Silver Bullet
Sometimes movies are over the top in exactly the way you want them to be, and that was the case tonight. Based on Stephen King's novella "Cycle of the Werewolf" with a screenplay by King himself (before he kicked controlled substances, clearly), Silver Bullet finds a werewolf murdering a whole bunch of people in the small town of Tarker's Mills. The population of Tarker's Mills drops rather substantially over the course of the movie, in fact.
Our hero is Marty (Cory Haim), a young boy in a bitchin' motorcycle-infused wheelchair. His uncle Red (human breathalyzer redline Gary Busey) aids him in the fight against the lupine threat even though he doesn't believe the werewolf story. The movie is packed with great character actors like Everett McGill, Terry O'Quinn, Bill Smitrovich, and Lawrence Fucking Tierney. Sadly Tierney only gets a few lines, but he does get to brandish a baseball bat with THE PEACE MAKER emblazoned on it and now I want to watch a whole movie only about him putting that bat to use.
Most of the characters are so cartoonish that they threaten to cross the line into parody (in the case of the drunk dude with the shotgun that line may actually be a few solid steps behind him) but in truth that only ups the entertainment value. I won't reveal who the werewolf is (oh yeah, it's a whodunit) but the reveal is fun and it's always a good time to watch that particular actor chew scenery (and in this case, chew a few supporting players).
While it won't join the likes of Stand By Me, Misery, The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, or The Mist on the list of successful King adaptations it's a very fun watch if you're in the right mood. It's a breezy 90 minutes, and there's plenty of carnage to suit all your rampaging monster movie needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment