Gary Busey SAVES A Movie? No Kidding!?
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Whadda fuck you lookin' at, Wolfy? I'll kick your wolf ass!
Stephen King’s Silver Bullet is a movie based on an illustrated novelette that began life as a calendar. With beginnings that convoluted, the final product would have to suck ass, right?
Not this time!
Now, let me get the bad out of the way. One of the key plot points of this film is that it’s supposed to be a mystery who the werewolf in Tarker’s Mill Oregon is. Unfortunately, the werewolf has a werewolf nightmare, making it fairly easy to pick out who the goddamn werewolf is. Other than that, this is an 80s horror movie in that decade’s best tradition(except boobies…there’s no boobies) with a fine ensemble of “B” film stars, to include Gary Busey and Terry O’Quinn.
We are kept from seeing the wolf in this movie until the very end, where you discover it looks like a bear cub with an overactive pituitary. Instead of seeing a proper transformation scene, we get to see the wolf change back into a man. It’s still impressive for all that. Not American Werewolf impressive, but impressive.
Oh…lookout! We got a Corey! Corey Haim, ladies and gentleman, as wheelchair bound Marty. Maybe it’s because you knew he was a spoiled little shit at that age, but you can buy him being a “MEDDLING LITTLE SHIT!” as Everett McGill calls him. Megan Follows, pre-Anne of Green Gables here being all cute and Scooby Gang for her handicapable brother (I mean, before the wolf’s killed, Marty’s the only one in the town that manages to injure it…With a fucking bottle rocket. That’s skill, my friends.) But, if watching these two cute kids try to unravel the mystery of the Ravenous Fair Ruining Asshole wasn’t enough, you also get an alcoholic, sarcastic, skeptical uncle in the mix, played by none other than master thespian Gary Busey!
He drinks, he smokes, he swears…he builds his nephew a 400 horsepower wheelchair(I wish I were kidding about that part). The only thing that would have made the part of Uncle Red better would have been if, like Busey in real life, he’d spilled his cocaine on the werewolf, picked up the werewolf, and snorted his coke off the werewolf. That would have been tits!
I know how I’ve sounded so far, but let me say this, and then I’ll go to bay at the moon. There is one seriously dramatic moment in the film where Terry O’Quinn and Kent Broadhurst get into an argument over mob mentality. Imagine my surprise when I picked up a book of acting monologues to find Broadhurt’s “Private Justice” speech in there. It is actually a very powerful part of the movie.
I recommend this movie. It’s not the best werewolf movie out there, but it’s the only one with Gary Busey in it, making it a solid player in the lycanthropy game. Don’t worry about the “Hardy Boys vs The Werewolf” (paraphrased to avoid further spoilers), aspect of the movie. This is a popcorn movie, pure and simple…and most of all, fun!
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