I had watched this in my childhood on Italian TV - along with a number of other 80s horror stuff, including the two FRIGHT NIGHT, HOUSE and THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD films. Some moments from it - particularly the dream sequence - were still vivid in my memory, and I enjoyed it quite a bit...though it's undoubtedly the least of the major 80s werewolf films.
The backwoods setting makes for a nice atmosphere throughout (and looks forward to another Stephen King adaptation, albeit a non-horror one, STAND BY ME [1986]) and the love/hate relationship between the teenage brother and sister - played by Corey Haim and Megan Fellows respectively - is like a breath of fresh air to the all-too-familiar proceedings. The make-up effects and transformation sequences by Carlo Rambaldi are good, if not quite in the same league as Rick Baker's work on AN American WEREWOLF IN London (1981; still my favorite film ever from this sub-genre, and that's some feat for a relatively recent title!).
The werewolf attacks come thick and fast, though it's not overly gory - or even scary! Actually, the fact that crippled Haim is marked for assassination by the monster (in both its forms) associates the film more with the thriller than the horror genre! Still, like I said earlier, the hallucination of the local priest where he imagines his congregation turning into lycanthropes en masse is quite effective (if negating somewhat the eventual revelation of the monster's human identity!). Similarly, the fog-bound scene where the werewolf is hunted down by the angry villagers is straight out of THE WOLF MAN (1941) - were it not for its prevalent humor and the sheer cheek of having the lycanthrope take a baseball bat away from one of its 'predators' (a welcome but disappointingly under-developed role for 1940s tough-guy actor and notorious hellraiser Lawrence Tierney!) and proceed to beat him to death with it!! The later scene where the werewolf is blinded by a rocket fired by Haim also strains credibility, as does the climax with its nick-of-time retrieval of the silver bullet (while Gary Busey as Haim and Fellows' no-good and disbelieving uncle attempts to fend off the monster, but escapes unscathed despite being thrown around the place - rather than killed instantly, like the monster's previous victims - a number of times!)...
All things considered, the film makes for a pleasant diversion if nothing more. By the way, though the DVD I rented was supposed to be the R2 SE (I was especially looking forward to Daniel Attias' Audio Commentary) issued by Metrodome, when I played the disc it turned out to be Paramount's bare-bones R1 edition!!
The backwoods setting makes for a nice atmosphere throughout (and looks forward to another Stephen King adaptation, albeit a non-horror one, STAND BY ME [1986]) and the love/hate relationship between the teenage brother and sister - played by Corey Haim and Megan Fellows respectively - is like a breath of fresh air to the all-too-familiar proceedings. The make-up effects and transformation sequences by Carlo Rambaldi are good, if not quite in the same league as Rick Baker's work on AN American WEREWOLF IN London (1981; still my favorite film ever from this sub-genre, and that's some feat for a relatively recent title!).
The werewolf attacks come thick and fast, though it's not overly gory - or even scary! Actually, the fact that crippled Haim is marked for assassination by the monster (in both its forms) associates the film more with the thriller than the horror genre! Still, like I said earlier, the hallucination of the local priest where he imagines his congregation turning into lycanthropes en masse is quite effective (if negating somewhat the eventual revelation of the monster's human identity!). Similarly, the fog-bound scene where the werewolf is hunted down by the angry villagers is straight out of THE WOLF MAN (1941) - were it not for its prevalent humor and the sheer cheek of having the lycanthrope take a baseball bat away from one of its 'predators' (a welcome but disappointingly under-developed role for 1940s tough-guy actor and notorious hellraiser Lawrence Tierney!) and proceed to beat him to death with it!! The later scene where the werewolf is blinded by a rocket fired by Haim also strains credibility, as does the climax with its nick-of-time retrieval of the silver bullet (while Gary Busey as Haim and Fellows' no-good and disbelieving uncle attempts to fend off the monster, but escapes unscathed despite being thrown around the place - rather than killed instantly, like the monster's previous victims - a number of times!)...
All things considered, the film makes for a pleasant diversion if nothing more. By the way, though the DVD I rented was supposed to be the R2 SE (I was especially looking forward to Daniel Attias' Audio Commentary) issued by Metrodome, when I played the disc it turned out to be Paramount's bare-bones R1 edition!!