Silver Bullet (Dan Attias, 1985)

A small town is plagued by a series of horrific murders.

One kid, Jake (Corey Haim), believes the culprit is a werewolf.

What a strange beast.

In the last few years, I have seen different podcasts and critics I respect bring up this movie. They were not exactly complimentary, and I cannot remember any particular analysis of the film’s themes. But they all seem to share a fascination with it.

I finally checked it out. And I get it.

Walking a weird line between adult horror and a kid’s adventure movie, Silver Bullet does not work the way its makers intended. In its failure, it is fascinating.

It reminds me of those later Friday the 13th movies, like Part 5.

While there are a lot of extras, and the film shows several exterior locations, the film has a strange uncanny quality - characters act in a limited, exaggerated way, and it never feels like they are existing in the same space.

There is a repetitive, one-note quality to most of the performances.

They almost feel like non-playable-characters in a video-game - the scenes of townspeople in the bar are just a series of the same relationship dynamics repeated with slightly different words.

The film starts to feel like a parody - the attack in the fog is meant to evoke tension, but just feels like a pisstake on stalking scenes in monster movies. It even ends with the hilarious gag of the werewolf beating a man to death with the baseball bat he has brandishing in every scene prior. 

It is made even funnier by the hard cut to Father Lowe standing beside a row of coffins.

The film swings awkwardly between Marty and the adults. It is almost hard to track a natural flow between the narrative threads.

What is frustrating is that the film has terrific ingredients: the relationships between Marty and his sister is meant to be important, as she reckons with his disability.

The real standout scenes are between Marty and his uncle, played by Gary Busey.

Busey is fantastic, riffing and playing with the other actors in a way that feels more spontaneous and manages to bring something like humanity to the film.

The idea of a werewolf priest is also a great conceit. His monologue about how killing his victims is absolving them of their sins is the kernel of an interesting horror movie.

A strange mess - it does not work as a horror film or as a kid’s film, but in its own strange, faltering way, it is watchable.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!