Silver Bullet

Come in from the pumpkin patch for HELL-OWEEN MONTH at Mondo Mondays, featuring a gnarly trick-or-treat bag chock full of Halloween-themed B-movies that’ll really make your holiday a scream!

“Part Human. Part Wolf. Total Terror.” A rubbery werewolf is terrorizing Small Town, USA,

and only Gary Busey, Corey Haim and a souped-up wheelchair called “Silver Bullet” can stop

him on Halloween night, in this howlingly bizarre horror flick written by Stephen King! Based on King’s novella, Cycle of the Werewolf, with a screenplay by the Master of Horror himself, Silver Bullet features ‘80s teen idol Corey Haim as Marty, a wheelchair-bound boy who convinces himself that a nasty werewolf is responsible for the rash of decapitations and dismemberments in the normally quiet town of Tarker’s Mill. Trouble is, no one believes him, except maybe his alcoholic Uncle Red (a not-surprisingly over-the-top Gary Busey, who seems scarier than any monster that might be roaming the streets), and so the two of them team up to stop the onslaught of hairy horror, which naturally comes to a head on Halloween.  But who’s the werewolf? Could it be the local sheriff (Terry O’Quinn, Lost), the sinister Reverend Lowe (Everett McGill, Twin Peaks) or maybe someone we don’t even care about? Straddling the line between spoof and straight-up horror flick (is Corey’s rocket-powered wheelchair, which outruns a sedan in a ludicrous breakneck car chase sequence, supposed to be taken seriously?), and sprinkled with gory, pulsating practical monster effects, Silver Bullet is prime Stephen King from his most entertainingly baffling period (it’s no surprise that his follow-up screenplay was for the insane Maximum Overdrive). (Dir. by Daniel Attias, 1985, USA, 95 mins., Rated R)