Notes: Avco Embassy Pictures Corp. 91 minutes. MPAA
rating: R.
Directed: Joe Dante
Produced: Daniel H. Blatt
Based on the novel by Gary Brandeur
Karen White: Dee Wallace
George Waggner: Patrick McNee
Chris: Dennis Dugan
Terry Fisher: Belinda Balaski
R. William Neill (Bill): Christopher Stone
Marsha: Elisabeth Brooks
T.C.: Don McLeod
Eddie: Robert Picardo
Sam Newfield: Slim Pickens
Eric Kenton: John Carradine
Fred Francis: Kevin McCarthy
Summary:
Karen, our intrepid television news lady, goes to a phone booth,
which has a yellow smiley face sticker on it, in a seedy part
of town to await a phone call from Eddie, from whom she has been
receiving "mysterious phone calls." They have been
trying to link him to some grisly murders in the downtown area.
She is miked, but the people back at the television station lose
contact with her and when Eddie calls, they don't hear where he
tells her to meet him. Her husband Bill flips out because now
the cops can't follow her.
Karen goes into a booth with a yellow smiley face sticker on it
at the back of a porn shop. She sits down. It's dark, and Eddie
starts a rape film for her to watch. He tells her, "She
didn't feel a thing, Karen. None of them do. They're not real
people her, they're dead. They could, they could never be like
me. But you're different, Karen. I've watched you on T.V., and
I know how good I could make you feel. I'm going to light up
your whole body, Karen." Eddie does some heavy breathing
(panting?) and in a strange, slightly garbled voice tells her,
"Turn around now, Karen, I want to give you something."
Two officers are looking for her in the shop as Eddie jumps her.
They run back and one starts shooting through the door, killing
the unarmed Eddie. The porn shop guy says, "I knew I shouldn't
'a' let that broad back here."
Afterwards, Karen doesn't remember what happened. At home she
has a nightmare while napping on her couch, and husband Bill comforts
her.
Terry and Chris, the cute unmarried couple who seem to be researchers
at the station, follow a lead on Eddie's identity, and the landlord
lets them into his apartment. The walls are covered with news
clippings of the murders and weird drawings, one of which is a
seascape. Eddie has signed all his work, with his full name.
They take their findings to Dr. George Waggner for his professional
opinion; they've had him on a local show touting his book, The
Gift, about man's animal urges.
Karen isn't feeling any better. Bill puts the move on her and
she pushes him away. Then her boss Fred Francis puts her on the
news because "everyone wants to see the lady who fought Eddie
the Mangler" and she flakes out on air. Francis says, "Who
knows, maybe she's pregnant."
Karen talks to Dr. Waggner about her problems, but still can't
remember anything. Waggner recommends that she come out to the
Colony, some communal living group he's founded on the coast,
to rest and relax. "I hope these people aren't too weird,"
Karen tells Bill on the drive up. The next shot is a close-up
of Old Guy hollering. Everyone is on a beach at night for a barbecue.
There is the obligatory giant-carcass-on-a-spit roasting over
a fire. Most of the people are rednecks and loonies. Later in
the evening Old Guy starts muttering about how he "can't
go on like this. Damn teeth are shot." Bill meets Marsha,
a creepy (in a beautiful way) lady who acts like she's going to
jump him at any moment. Meanwhile her creepy (in a backwoods
way) brother, T.C., is giving Karen the eye. Marsha gets mad
at Waggner, telling him to keep his book away from her brother.
"You've done enough damage already," she says, then
whips her head around to give Karen a meaningful glare. Later
she's still eyeing Bill when Old Guy freaks out and starts saying,
"I gotta end it, I gotta burn, I want to end it, it just
goes on and on," etc.
That night Karen hears howling in the woods. She wakes up Bill
and it stops; he tells her it was the wind. She can't sleep and
sits in front of the fire and hears something outside. She wanders
out there with a flashlight to shine around. We get to watch
her from the bushes. Then there's a weird noise and she runs
back inside.
The next day, Terry and Chris want to check out Eddie's wolfman
tattoo, so they go to the morgue. Eddie's cubbyhole is empty
and the interior of the door is pretty battered.
It's night again at the Colony. Karen and her new friend Donna
are sitting outside. There's another weird noise, different from
the weird noises of the previous evening. Donna suggests it's
a cow, but Karen says it doesn't sound like any cow she ever heard.
They take a shotgun and a flashlight into the woods and find
a cow who has met a rather messy and violent end. The flashlight
goes out. The sheriff and some other guy show up and say there's
no way a coyote could have killed that cow.
The next day, the men go wolf hunting and take Bill, who isn't
experienced in this sort of thing. One guy says, "Who needs
dogs? We got T.C.," who happens to be running ahead of all
of them and looks like he's going to drop to all fours at any
moment. Meanwhile, Karen has a therapy session. Bill manages
to shoot a rabbit.
Back in the city, Terry and Chris are looking for stuff at an
old bookstore. The bookstore guy gives them some useful information.
"Your classic werewolf can change shape anytime it wants,
day or night, whatever it takes a notion to. That's why they're
called shapeshifters. They're worse than cockroaches. They come
back from the dead if you don't kill 'em right. Plus they regenerate
. . . They may look dead, but bam! three days later they're good
as new." He shows them some silver bullets someone ordered
and then never picked up.
Bill doesn't know what to do with the rabbit because he doesn't
eat meat. T.C. tells Bill that if he kills something he doesn't
eat, it's a sin, and suggests that he get Marsha to cook it.
He watches her hack the fluffy bunny with a meat cleaver. She
kisses him and eventually he pushes her away. Walking back to
his bungalow, he's attacked by something. He staggers the rest
of the way. Waggner gives him a rabies shot and advises Karen
and Bill they shouldn't travel so soon after the shot, so they
have to remain at the Colony.
Terry and Chris are watching The Wolf Man when they get
a phone call from Karen, who is flaking out again because Bill
was attacked by a wolf. Terry heads up to the Colony. Karen
tells her that she thinks Marsha's moving in on Bill. Later Terry,
who brought the food, has forgotten that Bill doesn't eat meat.
Bill, who is scarfing down a leg of something that had a face,
says, "I get hungry enough, I'll eat anything." That
night Karen puts the moves on Bill and he rejects her, blaming
the rabies shot. Karen has more weird dreams while weird noises
come in from outside. She wakes up and Bill is gone. Meanwhile,
Bill is out in the woods and finds Marsha beside a large bonfire.
They get naked amid much howling from the woods. Terry has a
hard time sleeping with all the weird howls, and she gets out
her cassette recorder to tape them. Marsha and Bill get truly
bestial. Bill slathers some rather vile saliva. Marsha's noises
of ecstasy sound like a car driving through a tunnel. Waggner
is in his office looking distressed at all the wild animal noises
in the woods. Marsha gives Bill some love gouges on his back.
The next day Terry sits on the beach and listens to the tape.
Bill wanders back to his own bungalow. Terry gets the right
perspective and recognizes the seascape from Eddie's drawing.
She heads back through the dark forest and sees a cabin. Watching
her from behind, we get a glimpse of a furry ear as something
raises its head. She approaches the cabin, hears weird noises
from the woods and enters. We get a ground level shot of large,
furry feet in the woods. Terry explores the cabin and takes pictures
of the strange things on the walls. She sees a yellow smiley
face sticker on a door and goes through. As she's taking photos
of this room, the back wall starts to shudder and shake. She
closes the door and gets the front window open just as something
breaks through the door. She rolls out, grabs an axe that's sitting
nearby, and crawls up under the cabin. She's pursued by the beast
and chops off its lower arm, which pulses and writhes. She's
long gone by the time it turns into a human hand. Terry runs
all the way back to Waggner's office (he has the only phone at
the Colony) to call Chris. A clawed hand starts her tape recorder
while she's on the phone.
Karen wakes up from a nightmare. "Jesus, Bill, where'd you
get those scratches on your back?" She compares Marsha to
a bitch in heat and Bill hits her. Karen runs away.
Terry tells Chris what happened to her and says Waggner must be
in on it. He tells her to look in his files for Eddie's. She
finds it and finally notices the werewolf sitting on top of the
file cabinet when he grabs the file from her hand. It chases
her around the office for awhile, then picks her up and looks
at her for awhile, then takes a rather large bite out of her neck.
Chris hears the commotion on the line and hangs up to call the
sheriff, and then goes to the bookstore to buy the silver bullets.
Karen goes to Waggner's office to use the phone. Terry's neck
is still bubbling when she arrives. She heads for phone and Eddie
appears, in human form. He pulls the bullet which "killed"
him out of his head and begins a very slow metamorphosis. It
sounds like rain hitting a tarpaulin or microwaving popcorn.
It certainly looks painful; there's lots of quivering, heaving,
popping, stretching, and lumps rolling under the skin. When he
finishes, Karen throws some sort of corrosive substance at him
and escapes.
Chris gets delayed at the gas station.
The sheriff and Donna's husband grab Karen when she gets to her
car and drag her to a big barn, the Ritual Center where the Colony
has gathered. Terry's gory body is laid out. Karen runs to Waggner,
who gently pushes her away.
Chris races through traffic.
Karen asks where Bill is, and she's told, "He's one of us
now." Old Guy says, "We should've stuck with the old
ways. Raising cattle for our feed, where's the life in that?"
Some other members of the Colony say, "Humans are our cattle,"
and "Humans are our prey!" Waggner is essentially deposed
as their leader. T.C. is bitter because Terry chopped off his
arm and it hasn't grown back yet. Old Guy tells Waggner, "You
can't tame what's meant to be wild, Doc. It ain't natural."
Chris makes it to Waggner's office. The recorder is playing,
covered in blood. He goes to the file cabinet, and the tape becomes
the recording of his conversation with Terry and her subsequent
demise. Eddie, looking a bit worse than before, surprises him
and gets his gun, but then tosses it back to him, offering his
chest for Chris to shoot. "Don't you know anything?!"
Eddie says, assuming the bullets can't kill him. Chris shoots
Eddie, and he dies.
Chris runs to the Ritual Center and is approached by T.C. Chris
shoots him, and he doesn't get up again. Everyone else moves
closer. One guy says, "Silver bullets my ass," and
Chris shoots him. Waggner closes in on Chris because he wants
to be shot, and Chris obliges. Karen and Chris lock the rest
in the barn and set fire to it. They stand to watch and reload
the gun, then head for the car. The werewolves break out of the
barn and there's a quick shot of Waggner's face looking towards
the heavens. They howl a lot, then attack the car. Karen shoots
and Chris drives. The sheriff has blockaded the road and shoots
out Chris' tires. Chris shoots him and they run for the cop car.
It won't start and and werewolves paw at the windows. One breaks
through the rear window and climbs into the car as they drive
off; it chomps Karen's shoulder and she shoots it over her shoulder.
She looks back and it's Bill. Karen says, "We have to warn
people, Chris. We have to make them believe."
Now Karen is on the news again for an exclusive, eyewitness report
on that fire at the Colony. "Good evening. From the day
we're born, there is a battle we must fight, a struggle between
what is kind and peaceful in our natures, and what is cruel and
violent. That choice is our birthright as human beings and the
real gift that differentiates us from the animals. It is as natural
to us as the air we breathe, all of us take it for granted. But
now for some of us that choice has been taken away. A secret
society exists and is living among all of us. [Here she starts
rolling her head.] They're neither people nor animal, but something
in between. They're monstrous mutations with violent natures
that must be satisfied. I know what you're thinking because I've
been [more twitching] wh-where you are. And [I can't figure out
this line], but I have proof, and tonight I'm going to show you
something [her eyes look freaky] to make you believe." She
screams, which turns into a howl; her co-anchor runs away. She
looks like the product of a union between Chewbacca and a Yorkie.
Chris shoots her. The producer regains control and switches
to a dog food commercial.
Most of the viewers think it was special effects. In a bar where
there is some dispute over whether it was real, Marsha orders
her burger rare. We watch the burger fry for the entire credits
(if we have the patience), and then end with another scene from
The Wolf Man.
Commentary:
This is pretty standard fare, with the good doctor trying to convince
his Colony that they can still retain their humanity, but apparently
he's the only one strong enough to do it. All the others regress
and take to munching humans again. The emphasis is on the inevitability
of the reversion to their violent natures, and the way that savagery
reinforces itself, making the slip irreversible. The special
effects of the change are mostly convincing, but the finished
product is just strange. Their ears are huge, pointy things that
look like furry party favors, well over a foot long. That is
scary.
Stating the Obvious: Terry must be terribly near-sighted.