BITING INTO STEPHEN KING'S WEREWOLF HORROR 'SILVER BULLET'

Title: SILVER BULLET Year: 1985 Rating: ****

Stephen King famously hates Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING because it's not Kubrick's... despite the fact it is very much his movie adapted from King's novel; the author especially loathed the casting of Jack Nicholson, being a too-obvious choice for a man going crazy since being crazy's his forte; but perhaps it was also the dialogue...

Without characters spouting such lines as "Are you gonna make lemonade in your pants?" THE SHINING stands out from (most of the) other King adaptations during the 1980's; yet King's cinematic tastes were more along the lines of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and SILVER BULLET, where other awful and downright embarrassing comments are uttered by equally banal characters...

Everette McGill is fantastic in SILVER BULLET as Reverend Lowe

But SILVER BULLET is an otherwise solid, entertaining werewolf picture, despite the screenplay where Megan Follows as the jealous older sister of crippled, wheelchair-bound Corey Haim, provides a cornball adult narration that, while perfect for STAND BY ME, has absolutely no place here...

Gary Busey as their fun-drunk uncle makes up for many of the cliché small-town townspeople. As does our man Lawrence Tierney, a tough-talking bartender with a baseball bat straight outta WALKING TALL bearing the words, "The Peacemaker" carved along the side... Which is later used by the initially unseen werewolf to kill Tierney's Owen (named after King's son) Knopfler during a fog-shrouded local posse vs serial killer hunt: one of several darkly comedic scenes that almost gives SILVER BULLET cult status...

From Stephen King's SILVER BULLET

The werewolf's reveal occurs at a tempered pace, particularly in the eyes of Haim's Marty Coslaw during one of two personal confrontations while his sister, Megan Follows' Jane, investigates on her own...

And while the first act takes a little time to flow, the story eventually narrows tightly into brother, sister and uncle verses "Reverend Werewolf" Everette McGill, making an ambiguous balance of good, evil, and somewhere in-between: Along with a suspenseful body count exploitation/drive-in vibe, often more implied than overly violent but are extremely severe and means business at the same time.

Megan Follows sulks in the shadows in SILVER BULLET

Ah yes the reveal and let's just pretend we've all seen SILVER BULLET already

Lawrence Tierney as Owen Knopfler in SILVER BULLET

Gary Busey as Uncle Red (w/ blond hair) and nephew Cory Haim's Marty Coslow

Character actor Terry O'Quinn and lead turned character actor Lawrence Tierney SILVER BULLET

Ken Broadhurst has almost a deliberately creepy bad acting in SILVER BULLET

Wolverine's older cousin in SILVER BULLET

Character-actor William Newman the William Hickey clone changing in a dream sequence

Megan Follows in SILVER BULLET as Jane Coslaw

Lawrence Tierney's Peacemaker bat comes up as a clue in a product placement heap

Megan Follows in SILVER BULLET as Jane Coslaw

Gary Busey and Corey Haim in SILVER BULLET (rest in peace my late nephew Austin Tavolara)

During this scene a very Dire Straits sounding instrumental plays

That there's the second "hence the title" device in SILVER BULLET

Heather Simmons is Tammy Sturmfuller in SILVER BULLET

Megan Follows looking very Jenny Agutter in SILVER BULLET as Jane Coslaw

Lawrence Tierney as Owen (Stephen King's son's name) Knopfler (a guitarist he digs)

SILVER BULLET taken literally for the first time in SILVER BULLET

The Werebear Werewolf of SILVER BULLET Reviewed by James M. Tate

Looks a little less bear and more wolf here on closeup SILVER BULLET

Cory Haim and fiction sister Megan Follows SILVER BULLET Megan Follows

Ah yes the reveal and let's just pretend we've all seen SILVER BULLET already