This 1985 release can lay claim to being among the absolute dumbest Stephen King movies. An adaptation of King’s 1983 novella CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF, SILVER BULLET was scripted by King himself, who, as the old saying goes, “Couldn’t write a script to save his soul.” It was one of several King productions bankrolled by mega-producer Dino de Laurentiis and his wife Martha, a line-up that included bummers like CAT’S EYE (1985) and MAXIMUM OVDERDRIVE (1986), in whose company SILVER BULLET fits quite snugly.
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF related the present-tense account of a werewolf terrorizing the (fictional) Maine community Tarker’s Mills, and the young paraplegic Marty Coslaw, who’s upset about the town’s 4th of July fireworks show being called off due to the monster’s rampage. Marty is played in this 1976-set film by the late Corey Haim, and his older sister Jane by Megan Follows, with Jane’s adult self (Tovah Feldshuh) providing all-knowing narration (despite the fact that the girl isn’t privy to everything going on around her). There’s also Uncle Red (Gary Busey), a boozer who Marty and Jane’s parents (Robin Groves and Leon Russom) don’t approve of.
The werewolf kills several Tarker’s Mills residents and inspires a vigilante mob, all of whom end up dead in a mist-shrouded forest-set showdown. The culprit (not hard to predict) is Reverand Lowe (Everett McGill), which Marty and Jane figure out after Marty puts out one of the werewolf’s eyes with a firecracker; seeing that Lowe wears a bandage over the eye, they deduce he’s the guilty one, and send him anonymous letters asking “Why Don’t You Kill Yourself?” This puts them in his sights and inspires Uncle Red to send Marty and Jane’s parents off on a bogus Publishers Clearing House trip to New York, leaving the kids alone with Red (despite not approving of him) to face down the werewolf with a specially made silver bullet.
This was the first and only feature film directed by the prolific TV helmer Daniel Attias (whose previous film experience was as a second assistant director on pics like E.T. and WHITE DOG). It wasn’t an auspicious debut, with paint-by-numbers filmmaking that’s often downright amateurish and stunningly bad performances by good actors.
King’s dialogue, which includes morsels like “Sometimes I think your common sense got paralyzed along with your legs” and “I’m a little too old to be playing HARDY BOYS MEET REVERAND WEREWOLF,” isn’t exactly complimentary to good acting, and nor is the thoroughly unremarkable synthesizer score by Jay Chattaway. Still, it’s a shock seeing skilled thespians like Lawrence Tierney, THE STEPFATHER’s Terry O’Quinn and the top-billed Gary Busey do such pedestrian work.
Faring slightly better are the two major players: the 13-year-old Corey Haim and 16-year-old Megan Follows. Haim was at the beginning of his career, and so hadn’t yet attained the teen idol status that helped do him in (nor had he made the following year’s LUCAS, on which he was alleged to have been sexually abused), while Follows was already something of an industry veteran. Her performance, like the film overall, is crippled by cuddly-affectionate narration that tries very hard to add a note of Ray Bradbury-esque nostalgia, and so undercuts the fear and apprehension Follows and Haim were attempting to convey.
Vital Statistics
SILVER BULLET
Paramount Pictures/Famous Films
Director: Daniel Attias
Producer: “Martha Schumacher” (Martha De Laurentiis)
Screenplay: Stephen King
(Based on a novella by Stephen King)
Cinematography: Armando Nannuzzi
Editing: Daniel Loewenthal
Cast: Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Corey Haim, Megan Follows, Robin Groves, Leon Russom, Terry O’Quinn, Bill Smitrovich, Joe Wright, Kent Broadhurst, Heather Simmons, James A. Baffico, Rebecca Fleming, Lawrence Tierney, William Newman, Sam Stoneburner, Tovah Feldshuh