Stephen King's astonishing oeuvre gets raided regularly by Hollywood, resulting in cinematic gems and absolute turkeys. Silver Bullet hits a mark between the two. Directed by Daniel Attias (but, also, Don Coscarelli1, the film features redneck hero Gary Busey, lost boy Corey Haim, and Canadian icon Megan Follows in a small town that has come to fear the full moon.
King adapted the script from his own Cycle of the Werewolf, itself a tribute to the lycanthropic legend, as it has developed in the twentieth century. By this point, the popular conception of the werewolf owes more to Hollywood than to millennia of shapeshifter/skinwalker lore. The book is a rather standard King horror, taking its cue from his first novel, Salem's Lot2. A Peyton Place of a small town encounters the supernatural. Only a select few realize the truth. The trope-laden tale does feature a rarity, however, a child hero with significant physical disability.
The film's effects work overall. They falter a little in the critical department of lycanthropes. The producer fought with two directors and King about how graphic and moonlit the werewolf should be. The resulting compromise is less effective than anyone might have hoped, with our monster looking rather like a superior Halloween costume. The most memorable effect scenes feature the beginnings of transformation into an animal. We see these with our antagonist, but also in a dream sequence. The horrific dream from which a character awakes is a horror-movie cliché I generally loathe, but this film's example has been staged effectively and it reveals critical information about the dreamer.
The many actors vary in their skills and styles, and I doubt they were helped by the behind-the-scenes feuding and the change of directors. The principals are fine, and Busey, allowed to ad-lib many of his lines, makes a compelling Uncle Red. We won't ask why he's the only member of his family who speaks with a Texas accent. Cory Haim and Megan Follows do well as siblings, constantly bickering but growing into an understanding of each other.
We have a town's full of characters, and a combination of the source material and the limited running-time reduces most of them to central casting. Silver Bullet feels like an abridged mini-series. When so many minor characters enter and exit a story, we lose the opportunity to really get to know the central characters, and we don't care too much about the secondaries who get slaughtered.
Silver Bullet breaks little new ground, and its musical score ranks among the cheesiest that 80s cinema has to offer. Better were-films certainly exist. However, it works well enough on its own terms, and holds up as Halloween viewing.
Gary Busey as Uncle Red
Corey Haim as Marty Coslaw
Megan Follows as Jane Coslaw
Robin Groves as Nan Coslaw
Leon Russom as Bob Coslaw
Everett McGill as Reverend Lowe
Terry O'Quinn as Sheriff Joe Haller
Bill Smitrovich as Andy Fairton
Joe Wright as Brady Kincaid
Kent Broadhurst as Herb Kincaid
Heather Simmons as Tammy Sturmfuller
James A. Baffico as Milt Sturmfuller
Rebecca Fleming as Mrs. Sturmfuller
Lawrence Tierney as Owen Knopfler
William Newman as Virgil Cuts
Sam Stoneburner as Mayor O’Banion
Laurens Moore as Billy McLaren
Wendy Walker as Stella Randolph
Michael Lague as Stella’s Boyfriend
Myra Mailloux as Stella’s Mother
William Brown as Bobby Robertson
Herb Harton as Elmer Zinneman
David Hart as Pete Sylvester
Graham Smith as Porter Zinneman
Paul Butler as Edgar Rounds
Crystal Field as Maggie Andrews
Julius LeFlore as Smokey
Pearl Jones as Mrs. Thayer
Ish Jones Jr. as Mr. Thayer
Tovah Feldshuh as Older Jane
1. Coscarelli began the picture. He resigned over ongoing conflicts with producer Dino de Laurentiis, but apparently after a fair bit of filming had occurred.
2. Carrie was the first of his novels published, but he wrote Salem's Lot first.