Review of The Howling (1981) by Kyle L — 07 Apr 2014

Extremely well crafted, entertaining, yet amusing The Howling is one of the best Horror films in the 80's and it is also one of the best werewolf movies ever made since An American Werewolf in London plus this is also Joe Dante's best film out of all of his movies in his filmography.

The Howling is about a young reporter name Karen White who goes to The Colony following advice from her psychiatrist after a traumatized plan in trapping a serial killer who stalked her. But soon when Karen enters The Colony the locals aren't who they are at all and she soon learns that the locals are werewolves and she must escape before she gets killed by the werewolves.

I love this movie and to be honest this is a marvelous film from start to finish and Joe Dante sure knows his style when it comes to making Horror films and he does have some talent when it comes to making Horror films and The Howling is always Joe Dante's best film in my opinion.

One of the magnificent things about The Howling is that the movie not only has an interesting plot but the film is also well paced thanks to a clever script the movie works well a lot. The second thing I like about The Howling is that the film is very suspenceful and there are loads of suspenceful scenes in the film that will freak you out(The first attack of the werewolf, The cabin scene, The psychiatrist's office attack and the groundbreaking finale)plus the movie is extremely atmospheric which gives the movie a werewolf feel and of course next to the atmosphere the special effects are one of the true main highlights of this movie.

All of the effects are well done in this movie I mean it check out the scene where Eddie Quist transforms into a werewolf the effects are top notch and extremely powerful and it is even way better than the CGI crap now a days used in most werewolf movies and this is the by far the best werewolf transformation scene in a werewolf movie since Wes Craven's Cursed transformation scene.

But the true main highlight of the film is the sounddtrack by the great Pino Donaggio who also composed the soundtrack for the 1976 Brian DePalma classic Carrie. Pino Donaggio seriously managed the soundtrack very well in this movie and I adore the score in the finale even the attack at the psychiatrist's office which delivers some nice suspense at the exact same time.

Now the acting here is fantastic Dee Wallace did a magnificent job with her performance as the protagonist Karen White while the rest of the casts did the same thing as well and all of the casts did a fantastic job with their performances in the film so far.

Director Joe Dante created an amazing Werewolf movie that every Horror fan loved and he shows proof that he has skills when he made this movie and he also knows the world of Horror very well and this is his best effort since The Twilight Zone The Movie.

Overall The Howling is an amazing werewolf film that can give any Horror fan a slight of amusement and entertainment at the same time. This movie gets a 10/10.