For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Day 26 prompt is Dee Wallace. We watched the movie,The Howling on Amazon Prime.

Storyline

In a red light district, newswoman Karen White is bugged by the police, investigating serial killer Eddie Quist, who has been molesting her through phone calls. After police officers find them in a peep-show cabin and shoot Eddie, Karen becomes emotionally disturbed and loses her memory. Hoping to conquer her inner demons, she heads for the Colony, a secluded retreat where the creepy residents are rather too eager to make her feel at home. There also seems to be a bizarre connection between Eddie Quist and this supposedly safe haven. And when, after nights of being tormented by unearthly cries, Karen ventures into the forest and makes a terrifying discovery.

Our Thoughts on The Howling (1981)

A very long build up to the first scare, and even then it’s not at all scary by today’s standards. But there are still some enjoyable aspects. The storyline is well developed, the acting is pretty good, and the gags work well. The werewolf transformation is first rate, especially for the 80s. A pretty good movie in the end.

6 out of 10 stars

Trivia 

Rick Baker was originally doing the special effects for this movie, but he left to do An American Werewolf in London (1981), leaving the effects job for this movie in the hands of assistant Rob Bottin. Both this movie and “American Werewolf” were released the same year and both received praise for their makeup work.

In the scene where Terri calls Chris from Dr. Waggner’s office, a picture of Lon Chaney Jr. is seen on the office wall. Chaney played the Wolf Man in a series of five films (The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). He was the only actor that played a Universal Classic Monster in the original film and all of its sequels.\Because of their work in this movie, Joe Dante and Michael Finnell received the opportunity to make the movie Gremlins (1984) for Steven Spielberg. That movie references “The Howling” with a smiley face image on a refrigerator door. Eddie Quist leaves yellow smiley face stickers as his calling card in several places all through this movie. Also James MacKrell‘s character as news reporter Lew Landers appears in both “The Howling” and “Gremlins”, which suggest both movies share the same universe.

Art director Robert A. Burns had previously worked on the sets for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). In fact, many of the grisly set dressings for this movie were hold-overs from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”; most notably the corpse in the armchair seen in Walter Paisley’s bookstore.