SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Wuchak RELEASED IN 1985 and directed by Daniel Attias, "Silver Bullet" chronicles events in a small town in Eastern America when a ferocious werewolf starts picking people off one-by-one. Corey Haim and Megan Follows play the adolescent brother/sister protagonists, the boy being a paraplegic. Gary Busey appears as the amiable alcoholic uncle while Robin Groves plays the mother. Everett McGill is on hand as a prominent minister while Terry O'Quinn appears as the sheriff.Stephen King wrote both the novella and the screenplay and so the movie has the comic book vibe of movies based on King's works. The townspeople are unsurprisingly cartoonish, but the main family is well done, i.e. realistic. In any case, "Silver Bullet" seems quaint compared to the three werewolf flicks of 1981: "The Howling," "An American Werewolf in London" and "Wolfen" (of course the latter wasn't strictly a werewolf flick, if at all). Nevertheless, I appreciate the old fashioned take on the subject and the warmth of the family members. The werewolf is Grade B when fully revealed, but certainly formidable. The film conveys cinematic stereotypes, like the goodhearted drunk (or prostitute) and the corrupt civic leader, who puts on a fake smile for the community while being a savage beast within. Although there's some truth to these depictions, most of the time a drunkard is an alcoholic because his/her heart is desperately flawed. And the bulk of respected community leaders aren't evil incarnate. Yet I like the way the movie shows how everything is not necessarily as it appears. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour, 35 minutes and was shot in North Carolina (Burgaw, Leland, Wilmington, Castle Hayne and Carolina Beach). GRADE: B-/C+

The Original Spice Girl In my obsession with werewolves, I'm quite sure I've seen all werewolf movies out there (except for some of the most obscure low- budget ones, I suppose), and I have yet to find a better one than Silver Bullet.Although some parts of it are a bit dated today, the effects are still far better than the CGI we see in more contemporary werewolf movies. The werewolf in Silver Bullet does not grow into a muscular super-monster, but remains unnervingly human under the wolf-like exterior (seen particularly through the many close ups of its eyes), and that goes for the personality as well. There is depth to the character, rather than him being just a bad guy who turns into a wolf.Although it does not scare me sleepless as it did when I was a kid, some scenes are still incredibly frightening. Oh, and Gary Busey is just as insane as needed for the part!

classicsoncall That's Uncle Red, Gary Busey in my summary line after the first encounter with the werewolf minister. It's probably the coolest line that doesn't have anything to do with anything, but coming from Busey it sounds almost philosophical, doesn't it? Almost as good as "It's an ass-kicker" describing the souped up Silver Bullet, but that line said something about something, so there's a neat contrast in Stephen King's screenplay. Very good.Well I don't know about the special effects here, they seemed pretty tame even by Seventies standards. There were plenty enough cut- aways from the werewolf to suggest that the makeup wasn't all that great, but I guess if you're a young kid watching it would scare the bejeezus out of you. That's what these flicks go for anyway, so it probably works on that level. And say, what about the Silver Bullet itself - once Uncle Red did his little number on the thing, it didn't look like it would pass EPA regulations with all that smoke exhaust coming out the tailpipe. The one thing Stephen King did well here was head off at the pass all those critics who would have found fault with the silver bullet concept by putting in that scene of the old guy compensating for the weight of the bullet so it wouldn't tumble. You can tell he was a Lone Ranger fan as a kid. Overall, this King flick is about middle of the pack of the dozen and a half I've seen. The most memorable moment for me was winding down memory lane with that Rheingold Beer jingle early in the story - 'My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer, Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer." Doing that from memory gives you an idea how far this Stephen King fan goes back.

utgard14 A werewolf terrorizes a small town, so a young boy (Corey Haim) in a motorized wheelchair teams up with his older sister (Megan Follows) and eccentric uncle (Gary Busey) to figure out who it is and put a stop to the killings. One of my favorite movies as a kid that still holds up nicely today. Stephen King, adapting his own novella Cycle of the Werewolf, wrote the screenplay. It's a character-driven horror story that works so well for that very reason. You really care about these people and are more invested in what happens to them than in many other horror movies where the monster/killer is given priority. Corey Haim does a great job, as does Gary Busey years before he went insane. But the real star of the movie to the lovestruck kid in me is Megan Follows, my most memorable childhood crush. Even if the rest of the movie wasn't great (it is), I would have watched it over and over just for her. The rest of the cast includes such fine actors as Everett McGill, Bill Smitrovich, Terry O'Quinn, and Lawrence Tierney. As I said, I loved the movie as a kid. As an adult, I still enjoy it a lot even though I recognize its flaws more now. It's low-key horror but it has likable characters, good dialogue, and some nice suspense. No, the werewolf doesn't match up to the stuff Rick Baker or Rob Bottin did a few years earlier, but it's not terrible for a guy in a suit. It's a great movie, in my opinion, that deserves inclusion in the discussion of 'best werewolf movies.'