The Howling & Moon of the Wolf

I need to watch more werewolf movies.
Really, heck, who don't, right?
I decided that the other morning while watching the 1972 tv movie The Moon of the Wolf, starring David Janssen as a small town sheriff in Louisiana where... something is killing people.  The poster sort of spoils it, while the movie itself is rather like a murder mystery, with suspects and clues, til the third act reveal, where you actually get to see the killer for the first time.
It was pretty by the numbers, but workable for the constraints of the medium   In fact, the murder mystery aspect of the story was reminiscent of The Beast Must Die, which was part of my decision to try and watch more in the genre- the idea that werewolf movies- at least the ones where the identity of the werewolf is unknown, like Silver Bullet or Moon of the Wolf, are sort of a cross genre thing, the horror mystery.  I'll be getting back to that in future posts.

One the other hand,  sometimes the werewolves are right in front of you, a point as old as Lon Chaney's The Wolfman and An American Werewolf in London... and of course, The Howling.

Dee Wallace plays a reporter who, after getting attacked while on an assignment, leaves the city to visit a colony/spa run by a psychotherapist to recuperate.

While there, she hears the howling of wolves and realizes... somethings wrong.

Because, yes, it's a colony of werewolves.  Things go downhill for her from there.  But not for the viewer- The Howling is full of references to wolfishness, from clips of the original The Wolfman, including an after the credits bit, vintage Big Bad Wolf cartoons, and (my favorite) a copy of Ginsberg's poem Howl on a character's desk.

I haven't seen this in years, and I was really surprised at how similar it was to Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, which was essentially another film version of Gary Brandner's novel the The Howling that the movie The Howling was based on.  Similar, but so very much better than IV to a degree of noon and midnight.

Children of the Corn

I recently decided I was going to try and not re watch  any movie I'd seen within the last five years.
Instead of limiting my choices, I've found myself revisiting things I'd consigned to background noise and I'm pleasantly surprised.  This morning's movie, Children of The Corn (1984), is a terrific example of this.

I remember when it came out in the mid eighties, the cover to Stephen King's short story collection Night Shift was changed to the poster art in a tie-in.

The movie stars a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton and a pre-Thritysomething Peter Horton as Vicky and Burt, a couple driving to Seattle by way of Nebraska.  Unlike their bickering counterparts of the short story, they're a cute couple- Vicki sings along with a "school's out" song to celebrate Burt's graduation from med school and his getting a position in Washington state.

Of course their journey is interrupted by them running over someone in the middle of the road, a child who was a good as dead, since he'd had his throat cut.

Since the movie starts with a flashback to the small town of Gatlin being taken over by it's children, the slaughter of diner patrons after church being effective since they really do look like small town churchgoers eating at a diner after the service, the boy's death wasn't as much as a surprise as it was in the short story.  In fact, the flashback is kind of a flaw for me- what I loved about the short story is the eerie discovery, the reader is along for the ride with Burt and Vicky as they discover this town, empty of adults, a sense of unease seeps from the pages.
The viewer knows what the couple are getting into even if the reader doesn't.

The monster at the center of all this is... something.  Wisely unseen, He Who Walks Behind the Rows, works through the children, appearing for the most part as a travelling disturbance of earth, rather like a large mole, but later re-animates the body of a follower and appears as a technicolor stormcloud.

Despite some of the special effects not aging gracefully (the technicolor stormcloud), Children of the Corn holds up pretty well, thanks to a foundation of a good Stephen King short story and two pretty above average -for an eighties horror film- leads.

Apparently, there are eight sequels.  I've seen the second movie in the series, IN A THEATER!, because a classmate and an acquaintance had roles.  I may re watch that, but from what I've  read about the others, I'll probably be avoiding them.