31 Days Has October: SILVER BULLET/CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF

Every night in October, the wife and I are watching scary movies, and each week of the month, we're choosing a theme. The first week of the month were Amicus Productions horror anthologies from the 60s and 70s, and this week - to accompany the full moon - we're watching werewolf flicks. We kicked Wolf Week off tonight with 1985' Silver Bullet, adapted by Stephen King from his illustrated novella, The Cycle Of The Werewolf.

It's a fun movie - very 80s - with a good cast, including Gary Busey, Megan Follows, Corey Haim, Terrence O'Quinn and Everett McGill.

The animatronic werewolf effects created by Carlo Rambaldi aren't quite up to the level of Rob Bottin's work on the first Howling film, or Rick Baker's American Werewolf In London effects, but they're effective enough, and still preferable to today's computer-animated cartoons. Too bad the actual creature looks more like a bear than a wolf.

I hadn't seen the movie in about ten years, and it's been longer than that since I read King's book. I have often pulled it off the shelf to enjoy the great illustrations by Berni Wrightson, though.