Werewolves are finally getting their due with the hotly-anticipated release of Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man. Our own Sharai Bohannon rounded up some of the best streaming right now, and if there is any justice in this world, we’ll soon find ourselves in a werewolf renaissance. Listen, I love werewolves. I love good werewolves (An American Werewolf in London), bad werewolves (2015’s Howl), and genuinely scary werewolves (2013’s Wer, criminally underrated). There’s just so much potential in such a simple yet potent concept. Man or beast? You decide.
My first real introduction to werewolves came courtesy of master of horror Stephen King. Remember Tommy Lee Wallace’s It miniseries? When Seth Green’s Richie Tozier encounters a wolfman in the school basement, I was petrified. What was that thing? A man but also a wolf? Unimaginable. Naturally, I went down a deep rabbit hole, watching anything werewolf-related I could get my hands on. It’s why I remain a certified Underworld franchise stan to this day. One of my perennials, however, goes back to the beginning. Stephen King’s Silver Bullet. Luckily, you can catch this lycanthropic classic streaming free now.
Per Pluto TV: Something is killing off townsfolk in Tarker’s Mills. Something ingenious. Something remotely human. But the only person in town with courage to stop this lurking menace is a 13-year-old boy, confined to a wheelchair since birth.
Dan Attias’ Silver Bullet, scripted by King himself, was adapted from his novella Cycle of the Werewolf. Silver Bullet is fiercely funny and regularly pretty scary. It’s got all the King hallmarks, namely a young child up against an insurmountable threat. As a result, it remains one of my favorite adaptations of his work, a movie that adeptly manages to convey the tone of King’s original.
In our review of the recently-released 4K restoration, Anthony Arrigo wrote, “Director Daniel Attias, working from a script by King himself, manages to capture the spirit of halcyon youth; those carefree days in a small town, playing pranks and lighting fireworks and staying out all night long without a worry in the world.” That juxtaposition of innocence and evil has never been quite so tender, and it’s why Silver Bullet remains a joy to revisit year after year.
With Silver Bullet now streaming free, do you have any plans to check the film out? If you do, let me know what you thought over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
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