and crazies around her. Bill on the other hand has already met the only obvious mental case; a woman of ill reputation, Marsha Quist (how about that last name)who thinks only of her wants and needs.

            At this point I’m not at all surprised that Karen’s mind has begun to unravel, not only in her dreams, but in her normal day to day actions. Constantly on edge and paranoid, Karen keeps everyone at a distance while nagging them all at the same time to protect her or believe her unsettled feelings of being out where there is dirt and trees un-separated by sidewalks. Hubby Bill isn’t taking all of her emotionally unbalanced moments well either and decides to temporarily trade in his vegetarian ways to hunt down a rabbit with the other men at the colony and offer it up to Marsha in exchange for some hanky panky.

            Nosey friends of Karen, Terri Fisher and Chirs Halloran, decide to check out this guy Eddie Quist that Karen has been haunted by & arrive at his small apartment to find out he has a thing for newspaper clippings and a talented pencil.Checking out his latest address, they show up at the morgue only to find out that he got tired of waiting for Karen to come pick him up and left his cube based room behind. After Karen calls them crying during some cozy under the covers tv time, Chris sends Terri off to check on Karen and keep her company.

            By now hubby Bill has become a cranky ass punk with his new found midlife crisis and has ditched Karen for some luvin by fire light with Marsha. Things get a little rough and Bill likes it so much that even during his last fight with Karen he tries to explain to her his new found drive, hoping she would find it appealing. Unfortunately for him it just sends her into the arms of Terri for comfort who seems a little too eager to agree with whatever Karen says.

            Deciding to check out this Marsha woman for Karen, Terri breaks into the woman’s house only to be chased out by an unexpected hairy guest; who had been invited in, unlike her. Frightened and aggressive, Terri takes a cheap chop at the guy and leaves him a hand short. With the age of cell phones just coming in, Terri has to trek back to the Doc’s house to call Chris and tell him about her discovery; not only is Eddie Quist alive, but he’s a werewolf and so his the rest of his family and she’s damn sure the Doc knows it too.

            Tired of her yammering, a lurking Eddie takes a bite out of Terri that unfortunately goes a bit too deep for her to survive; all while Chris is listening in on the phone. Taking her own stroll around the colony, Karen winds up at the Doc’s office as well and is shocked mute upon seeing Terri’s body lying on a table. She turns to find Eddie waiting for her, and with the lack of shadows, he finally shows her what they could have had together. She’s not impressed and instead of just spitting on the guy in disgust she tosses acid onto his pointy face, mutilating him.

            Finally the whole colony has become aware that Karen is never going to join their ways and as Chris arrives to save the day (though a little too late for Terri’s sake),they are both forced to be polite and meet the well rounded group of werewolves who have added Bill to their extended family. Dr. Waggner explains that these remarkable individuals posses a gift everyone should spend their life (or is that expend?) seeking. However even the colonists are sick of his spewing crap of how they can live off of cattle based red meat and merge with pathetic normal humans to help fit in so they can become civilized in order to survive in today’s society and decide to go back to their more natural ways; stalking and hunting humans as their prey.

            Chris and Karen would make perfect practice but with Karen’s well known face hindering their hunger driven wants, they decide to instead send the newly united coupl eoff of a cliff in a ball of flames once they have taken their repressed anger out on them. The couple though has other plans and with the lack of a decent education, the werewolves are easily locked inside a barn to be burned alive while others have taken a few silver bullets in their efforts to stop them from leaving.

            Even Bill gets in on the action, stalking the two down while they defend themselves from the renegade sheriff on their way back home. Though it costs him his life, Bill leaves Karen with one last parting gift by sinking his teeth into her shoulder and marking her. Unwilling to accept this gift, Karen shares her tragic experience with the rest of the world and as a last great performance, shape shifts on live tv for everyone to see what a werewolf would look like (in case they have never seen one before). Chris, for his part, finally empties his rifles last cartridge into her just before the tv station is forced to go to commercial break.

            It would be only fitting though for us to assume that such naturally clever creatures could not end so easily and so it is then satisfying to see that Marsha (Marsha, Marsha!)has managed to survive the brutal devastation Karen’s existence had brought upon her and is chatting up the night at a bar with a lucky trucker type willing to buy her a burger. This leaves us with an open suspicion that Marsha’s going to go to great exertion to surround her self with some new family member sand keep her hairy kind alive for future sequels.

            The Howling in fact continues on and leaves us with many points throughout different time periods of how those born with more animal instincts are forced to survive in human based society. I have always found many werewolf movies too driven upon the creature’s ability to change or its aggressive behavior and not as enquiring as this movie. The references to different myths and representations of wolf men in our culture added wisely to this movie and has left a lasting impression upon me on how misunderstood the werewolf is and how poorly presented it has been at times.

            For anyone who has not seen this movie, I would recommend doing so as it has been released on dvd (both individually & in combo packs with other movies) with special features worth checking out either before or after the movie to get a better grasp of Direct Joe Dante’s approach to this adaptation of the book The Howling by Gary Bandner.

Until my next post,

I hope you sit back, relax & scream!