Silver Bullet (1985)

Directed by Daniel Attias
Written by Stephen King, based on his novelette "Cycle of the Werewolf"
Starring Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim and Megan Follows

This is pretty much a standard werewolf thriller. Set in the small American town of Tarker’s Mills in 1976, which is being plagued by a series of grisly murders. An eleven year old, paraplegic boy Marty Coslaw (Haim), who has a motorised wheelchair he calls the “Silver Bullet”, believes that the culprit is a werewolf, and tries to convince his fifteen year old sister Jane (Follows) and his alcoholic uncle Red (Busey) of the fact, as well as trying to discover who among the townspeople is the werewolf.

Most horror fans will probably be able to work out who the werewolf is pretty early on, and the main flaw in the film is that it is very predictable. The creature effects from Carlo Rimbaldi, who also designed creature effects for "E.T." (1982) and "Dune" (1984), are surprisingly poor. The creature itself never looks convincing, although the transformation sequences are pretty effective. The script has plenty of humour in it, but, despite being written by Stephen King, it never really rises above the level of cliché. One particularly annoying thing is that the film opens with a voice over from the sister as an adult looking back on the events of 1976, which means that right from the start the viewer has no concern over her safety. The cast is good and Gary Busey’s turn as the feisty, alcoholic uncle is one of the things that makes the film worth watching, and fans of Reservoir Dogs may want to look for a brief appearance by Lawrence Tierney as the tough local bar owner, who keeps a large baseball bat with “The Peacemaker” written on it behind his counter.
There is plenty of gore and violence in this film, although probably not enough to keep hardened gore fans entertained. As werewolf films go this is not nearly as good as "An American Werewolf in London" (1981), "The Howling" (1981) or the more recent "Ginger Snaps" (2000), but it is an entertaining enough way to pass the time.