Tag: movies

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What’s That Werewolf Movie with E.T.’s Mom in It?

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The Howling (1981)

We’re off to Dick Miller’s lycanthrope lore bookstore for Joe Dante’s 1981 werewolf picture, The Howling—an identity-shifting story born of the original book’s writer, Gary Brandner, who stated, “We all have two faces: our public face, and our private face,” and revealed his motto, “It’s always, ‘Oh no, I’m a werewolf,’ or ‘Oh no, there’s a werewolf,’ but it’s never, ‘We’re all werewolves.’”

Intriguingly, The Howling’s werewolves are able to shift their shapes purely by choice, and their werewolfery is in no way linked to the lunar cycle, so their transformations are apparently allegorical of an embraced, alternative, lycanthropic lifestyle, and act as metaphors for any behaviour considered unsavoury by ’80s mainstream society. It’s condemning cultures that repress our natural urges, and simultaneously skewering quack psychotherapy as an ineffective form of oppression and control, whilst also targeting the exploitative extortion by the movement’s money-grubbing maharishis. The Howling has been latterly labelled as a parody of pop psychology, and the self-help gurus of the era. John Sayles—known for his subversive, satirical subtexts buried within the Piranha and Alligator screenplays, penned a picture that can be retroactively read as a fearful demonisation of sex—equating sexuality to monstrosity; a loss of control, where giving into carnal urges, erotic taboos, and indulging in intercourse outside of traditional marital relationships is sinful and depraved.

The Howling depicts a grotesque, almost sexually-transmitted werewolfery. The retreat where Dr George Waggner—namesake of the original Wolf Man director, does very little to help matters, with his colony’s cove-dwelling clients ultimately turning into serial killers, and insatiable nymphomaniacs. Again, the post-structuralists and subtextual film critics invariably have a field day with the Eighties, and love to leap to jejune conclusions, but the fact of the matter is 1981’s American Werewolf and The Howling were a smidge too early to consciously coincide with the advent of AIDS, or to make any intentional allusions to the human immunodeficiency virus. During the mid-to-late ’80s, particularly when it had anything to do with body horror, HIV was cited as an underlying theme. Most famously, the blood test paranoia of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), and more speculatively, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), David Cronenberg’s re-imagining of The Fly (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), and The Blob (1988) remake. However, back in ’81, AIDS was not yet firmly in the public consciousness. Of course, in retrospect, many viewers saw these two movies during their video rental and VHS purchase era, which would have synched up with the panic precisely, and undoubtedly shaped perceptions.

Long gone were the shoes and socks lap dissolves of Larry Talbot—played frustratingly, time and time again, by serial ham and cheese sandwich, Lon Chaney Jr, originally in 1941’s The Wolf Man with its contrived camera trickery and convenient cutting to illustrate a human shifting shape. As of 1981 we could see an elongating change-o-head snout stretching, rubbery feet elongating, and reverse hair sprouting. Not only could it now be achieved seamlessly on screen, but these two werewolfery depictions by the maestro; professorial master, Rick Baker’s An American Werewolf in London, and his protégé, the student understudy, Rob Bottin’s The Howling are two for the ages—they are, to this day, the duo to beat, and despite the advent of CGI, there’s no one, and nothing remotely close.

The Howling is an aptly suggestive take on the werewolf picture. As a warning, there’s a lot of chatter, and not a ton of action, but when we do get a transformation, it’s a prolonged, graphic, real-time indulgence. One could argue The Howling suffers from this excess as its pièce de résistance is a three-minute morphing sequence, in which Dee Wallace helplessly stands there petrified, and like us, witnesses the rubbery, lupine metamorphosis of Eddie Quist. It’s an unbelievable premise to have Karen simply stand there frozen; dumbfounded, glaring like an audience member while this all plays out. Granted, she’s petrified, mesmerised, or even hypnotised, but aside from the astounding effects, story-wise, the whole debacle adds up to very little, as Dee simply chucks acid in its face and flees. As illogical as this sounds, the scene still plays, and it’s impressive as hell. Dramatically speaking, this shapeshift seems somewhat stagey in comparison to American Werewolf’s private, pain-drenched transformation of David Kessler, which still tops my list.

Yet, some say it’s level-pegging between The Howling and American Werewolf. Pitting them against one another, The Howling scores points for its entirely in-camera bubbling rubber, and lumbering bipedal creature, and American Werewolf gets major props for its two and a half-minute metamorphosis, fully-lit under the fluorescent bulbs of Alex Price’s living room. In contrast, The Howling’s morph occurs partially veiled by its darkened, shadowy office setting. In my book, Rick takes the gross cake, although one could argue Baker’s protégé and student, Bottin’s practical skills surpassed his teacher’s with his show-stopping, breakdown-inducing, gooey, bladdery, pulsating practical effects work on The Thing the following year, and this could be a case of one artist spectacularly peaking as the other steadily climbs, and eventually passes their peer at the summit of a makeup effects mountain.

I responded to The Howling’s conceit that a media news team of investigative journalists; presenters, newsmen and women, and photographers are investigating this bizarre phenomena because they diligently read up on leads in a library, they record conversations, they do their research, and it was a diverting way of getting the exposition out. Dee Wallace is brilliantly expressive and empathetic as Karen White—a television anchorwoman, emotionally disturbed by frightening phone calls, and a risky undercover, faux-street walking encounter, in which she faced off with a murderous maniac.

White can’t conquer her amnesia, and only sees glimpses of the perpetrator in her dreams and visions, so her therapist, played nobly by Steed from The Avengers (no, not that one)—also Oasis’s chauffeur in the “Don’t Look Back in Anger” video, sends her to a retreat reserved for exclusive patients. Unbeknownst to Karen, she is soon drawn into a surreptitious, sexual subculture of werewolves, and must attend sorrowful, yet saucy soirées with beach barbecues, brazen hippy chicks, and folksy bluegrass-tinged makeouts. There’s some truly great moments of poignancy, with The Howling’s lycanthropes being so depressed that when we reach the cove, suicidal fogeys whinge about their old teeth before attempting suicide by bonfire. They’re completely over the idea. Even the werewolf therapist actively seeks to die by silver bullet, and attempts a suicide by cop—almost, leaving the rifle and silver bullet-toting Dennis Dugan no option but to quite literally “put him down,” vet-style.

It’s not exactly on the nose (or snout), but we can palpably feel Dante’s reverence of, and references to the B movie genre fare he loves so much. The humour comes through in shrewd, self-aware flourishes like Dee Wallace sighing, “Hmmm” to herself before making the inevitable, dumb horror movie decision to investigate a strange noise. We feel privy to Karen’s brief indecision, followed by her scary movie character-indulgence. She might as well behave like she’s a girl in an Italian gialli, or an early slasher. Dante knows full well the only reason Dee’s doing it is because she’s in a werewolf picture—and because he knows, wealso know—and because he wants us to know, we’re just as accepting of it as he is. I sensed Dante’s gaze during the scene; I felt him nudging my shoulder and throwing a wink, and it made me feel included as opposed to frustrated with such a tired trope.

Although we do detect a few Gremlins-inspiring Pino Donaggio music cues during nightmare sequences, this is another world for Dante fans raised on his festive mogwai, Explorers, Innerspace, and The ’Burbs. We can, however, happily spot the Dante stable regulars—Robert Picardo (forever the Cowboy from Innerspace to me) as Quist, Kevin McCarthy as an acerbic newsroom producer, and last but not least, the immortal “that guy,” Dick Miller as a crotchety bookshop sage. By my calculations, Miller is the key to Joe’s trademark tone. As the Dante saying goes, “If there’s no scene for Dick, then why make the picture?” Levity inevitably finds its way in, with Bill hopping from vegetarian to carnivore the day after he’s bitten by a werewolf. It’s also a laugh spotting the Forrest J Ackerman (Famous Monsters of Filmland mags), Roger Corman (phone box man), and John Sayles (flippant coroner) cameos.

Originally, the climactic barn face-off was packed to the rafters with topless werewolf women, but Wallace had a limited nudity clause in her contract—which apparently applied to the movie as a whole, and alerted producer, Mike Finnell, who agreed it was gratuitous and vetoed the bosoms, declaring, “She’s right. It’s stupid. Put some clothes on.” Despite attempts to curb some exploitation elements, as with hairy-handed adolescent pleasures, there’s an intrinsic, lewd voyeurism to The Howling. It’s the sleaziest Joe Dante got, with an extended, explicit grindhouse depiction of a female rape—the victim naked and bound. Prolonged, graphic sexual torture is not what you’d expect from the director of Small Soldiers and Looney Tunes: Back in Action. This ain’t Gremlins 2: The New Batch. The Howling requires patience, and an open mind, but it’s brief, I believe highly significant, and delivered some of the finest werewolf imagery ever seen.

As her last act of service as a human being, Karen boldly goes back on telly to unveil the secret werewolf society; warning the public, before sacrificially transforming live on air to convince any unbelievers—turning into the cutest she-wolf ever. Dugan knows he must kill her, and Dee knows it too. Although American Werewolf’s dark denouement is not without sentiment, and has a pathos of its own at the death, it can’t stack up to the way Dante’s film concludes. The Howling partly boasts a stronger ending because American Werewolf opted for an appropriately abrupt close—albeit with a lack of sophistication, irony, wit, or any global consequence of the story we’ve just witnessed. An American Werewolf in London bows out with a provocative and sudden conclusion—a real kick in the guts. In contrast, The Howling winds down in a much more satisfying, satirically sagacious and mischievous fashion. The Howling’s finale flits from heartbreaking sadness to all out body horror, and then a matter-of-fact, jet-black comedy before the credits appear. It’s a punch—powerful and poignant, with a humorous sting in the wolf’s tail; a chuckle-inducing coda with a deadpan bent to it, all the while resonating and reverberating in our minds as Dante’s rare hamburger patty sizzles through our recovering subconscious. It had to go last of my picks as there’s unquestionably no finer climax in werewolf cinema.

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I’m Not Like Other Guys

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Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983)

What’s the first thing your mind conjures when Hallowe’en creeps around the autumnal corner? For me it’s either the song “Thriller,” or the iconic imagery from its 1983 companion promo. Despite Jacko’s Jesus juice-addled, baby-dangling plummet from grace, it remains the undisputed, greatest music video of all time, with no real contenders or pretenders to the throne. Yeah, it veers more into zombie territory, but it also arguably depicts one of the three, top-tier werewolf transformations of all-time, and certainly one of the most well known in pop culture. Iconic doesn’t even scratch the surface—record sales, the Thriller album cover, the audience views on MTV were through the roof. It’s a clear example of music and visuals interlocking so inseperably, and the art and the iconography being so momentous, that we can almost turn a blind eye to MJ’s alleged atrocities—for the 14-minute duration anyway.

Thriller is a cornucopia of horror; a mashup packed with shout-outs to the hounds of hell, zombies, werewolves—or perhaps cat people, corpses, a haunted house, and showcases an alarming, foam rubber shapeshift—the werewolf, or arguably werecat here. It’s fairly feline, with prominent, extending whiskers, and memorably shows Michael in cat-like, yellow contact lenses. We’ve got spooky, mist-engulfed graveyards, cars breaking down, a grave emergence, Fred Astaire-inspired choreography, the sinister tones of Vincent Price, and a bassline that makes you wanna freaky deaky, right? Also, it boasts American Werewolf’s key crew of John Landis—who also made “Black or White” for MJ in 1991, cinematographer Robert Paynter, and Rick Baker’s special effects, which lead on perfectly from the previous picture. Stuff to spot for the sticklers and geeks—several makeup appliances were taken from American Werewolf and repurposed for the “Thriller” video, including the clawed hand appliance that extends over the porno cinema chair, which was reused on Jackson himself.

Say what you will about certified kook, Michael Jackson, and the controversy surrounding the bloke, but the magnitude of Thriller is undeniable, and the perfect example of an artist’s work transcending their problematic persona. If Jacko freaks you out, so be it! It’s Hallowe’en. What other night of the year would be more appropriate to be psychologically perturbed by the presence of Mike in your living room? All those disturbing claims and events aside, talk about commitment to the bit. Whatever you think of him, the devotion to the music, dedication to the video, the uncomfortable makeup appliances, and the art of it all is incontestable. It will endure; live, and last forever. Codswallop about a mere two nose jobs aside, MJ had a chilling physical transformation of his own—the vitiligo skin tone shift, an evident slew of surgeries—everything became altered as his career progressed, or perhaps deteriorated. Factor in the accusations during his life, and the damning Leaving Neverland revelations after his death, one could argue Michael became monstrous himself. I’d refer you to my piece on Captain EO and Moonwalker for an extended take on the nightmarish, poptastic clout of Jackson.

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Beware the Moon, Lads

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An American Werewolf in London (1981)

I recall being disturbed by the menacing and intimidating VHS cover of An American Werewolf in London in my local video shop, Cav’s. That black box with understated purple text and blood-red 18 certificate, and a monster resembling greasy kebab meat. So much so, that I never reached for the top shelf, or plucked up the guts to audaciously point it out to my mum as a potentially sensible rental. For as long as a decade or so after that, I’d only seen its wildly-inferior, shockingly shite, 1997 sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris.

It wasn’t until 2007, prepping my MA graduation short, The Wilds, that my head of year, Nick Wright, suggested I seek out the Landis original as both films dealt with cryptid attacks in Northern England, and American Werewolf was clearly his go-to genre reference. My ten-minute short had absolutely nothing in the way of humour—although the Farmer protagonist wisecracking “Nine lives, my arse” like John McClane or Arnie might’ve let slip, was jokingly considered as a daft quip. However, I did pinch American Werewolf‘s painterly, neatly-composed opening establishing shots, but little else, as we were armed only with a dummy panther tail, and drastically under-crewed and underfunded for an ambitious creature effort—we did, however, shoot an actual deceased black calf from an abattoir with a 12 bore shotgun at 70fps hoping it would look acceptable. What I would’ve given for a panther-headed rug we could’ve turned into a rudimentary, hand-puppeted, big cat noggin for close-ups. My ace cinematographer, Adam Conlon, and I even momentarily contemplated the title, Blood of an Englishman—a direct quote from American Werewolf.

A handful of American Werewolf’s actors were treading the boards in Nicholas Nickleby at the time, and Landis judiciously plucked them from our revered Royal Shakespeare Company. You’ve also got the godlike genius, Rick Mayall, in an early, subdued role, and the preeminent cinematic Yorkshireman, Kes’s P.E. teacher, Brian Glover, at the same table, playing chess in the pub, and we wonder if that’s where the pair first became friends. Perhaps that’s the explanation for Glover’s madcap appearance as Richie and Eddie’s irate neighbour, Mr Rottweiler, in one of my favourite Bottom episodes, “Gas.”

The locals gawk at the two young yanks as they barge into the Slaughtered Lamb and eyeball them as if they’re from another world. They’re made to look like—and may as well be astronauts to these village folk in this classic, western saloon gag. The premise is somewhat of an echo of an early experience for Landis on the Kelly’s Heroes set where the upstart was working in an early role and experienced a Gypsy funeral and its unorthodox burial, which was superstitiously conducted to ensure a violent criminal’s corpse wouldn’t subsequently rise from its grave and cause further havoc. American Werewolf plays on an incredulous belief in legend, hokum, and claptrap, but muddles it with the smart, horror picture conceit that it all turns out to be shockingly true, and these smug, educated, seemingly advanced Americans fall foul of powers and supernatural workings they can never fully believe in or understand.

1981 ushered in more practical, modern day werewolf tales, and introduced agonising mutations featuring distinctly lupine beasts—all gnashers and noses; hulking and monstrous. Transformationally-speaking, American Werewolf is the absolute pinnacle. Not even Rob Bottin’s real-time Howling shapeshift can compete with David’s agonised “burning up” transformation. The sudden, painful pang that strikes as he first begins to morph, followed by the terrifying, stretchy snout, and malleable-footed freak show in Jenny Agguter’s flat, that still churns the stomach almost 45 years later. At one point, David disturbingly reaches out to the camera lens as if he wants us; the audience to help him, but we’re powerless.

I definitely didn’t fall in love with American Werewolf instantly, and I must confess to finding the film clunky and clumsy in parts. I’m also not completely taken in by John Landis. The Twilight Zone tragedy and its weighty blame aside, I don’t believe I’d like to spend any time in his company. Having dinner with that bloke would be a real chore. Landis has an obnoxious, odious manner in interviews that I frequently find repellent. The “non-stop orgy” of the See You Next Wednesday segment heralds a revealingly sleazy tone born of the lascivious Landis just wanting Brenda Bristols to get her jugs out. He seems proud to be an arse. Landis has such an irksome, abrasive personality, and a crude, unfinished directing style that lacks subtlety. However, for a movie like American Werewolf, perhaps that’s precisely what was required.

Early Eighties London seems so seedy, with jazz mags at newspaper stands, and adult cinemas adorning Piccadilly Circus. I do enjoy the peculiar interactions in the porno theatre. It’s unorthodox, funny, and dark, with the prolonged carnal moaning in the background juxtaposed throughout. The chirpy and courteous, yet fiendishly undead “Hello” couple basically invent Edgar Wright, and give birth to Shaun o the Dead’s entire comedic/horrific aesthetic with a single line of exquisitely delivered dialogue, and the three homeless fellas—Alf, Ted, and Joseph glint in the shadows of the cinema as they’re creepily cajoling David into topping himself. If you’re attuned to the cadence, “You must take your own life” even has audible shades of Shaun‘s Peter Serafinowicz.

Buses are spinning, drivers are in car crashes—getting hurled through their windscreens, and run over, lying bloody on the floor. Frantic pedestrians can only watch helplessly as Hieronymus Bosch chaos ensues. The wolf is loose—nipping at bystanders’ ankles. That head copper takes one in the jugular, and gets his head bitten off. It’s basically bumper cars in Leicester Square with a mad dog dashing about. It’s astonishing how little we glimpse the creature when it’s all broken down. We probably see more of the shark in Jaws, and that’s one of the reasons American Werewolf is still so effective. It’s not that you couldn’t do it now, it’s that there’s no restraint anymore. In a time where computer geekery can arguably accomplish anything, filmmakers opt to show everything. They can, so they do. They show their workings, and eliminate all mystique.

Like Roger Corman once said, “When the monster is dead, the movie is officially over.” American Werewolf’s wrap-up has little consideration for the audience. Granted, Agutter’s reaction is moving, and we feel for the gunned-down David, and accept the foregone conclusion of his werewolfery, but it feels like a disturbed double-decker with no brakes careering into a shopfront. American Werewolf’s clipped conclusion leaves viewers with a peculiar, unsorted feeling hanging in the air, and that’s partly why it’s my penultimate pick, as opposed to the final entry. Ebert didn’t jive with how sudden Landis rolled his credits, and although I concede certain crowds prefer a softener, they, along with a chunk of critics, often mistake a blunt wrap up for a film devoid of professionalism. Tell that to Cronenberg’s The Fly, or the downbeat, sobering climax of Easy Rider, or the rapid, hard cut of Tobe Hooper’s original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

A potentially profound video essay by Jon Spira on the Arrow 4K disc argues American Werewolfmay hold a covert meaning. In Germany, the wolf is a brawny, indigenous, loyal protector as well as the name of a racist paramilitary group. The name “Adolf” means “noble wolf,” and Hitler would even refer to himself as such. His military headquarters in East Prussia was named, “The Wolf Lair.” The “Radio Werewolf” station was utilised by Nazi propaganda minister, Goebbels. “Wolf packs” were encouraged to hunt down enemies of the state. Curt Siodmak had been a successful novelist in Germany, and used The Wolf Man as a literary vehicle to explore his own wartime demons—where ordinarily decent men were turned into murderous animals. Siodmak laid out the werewolf lore that would follow for decades to come, and is cited and mimicked to this day. Many of Curt’s rules didn’t stem from folklore, he created them. Infectious bites, silver bullets, and tellingly, the pentagram forseen in the palm of a victim’s hand—those marked for death in Nazi Germany were forced to wear five-pointed yellow stars.

It’s worth wondering, is Landis wielding this loaded imagery, subtext, and historic context of the wolf to present a hairy, antisemitic Jewish allegory? David is a man in a country that doesn’t seem to want him, and drifts, disturbed by the murder of his best friend. The cheeky nurse’s subtle but perceptible, Eighties intolerance as she blurts out, “I think he’s a Jew” still lands palpably, suggesting some kind of surreptitious subterfuge. Is it an impudent throwaway (literally) foreskin quip, or an authorial hint at the public’s suspicion of the unrecognisably foreign—as sneaky wolves in sheep’s clothing?

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The Hardy Boys Meet Reverend Werewolf

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Silver Bullet (1985)

Silver Bullet, along with the second wave of ’80s werewolves, would satirise and skewer the social, political, and economic shifts of Ronald Reagan’s (the actor!?) time in office—the, lets face it, truism that seemingly harmonious groups shield scandalous secrets. Reagan’s policies were founded upon the principles of family, church, and community. King sinks his teeth into the patriarchal governments we’ve installed through the democratic process, and paints them as not only corrupt, but attests they actively pursue our destruction, with all social institutions—schools, marriages, and workplaces, each capable of descending into sick sideshows of self-serving rapacity, greed, and savagery.

The shapeshifting concept of the werewolf is ideal for exploring themes of evil masquerading as civil, and demonic disguised as human. Here, it’s wickedness lurking beneath the surface of idyllic, white Christian cliques in what has been coined “community horror.” At this point of the Eighties, there could very well be grotesque brutes, cannibals, or sadistic, murderous families in your neighbourhood. The Howlinghelmer, Joe Dante’s paranoia (or is it) picture, The ‘Burbs, along with the unforgettably slimy and satirical Society certainly expressed this, but it was perhaps David Lynch, who temptingly and skin-crawlingly articulated it best with the opening bits of Blue Velvet.

My initial reaction to 1985’s Silver Bullet was, God I wish this was better. I’d pencilled in Teen Wolf from the same year for my 6pm slot, thinking a gentler take on the lycanthrope would cater to younger audiences, and diversify my picks, but Fox and company didn’t pass my sensory test either—in spite of me making extensive notes on Rod Daniel’s retrospectively rich, satirical Reaganite capitalist skewering. I also seriously considered the original 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. picture, The Wolf Man, for its authenticity, brief runtime, and iconic status, but ’80s werewolves prevailed as they’re more provocative, wacky, watchable, and let’s face it, despite a recent deluge, neither before (unless you’re partial to the tamer originals), nor since (unless you have a real fondness for the early 2000s cluster of Ginger Snaps, Dog Soldiers, and the diminishing returns of the Underworldfranchise), has there been a stronger run of werewolf pictures than the ’81-’85 period. The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Company of Wolves, Teen Wolf, and Silver Bullet stand as the meatiest of the mob, and intriguingly reveal a great deal about American life.

In his sort of extended dissertation thesis, Craig Ian Mann’s indisputable king of the werewolf movie books, Phases of the Moon—the preeminent literary analysis of werewolf cinema, Mann has a real bee in his bonnet about writers who solely see the lycanthrope as a mere Jekyll and Hyde parallel, and loathes the limitations of the “beast within,” dual personality character cop out, rampant in both film criticism, and audience readings alike. Longing for deeper work with added resonance, Mann posits the eras these pictures were produced reveal fascinating layers of subtextual meaning. I feel his frustration, particularly as so many post-Eighties werewolf films have been inadequate backward steps.

Some kinda monster is terrorising the town of Tarker’s Mills, Maine (surely among the most Stephen King settings ever put on celluloid). Typically, a werewolf is a tortured soul, and Silver Bullet’s villain’s purported mercy killings have an arguably altruistic motive—at least in the mind of its antagonist, as well as simultaneously feeling somewhat capricious and violent. Nevertheless, the slasher-esque whodunnit factor of Silver Bullet is a novel wrinkle, and kept me wondering for as long as it could realistically sustain. I won’t spoil who the wolfy culprit is here, because it’s a particularly enjoyable guessing game, and the only lycanthropic mystery of my three choices. Having said that, it’s evident on the cover of the Canon VHS who the bad guy is, and it’s even painted on posters, so search them out at your peril.

The director’s chair changed hands from Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-Tep) to the fresh outta film school, Dan Attias (AD on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, second assistant director on Twilight Zone: The Movie and One from the Heart, and DGA trainee on Airplane!), although Coscarelli didn’t actually shoot a frame of the film—he didn’t even make it through preproduction. Silver Bullet’s slightly uneven approach and dual tone is likely due to the clashing of Dino De Laurentiis, who pushed for a hard R-rated picture, and Attias, who was angling for more of a kid-friendly PG-13. 

Silver Bullet’s originally hired—later fired helmer, Coscarelli’s shrewd take was to tackle the werewolf much like Spielberg’s recalcitrant shark, so the movie retains welcome remnants of that tried and tested approach scattered throughout. Silver Bullet boasts a somewhat bracing opening kill that’s largely unseen—but as with Jaws’s nude bather, Chrissie Watkins, the gory aftermath is. There’s a sparingly-shown child murder, with the parent of said youngster grilling the town’s cops about “private justice.” This vigilante-bating, angry mob haranguing goads the bar full o’drunken yahoos, who are all already chomping at the bit; eager to venture out as a pack, into tracking and hunting this beast down themselves. This Mrs Kintner-esque showdown, where a desperate dad puts a bounty on the beast’s head, is an unconcealed steal, and leads to a scene Coscarelli speculatively devised prior to his directorial departure—the passably suspenseful and visually appealing fog bank sequence, in which the avenging hunting party are waist-deep in thick mist, wading through a low-lying haze, and each get picked off one by one in a grisly manner. I have to emphasise the weakness of Silver Bullet is the werewolf itself. It’s far too bear-ish for my liking—however effectively hidden it is during Attias’s attempted Spielbergian set pieces. Talkin’ of Jaws-jackin’, there’s even a demise in a greenhouse, which resembles a shark attack as a bloke called Milt Sturmfuller gets dragged under the floorboards by the concealed creature.

Silver Bullet depicts a white, middle class family with a preteen paraplegic son named Marty (Corey Haim). The dad’s around, but he’s palpably absent as well—somewhat distant and seemingly embarrassed by his son‘s disability. Here, Marty is wheelchair-bound. His fussy, put upon mother views him purely as a handicapped child who requires constant supervision, her nervous attention, and ongoing aid. Marty’s physical disability gives him a kind of superpower—an understanding and empathy for the werewolf-afflicted—almost as if he understands this suffering, and akin to the lycanthrope, must not give in to his own internal frustrations. Fun uncle, or “funcle” Gary Busey as Uncle Red has an affinity with Marty, and sees a reflection of his own alcoholic demons and deficiencies in his nephew, and they form a firm bond. Cue Busey dishing out WWF chair shots to the werewolf, getting hurled into mirrors and cabin furniture over and over, and reeling off throwaway improvisational lines about how he’s gonna open up a reptile farm and cook ’em on a barbecue.

Far and away the finest sequence in the film—and a strong contender for best set piece in any of my picks, is the outstanding lycanthropic congregation fantasy in Silver Bullet. It’s one of those peculiar scenes where something’s clearly off, and we can’t quite pinpoint what it is. The ominous religious swaying with candles lit, the actors staring vehemently at Everett McGill as he sermonises, and every time we cut back to the uncanny parish, their wolf makeup is incrementally increasing. They’re getting hairier, and starier. Before long, they’re clutching at their own bodies, and their clothes are tearing away. Attias’s camera is juddering, the windows explode violently, and there’s blood everywhere. The stuffy organ music intensifies to a wild pitch with the strange performative smashing of the organ keys by a marionette-looking wolf woman. Then McGill is surrounded by furry hands, and bolts upright from his sweat-laden reverie.

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You Call This a Glitch?

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RoboCop (1987)

I can totally recall my oldest friend, Rob, and I watching RoboCop together, possibly as young as 8, and gravitating towards ED-209. I’m not certain if we saw the theatrical version, or a censored cut taped off the telly, but I do remember the film adorning the top shelf of Kleer Vu—the first video shop I ever stepped into. That was the place where you could buy kitchen appliances and rent Beverly Hills Cop II on VHS in one fell swoop.

Another slight link was my childhood friend Dave (keen Rewinders will recognise him from my multiple anecdotes about the times his older brother acted out select scenes from Schindler’s List as if Liam Neeson was playing Taken‘s Bryan Mills, and not Oskar Schindler) having an Action Force (G.I. Joe for our American friends) figure, skillfully painted chrome silver by his other older artistic brother, to look like RoboCop. This character was frustratingly invincible, and naturally, every kid wanted to play as him.

Of course, at that age, we all missed the satire, the media jibes, and general skewering of the USA—filmmakers viscerally force-feeding America’s own violent appetite back to it, the majority of the darkly ironic humor, the political commentary; everything really—other than having a simplistic and shallow, boyish attraction to a crime-fighting cyborg super cop. Verhoeven duped us all again, aged 15, when we devoured his dual-layered, Starship Troopers in 1997. Just as RoboCop showed us grisly ultra-violence and humorous robotic effects, Starship Troopers gave us blood, bugs, and boobs and had us cheering for fascists. Any narrative subtleties regarding propaganda, American foreign policy, or allusions to Nazism and the Third Reich were entirely lost on us and sailed high above our daft little heads.

Perhaps the most vivid memory I have of the RoboCop films relates more to the sequel than the ’87 original. To set the scene, I’m eight years old, watching a taped Film 90 with Barry Norman (which had been skillfully set to record overnight to VHS) and up pops a clip package from RoboCop 2—I can still recreate the scenes, shot for shot, in my mind. The first depicted a scientist, sweating profusely in the back of a soon-to-be-bombed mobile lab truck, as a SWAT team close in, retreat, then dive away from the ensuing explosion. This was followed immediately by an inventive street chase, which ended with RoboCop clinging onto what looks like an armored ice cream van, as the smug driver (Nuke Cult leader, Cain—played chillingly by Tom Noonan of Heat and The Pledge fame—an actor I would cast in absolutely anything and everything if I ever got the chance) borderline-comedically smashes our android hero into a telegraph pole to dislodge his robotic grip.

That was enough to hook me. I watched it, and rewatched it, again and again, until I could eventually get my hands on the real deal—a copy of the full film (I imagine on VHS rental close to a year later, around ’91), albeit missing a wee bit of carjacking, some graphic, prostitute heel violence, extra slot machine head smashes, a few of Cain’s surgical slices, several graphic shootings, and a RoboCain neck break, thanks to the perpetually overzealous killjoys at the BBFC.

This would mean I’d already seen and become a fan of the first RoboCop by 1990, although I have no memory of my first viewing. I can picture another school friend recounting Murphy’s death, and quoting the line, “Well, give the man a hand!” to me. That bloodthirsty scenario existed solely in my adolescent imagination for some time, marinating, until I could witness it for myself. This built expectation and tension, and unlike the typical letdowns of adult life, it did not disappoint. It was thrilling, terrifying, and extremely disturbing to see Murphy shredded by gunfire, left in agony as he’s taunted, and then finally executed with an ice cold nonchalance. This was by no means a common fate for the heroes in my film collection—and for it to happen so early in the running time too. It really shook me up.

The bloodthirsty ED-209 prototype intro, and the butcher’s shop carnage of Murphy’s grisly execution, in particular, still sit uncomfortably. As does Clarence Boddicker‘s spurting deathgasm, and Paul McCrane’s melty toxic waste truck collision. There’s really nothing quite like Paul Verhoeven and Rob Bottin’s movie gore (according to a making of, the Dutch director requested three blood pack squibs in place of the typical one, for the bullet hits in RoboCop) and for me, this and Total Recall remain his two greatest hits.

With Verhoeven’s perspective certainly shaped by the bombed, Nazi-occupied Netherlands of his infancy, he’s a smart, humble man, crediting the two writers, Mike Miner and Ed Neumeier, along with producer, Jon Davison—who coined the catchy phrase describing RoboCop as, “Fascism for liberals,“ with the US-specific political satire and social commentary woven throughout the movie.

Verhoeven drew inspiration from Dutch abstract painter, Piet Mondrian, in the sense that his abstract work often consisted of vivid blocks of colour, harshly divided by thick black lines. He used this concept to make leaps forward in Hollywood filmmaking, and editing, employing blunt cuts to TV news reports with no prior warning. For example, prior to RoboCop, it would have been far more likely to see a character watching television before cutting into a full screen scene of that particular programme, to give the scene context. But here, Verhoeven hurls us straight into the fire, and we, the audience, must rapidly calculate any context ourselves, as the quickfire edits and juxtapositions add up. These ironic news report vignettes were, in part, influenced by the CNN television coverage of the 1986 Challenger disaster, in which a space shuttle exploded in mid-air above crowds of onlookers, before cutting away abruptly to a commercial break. This struck Verhoeven as an odd, insensitive contradiction in tone, which simply wouldn’t occur in his home country at that time, but may reveal something about the America depicted in RoboCop.

RoboChrist or American Jesus are initially laughable pseudo-alternate titles to RoboCop, but they do hold some weight. The humiliation of Christ by passing priests with their taunts of, “Come down from the cross!” are echoed in the childish whines and taunts of Clarence’s gang. The rebellion against the teachings of Jesus, is mirrored in the disdain for Detroit’s police force. The post-resurrection simplicity of Jesus’s moral guidance is akin to RoboCop’s simplistic prime directives. Finally, walking on water, corralled by Verhoeven’s equivalent of the Walls of Jerusalem frames the denouement, and death of baddie, Clarence Boddicker.

James Cameron’s The Terminator was an Orion release, and allegedly, The Austrian Oak also had his cyborg sights set on playing RoboCop—another indestructible, unstoppable robot which, in reality (and in Cameron’s original Lance Henriksen-teasing concept art), should have been played by someone a little more… human-lookin’. As we’ve discussed, everything Arnold touched turned into a Schwarzenegger film—RoboCop, however, is by no means a Peter Weller picture; it’s anything but actually, in spite of him nailing the performance, and becoming a real emoting machine. Here, it’s not the ego of the lead that dominates the movie—the story runs the game. With Verhoeven’s film, it’s decisions—sometimes micro decisions, that serve the tale, not the self-importance of the talent, or the projected ideology of a Hollywood star.

Weller‘s performance, especially in the “third act face” makeup, with his helmet removed, is exceptional, and not easy to pull off. As Alex Murphy, it’s all in Weller’s eyes, but what happens when the windows to the soul are obscured? Maybe it was his mime research, or the football pad rehearsals that gave him an edge, but the character seeps through the metallic suit, and pours off the screen in little splashes and bursts, whenever it’s required.

Crucially for the filmmakers, Weller was a triple threat, as he boasted, “A good mouth, lips, and jawline,” not to mention, he was skinny enough to fit the suit, and was a physically fit marathon runner. During casting, Rob Bottin remarked, if Arnie had donned the RoboCop armour, he’d likely look like the Pillsbury Doughboy, or the Michelin Man.

Peter Weller is burned into my consciousness as Murphy and RoboCop. So much so, that I didn’t even entertain the idea of watching the franchise beyond 1990’s RoboCop 2. To this day, I have never seen RoboCop 3, because A. Weller’s not in it, 2. They apparently kill off Nancy Allen almost immediately, and D) I heard he has a jet pack, so why bother?

I was, however, a touch disheartened to hear tales from the set painting Weller as a RoboDiva, with him going all method, insisting on being called, “Robo,” and refusing to say the scripted lines as written—he was unhappy with the three prime objectives, in particular, and when he kicked up a fuss and stropped off set, it was stuntie, Gary Combs, who stepped in temporarily while Weller sweated it out, before returning with his tail between his legs when he realised he could be replaced literally in an instant by his stuntman, no less. By all accounts, he’s a bit of a kook. Talking of nutty actors in the orbit of Verhoeven, one of the director’s go-to thespians, Michael Ironside, was initially offered the part of RoboCop, and bewilderingly demanded to rewrite the script himself, and for RoboCop to have a harem—of women, presumably.

In terms of sound design, when RoboCop enters the 7-Eleven, and the armed thug screams, “Fuck me!” over and over, there’s this resonant hum; a deep pulsing I can only imagine is non-diagetic, and informs us not only of Robo’s presence, but also acts as an omen of the impending action heading our way. That same vibrating drone happens again when Murphy enters the boardroom to eliminate Dick Jones.

RoboCop also boasts one of my favorite scores from any of the films we’ve tackled so far on the podcast. I found myself pottering about the apartment, just listening to the Blu-ray menu on a loop. I love the music in the Boddicker gang car chase with the truck, and Murphy and Lewis in hot pursuit the score there is terrific, and leads us trepidatiously (especially upon repeat viewings) to the bad guys’ hideout—the rusty-piped steel mill. As a side note, I once heard Charlie Brooker rave about the Nintendo Game Boy theme for RoboCop on Desert Island Discs, and ever since, it’s never left my consciousness. It’s arguably the greatest video game music ever composed.

The look of the RoboCop character was designed and created by practical effects maestro, Rob Bottin—known predominantly for his work on John Carpenter’s The Fog, and his career-defining, most-impressive project, The Thing, Joe Dante’s The Howling and Innerspace, and for teaming up with Verhoeven again on Total Recall and Basic Instinct. The main reason I reject most CGI, is because I grew up with this guy launching unforgettably violent imagery into my eyes and mind—and he achieved it practically.

How could, the icy touch of CGI, ever compare to this craft? This tactile mess of palpable, textured tissues? As a self-confessed vinyl guy, Quentin Tarantino often says, “You can’t write poetry on a computer.” A touch dismissive, perhaps, but he’s onto something. It’s a paintbrush versus a mouse; a pen and ink versus a computer—tangible, practical effects versus the clean, digital pixels of CG. In spite of there being a human sat before each and every one of those monitors, somewhere along the way, to me at least, a great deal of humanity is lost. If you’ve ever seen The Thing ‘82, you know what I’m on about. Anything created on a computer surely pales in comparison to the icky insanity of its on-set, gooey, animatronic horror—and there are clear traces of the same mad methods in RoboCop, five years prior.

The practical effect when Clarence blows off Murphy’s hand is nausea-inducingly splattery—and the way Emil explodes as Boddicker’s speeding car ploughs into him, sending watermelons and pig intestines sky high for that weeping toxic waste death. I remember when I showed RoboCop it to my younger cousin, Marcus, who was very disturbed by Clarence’s extending spike to the jugular demise, and immediately uttered the words, “Why didn’t you warn me?”

It was the Jaws syndrome once again—the suit wasn’t perfect, they hadn’t worked out how Weller was going to move in it quite yet, and all of his rehearsals with a mime artist had to be scrapped at the last minute—that’s the reason Robo is slowly revealed in layers. This problem would simply not occur today in the wasteland that is, “do it digitally, paint that out, we’ll solve that later, fix it in post,” etc. In ’87, if you couldn’t perform it for camera, and win the approval of the crew, execs, director, whoever—it simply wasn’t acceptable. Remember the scrapped Predator costume, which rightly sent John McTiernan and Stan Winston back to the creature design drawing board the very same year?

Although Rob Bottin’s extravagant make up is insanely impressive—and he’s justifiably lauded for his work on The Thing, the Murphy face reveal marks the point where the humanity within RoboCop is truly recognisable, and the character really begins to elicit empathy. Everything suddenly changes when helmet is removed. The world stops. It would’ve been easy and kind of mindless to keep that helmet on throughout, but it visually amplifies the fact there’s a guy in there—not just a guy, the man we met earlier, and liked immensely. It’s an effect I find quite disturbing—almost like someone you know has slipped into a coma right before your eyes. Or developed dementia. It’s them, but not quite. We catch flashes and glimpses of the person we knew, but now they don’t quite even know themselves. One of the most rewarding aspects of the film, and the character of Murphy, is that he manages to unlock his own mind. He solves his own mystery, and that final line of, “Murphy,” is moving in a way we don’t quite anticipate. We’re not quite prepared to be touched after the satire, and the gore, and the action that preceded that moment. It’s a rare treat in this genre.

Another instantly recognisable effects artist, who contributed immeasurably to RoboCop, before his untimely industry exit (of sorts) circa Jurassic Park in ‘93—unfortunately and unfairly rendered extinct by the seminal blockbuster’s successful leap from go motion animation to state of the art CG, was Phil Tippet—now thankfully appreciated for his epic, 2021 stop motion magnum opus, Mad God. Yes, there are some scaling issues on ED-209—sometimes it appears enormous, then compactly fits into a stairwell, but when it emits that eerie whirring, and barks out that menacing mechanical growl, it has an undeniable, handcrafted charm.

It’s tricky to articulate why computers can’t quite replicate something weighty, and although stop motion is flawed and kinda old fashioned now, it had a charm that CGI lacks. To my eye, at least, it’s rarely on the money. JP ’93’s night time T-Rex attack on the cars blends animatronics and CG seamlessly and to this day stands up as one of, if not the finest computer effects of all time. Why? Because they had something to prove. Add to that the preeminent filmmakers on the planet were behind it from concept to competition. They were convincing themselves. Not a hotdog-scoffing, Coke-guzzling audience, and although CG is created by humans in front of monitors, that humanity is almost inevitably lost in translation.

Even an old soul like me understands that stop motion plays a little wacky to the modern eye, but it’s no more laughable than some of the slapdash CG I’ve been subjected to over the last thirty years. Besides, matte paintings can often be just as cinematic and spectacular as digital environments. My firm favourite in that regard, after stumbling upon a showing on Channel 4 during my filter coffee and TCM era of mind-expanding film consumption, is Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus, which bewilders and spellbinds me on each viewing with its stunning painted scenic backdrops. Based upon that example alone, even contemporary CG-rendered backgrounds can look inferior to vintage, practical sets. Precarious to pinpoint why, but I believe it has something to do with the warmth and human touch of practical, versus the impersonal pixels of CGI.

A handful of modern moviemakers, such as Christopher Nolan, are strong proponents for, “If you can do it in-camera, do it in-camera.” Then you embellish, and enhance digitally. But originate on film, and use traditional craftsmanship in cohesion with the latest fancy trends. Don’t seek to replace—look to merge. The true enemy; the lazy approach we must steer away from, as soon as humanly possible, is the entirely green screen set. It’s the destroyer of imagination, character interaction, a sense of place, and physical setting. Remember when it used to be funny to say, “Look up there at the tennis ball on a string,” but it turned out to be the death knell—the first nail in the coffin of modern cinema. Dear trailblazers, like you, George Lucas—and more guilty these days, James Cameron. I, for one, don’t want that trail to be blazed. Leave the old path alone.

I still think there’s a forever home for miniatures, or “bigatures” (coined, I believe, by Weta Workshop on The Lord of the Rings) in cinema. Perhaps it’s my childhood fascination with action figures, train sets, painting miniatures, making models, and figurines, that has shaped my somewhat rigid view, or perhaps it’s something deeper. Maybe the ease of digital has replaced forethought, and essential, on-set trial and error. The impatient tantrums and control freakery of an auteur like Verhoeven, led to the pursuit, at least, of in-camera perfection—the likes of which post-production computer fakery, to this day, fails to equal or even rival.

RoboCop remains a terrific ’80s action movie with intelligence to burn. Verhoeven nails the satire, the gore, the iconic imagery—albeit a tad rigid in its photography at times. It’s lamentable that there are, in all likelihood, very few 9 or 10-year-olds watching films like RoboCop. I dread to think what the modern equivalent would be—especially if the flashy, cacophonous, and ultimately empty suit that was 2014’s remake is anything to go by.

Grandad mode on! Kids (and big kids wearing shorts and baseball caps) these days are Marvel-obsessed—DC is about as dark and edgy as it gets in their infantile minds. They’ve never experienced a drug dealer being hurled through window pane after window pane, then skewered through the jugular by a giant robotic needle and spurting claret all over the shop. Or their hero protagonist getting his extremities blown clean off before being ripped to shreds by a hail of automatic gunfire. Or completely unnecessary coke-fuelled threesomes as a throwaway brush stroke to a scene. And I pity them, for they know not what they’re missing. Because, believe it or not, the best films were not made in 2022, or 2021 for that matter. We have to go back. We have to rewind.