Rapid Response: The Howling (Patreon)
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I've been living a lie. There are many classic horror films I should have seen which I haven't and which, for the sake of Dark Corners, and particularly stuff like the Horror Smackdown, I've kind of implied that I have. I think it helps the brand if it looks like I know what I'm talking about, but I feel I can trust members of the Dark Cult with this privileged information.
All of which preamble is by way of saying that I only just saw The Howling for the first time. For the record, I enjoyed it and am now able to share some thoughts that might have been insights if I wasn't so late to the party. My main take away is, I think this has a claim to being the first truly modern werewolf movie. Of course there is also An American Werewolf in London - released the same year and quite possibly the reason that The Howling isn't better known - but I think of that as a classic werewolf story that just happens to be set in the early 80s. It's out on a moor, there's a love story, tragedy, dream sequence; all that's missing is Lon Chaney. Its transformation is of course extraordinary, both technically and because of the pain through which it puts David Naughton, but storywise it's what you expect. None of which takes anything away from An American Werewolf, which I love. The Howling sets up its modernity with the broken up TV broadcast of the opening. It's informed by such modern (or at least post1960) themes as psychology, cults and serial killers. Is this the first werewolf movie to feature a wolf pack? (Please tell me if there's another.) And its first transformation scene brings new meaning to the phrase 'sex change'. In many ways, it is a Roger Corman approach to the subject matter; take what's popular now and tie it to a classic monster. And of course that's no accident both director, Joe Dante, and writer, John Sayles, were graduates of the Corman school who had worked together on films like Piranha. The skills they learnt with the cut-price producer helped them make their breakout film the success it was.
Speaking of Corman, he is of course, in The Howling in a telling cameo where he checks a call box for change. Corman regular Dick Smith is there too as the occult shop owner, and one of his customers is superfan Forrest J. Ackerman, holding a copy of his Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. John Carradine is less a cameo and more an inspired piece of casting but he provides another living link to B movies. The Howling may be a defiantly modern take on the genre but it pays tribute to its antecedents and drops in references every chance it gets. Lon Chaney jr's picture is on the wall, The Wolfman is on TV, as is the Big Bad Wolf in a Looney tunes cartoon. A copy of Allen Ginsberg's Howl is on a desk and one character reads a book by Tom Wolfe. And that's just scraping the surface.
But the most important thing about the references is that, while they're fun if you spot them, they take nothing away from the horror. It's a really good film - but you probably all knew that already.