Revisiting Stephen King's SILVER BULLET
Stephen King’s SILVER BULLET
Budget 7 million
Box Office 12.4 million
This is another close to home movie I grew up with, watching with my dad. Another Stephen King classic we all enjoyed, and grew better the older I got. I also read the book when I was very young. I honestly wish I held onto it because the damn thing looked like a kids book and I loved it. I also still find myself using lines from it, one of which is “What’s the matter, you gonna make lemonade in your pants?” And I always end up in rpg games making a melee weapon named The Peacemaker.
This is prime King material. It’s also a bit cheesy which works for it. But it’s also one of the few ‘good’ Werewolf movies out there. Of which I will be making a list for soon and sharing here. Because damn if that genre doesn’t have some stinkers in it.
The movie is told through the sister of the main character’s narration. Recounting the summer when people began being murdered, and how she and her brother became close. It opens with the murder of a railroad worker people assumed was drunk and passed out on the tracks. Soon enough more begin to follow. It isn’t until the main character’s best friend is killed that he begins to suspect it could be a monster. Which eventually, and on his own one night he discovers to be true.
The movie centers on a young boy named Marty. Marty is disabled and uses an electric wheelchair to get around. Which serves as part of the movies name sake. His drunken and misunderstood but highly supportive and loving Uncle Red built him high powered muscle bike wheelchair which he named The Silver Bullet. Marty has a shaky relationship with his older sister. Which I can say most people growing up I know had those, myself included. But we’ve always managed to stay close and look out for one another. This movie relies a lot on that, as we see the siblings going from at odds with each other to knowing when the other is genuinely upset, or filled with fear.
There are a lot of layers to this movie and it’s genuinely great for it.
On the base layer we have a werewolf going out and killing people. Starting as I said with a railroad worker, then the father of Marty’s crush. Soon after Marty’s best friend is killed while out one night flying a kite. A large group of citizens end up dead soon after on a night they go out looking for justice to all the unresolved murders. It isn’t until Marty is gifted by his uncle, The Silver Bullet, and a bag of fireworks that Marty himself comes to face the Werewolf, thus beginning his hunt for the wolf person.
Once they’ve begun searching they soon find their answer in the towns local priest. Once the priest becomes aware his secret is known. He begins hunting hunting Marty and his sister. The duo enlist their uncle in all that’s been going on and after convincing him they aren’t lying. He aids them in creating a single silver bullet to kill the werewolf on the next full moon, expecting him to come after them.
The other layers the movie gives and what makes it a great story is taking the simple premise and adding to it. We learn from nightmares the priest has, that he truly fears what he is and becomes each full moon. But we also learn he uses this curse as only a twisted preacher might. The railroad worker was a notorious drunk, and would’ve likely got someone killed. Another victim was a girl set on killing herself after becoming pregnant and the man who did so leaving once he’d slept with her. The father of Marty’s crush was an abusive man to his daughter. The reverend used his curse to kill sinners, in his eyes saving some from hell, and delivering to hell those whose sins were too great. It wasn’t until he ran into Marty’s best friend late at night that he regretted what he’d done. He’d not meant to kill a child. Soon after that death the towns drunk population head out with shotguns and baseball bats to hunt down the killer. The reverend finds them as they’re all leaving for the woods, knowing he will soon change into a werewolf, he desperately tries to stop them from going out into the woods. He doesn’t want to go on a killing spree as the wolf. But that’s what happens. Which leads him to a nightmare about the town turning into werewolves that then attack him.
One night he heads out to transform out in the safety of the woods, but Marty is out too. Lighting fireworks, and he goes after him. Marty is only saved by the fact he fired a bottle rocket into its eye. Marty goes home that night terrified and expecting still to die. When he wakes the next morning he tells his sister what happened and begs her to look for a one eyed man or woman, knowing whoever it is, will be the werewolf. She agrees and after feeling tricked by her brother as she found no one like this, she ultimately finds the priest with an eye patch. That’s all Marty needs before making a letter and sending it to the priest. Telling him “I know what you are. Kill yourself”
The priest is aware he has a problem to deal with now. He also can’t kill himself, because well. Suicide is a sin. He even tells Marty when confronting him that he tried killing himself long ago but bullets won’t do it. But he has to get rid of Marty. He knows if he doesn’t he’ll begin to tell others, and if he tells others they’ll start to believe him. Especially with one eye missing, the evidence in his garage, and the run in he had with Marty on a bridge with his car.
The movie humanizes the killer and tries giving a level of sympathy, which works in its favor and makes the story almost a bit tragic. The reverend has no control of himself when he becomes a werewolf, he can’t kill himself, so in his mind doing what he’s done seemed fair and he lived his life doing this. Until being discovered. You also have the close and troubled relationship with family. Not just the siblings. But their mom and her brother. You can tell the mom loves her brother despite his lifestyle and what he’s done with himself. It hurts her the way he is, and how much her son loves him and the two connect, because she worries he’ll end up breaking her sons heart much as he did hers, by reveling in his failures and well yes. Being a drunk. At the same time Uncle Red constantly reminds her that she has to treat her son like a human being, and not a disabled kid who can never be anything more than a person in a chair. He’s very supporting and loving of Marty and showers him constantly in this affection as well as reinforcing with him that he can do anything, be anything.
It’s not something commonly seen in a lot of movies, without being over the top or so heavy handed it hurts to look at. But the movie includes it and it works ten fold. It’s full of little character moments. Between the family struggles, the priest and his curse, the town and how it deals with loss, as well as secrets.
Another item of praise for this film is the effects work. There are some, less then stellar moments for sure. Mainly a decapitated almost plastic looking head held up from the fog during the towns midnight hunting party. But the werewolf effects are pretty damn good. The transformation is pretty awesome, and even watching after the priest is killed and changes from beast to man is still really awesome to see.
Shit I forgot Corey Heim played Marty! As many times as I’d seen this it just never registered for some reason lol
I also have to go on record stating that I love the ending to this so much. It’s not a huge battle royal, a game of cat and mouse or survival through wits and fending off attacks. It’s done I believe as close to realistic as possible.
The wolf does indeed come after them on the last full moon of that month. Just as the uncle has decided he’s had enough of this and unloads the one silver bullet from the gun telling the kids he’ll stay up while they sleep, because he promised them he would, just incase anything should happen though he knows it won’t. No sooner does that happen, does the power get taken out. They hear the wolf prowling around, and huddle in a corner expecting the wold to show itself around a doorway. Instead it comes from outside and behind them. Catching the uncle off guard. With the bullet out of the gun the werewolf slaps the gun and bullet away. Sending the bullet down into a floor vent, which marty falls out of his chair to retrieve. The sister screams and takes off for safety and helps her brother. Uncle red has no way of fighting the werewolf and gets tossed aside. Marty is able to retrieve the bullet and load the gun just in time as the werewolf began stalking him and Marty takes aim shooting it in the chest.
That’s it. A scramble and punches, a quick resolve with the pistol and silver bullet. Nothing fancy, and it’s great.
Like all great films, the troubles the movie had aided in its being memorable. Much like with JAWS, the choice to rush production and use the shark before its artist could finish, resulting in there not being able to use the shark for a majority of the movie. This film suffered much the same. Stephen King insisted they use a man in suit, that the werewolf also be very plain looking. Nothing grotesque and over done. Just simple. Which the producer did not like. King also felt it’d be best if we didn’t see too much of the werewolf, at all. Just keep it in the dark. This didn’t go well either because they wanted it to be frightening and show off a bloody wolf taring into its victims. Because of this, and the constant back and forth on the effects. They chose to shoot all the ‘non wolf’ scenes. Then once it came time for the werewolf scenes, they still weren’t happy with the outfit! But they were so far behind it was a kill it or finish it situation. So they decided to finish it. They used the actor who played the priest to wear the suit and play the werewolf. They came up with creative death scenes without the wolf and honestly it again works for the films benefit. Leaving it up to your imagination isn’t always the best thing, but it can indeed add to your project. As it did here.
The film wisely chose not to delve into werewolf lore. Some films can get bogged down in this, the traditional wolf hunt of ancient books depicting the types of werewolfs, using ‘lycanthrope’ talking about the many many weaknesses of werewolves etc. The only thing this film did was simplify it by telling us, marty did some research and even though some of the books differed on their description and information on werewolves. They all agreed on one thing. That it takes silver, to kill a silver bullet.
A side story, a very short side story I HAVE to share. I HAVE TOO, about this movie. I thank Scream Factory for telling this from one of the effects team. But there is a scene during the film, the priest nightmare where the towns people in his church turn into werewolves. There was one actor, whom they refuse to name. That would not remove his makeup. He actually enjoyed the makeup and every day, for a week(it took a week to film the scene) he refused to take off the makeup. So they thought wow this guy is dedicated. Maybe he’s a method actor.
It turns out that was not the case. They asked him why he loved the makeup and he told them simply. “I love being a werewolf, you know? It’s great. But I gotta tell you, after we film? I go to some crazy sex parties, and I gotta tell ya. Girls? They love seeing a werewolf and having sex with a werewolf.” After that they learned to never ask things like this again.
The reviews for the movie were mixed when it was released. A lot of people compared it to An American Werewolf in London. Which is reasonable as that movie, for the time. Was like the Mona Lisa of Werewolf films at the time, and one of the very few horror films to receive an academy award for the effects work. So of course seeing a transformation that’s not nearly on par with that will be criticized. But a good number of people did enjoy it. It was also one of those rare films where the movie didn’t toss out the book. But instead added to it in a way that it benefited.
Like I said this story, in book form and movie was King at his best. It’s a simple story, Made deeper by the film. Especially with the sister’s narration. Using an almost coming of age story. With murder and a werewolf. Classic King.
Which brings me to a moment at the end I really do get those strong feels for now. But it also serves for some as an odd way to end the movie. After the werewolf has been killed, and transforms back into the priest. Marty makes a joke about how he hurt himself, “My legs, I don’t think I can walk’ which they all laugh at, and marty looks to his sister and tells her I love you. Then she says the same to him. The movie stops and the grown sister gives her final narration, exclaiming that she wasn’t always able to say that to Marty, but she did then, and she can now. Then says I love you Marty once more, before the film fades to black.
It’s pretty touching, and definitely relatable with my sister as that’s something that’s taken a long while, and a lot for us to say to one another. But it seems a bit easier now compared to before. Even when we’d fight or get at one another, we always loved each other, just didn’t say it so much. But it’s nice to know, and hear someone tell you they care.
It’s a movie highly worth checking out, I remember when we watched this growing up. It was one of the many films my parents had recorded on VHS. We had a lot of movies like that growing up. Renting tapes and recording stuff off HBO, the satellite dish, DirectTV. It was common back then!!
But man alive does it make me thankful that we have Blu-ray and 4k UHD now!
I’ll always carry with me the memory of watching this for the first time with my dad, he didn’t like many horror films. He couldn’t stand the gore and violence. But this was an exception, it was also one of his favorites of King’s. I’ve had the joy of sharing this movie as well with several people I’ve dated over the years, as well as sharing with my mom and dad the cleaner DVD and eventual blu-ray cuts of the film. Actually a year ago I remember my dad telling me on the phone how he’d told their cable box to record Silver Bullet in 4k so he could watch it. Which I told him I’d be over to watch with them.
As one of the few films I can watch whenever and don’t need to be in a certain mood to pop in, and still have yet to tire of. I can’t recommend it enough. Please check it out and discover a fun Werewolf movie. Which as I warned.I will add to a list of good werewolf movies I plan to release. Until then. Stay close to the road, and stay away from the moors. Wrong film I know, but damn do I love werewolf movies.