Karen White (Dee Wallace), a LA news anchor with a serial killer for a stalker, leads the man into a trap where the police are able to kill him.  In order to recover from the traumatic event, she and her husband are sent to “The Colony,” a country resort where their marriage is tested by the fact that there are vicious werewolves everywhere.

Originally released in 1981, The Howling re-imagined one of the most durable of horror icons: the man (or woman) bitten by a wolf, and then doomed to turn into one with every full moon, wreaking havoc and murder, which the poor damned soul could not control or remember.  Director Dante utilized the talents of up-and-coming makeup and effects artist Rob Bottin (The Thing, Total Recall), who, for the first time, created an onscreen transformation of man to beast without the use of cut-away edits; only latex and ligature.  This was combined with a genre-imploding screenplay conjoining the new Hollywood interest in horror with the faddish West Coast self-awareness movement by filmmaker and novelist John Sayles (Matewan, Lone Star), who had previously worked with Dante on Piranha, along with a cast of genre stalwarts, including Dee Wallace (E.T.), Patrick Macnee (The Avengers [TV], This Is Spinal Tap), and John Carradine, Kevin McCarthy, and Dick Miller in referential cameo roles.

The Howling has been restored in 4K by Studiocanal with the VDM lab, under the supervision of director Joe Dante.  Says Dante, “I can honestly say this 4K restoration is the best The Howling has looked since it came out of the lab in 1980—maybe better.  I’m happy to have it back in circulation at last.”

“A perverse, satirical contribution to the oft-maligned werewolf genre.” – Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness

“Humorous and self-aware as it often is, The Howling fundamentally works as a scary-gory werewolf thriller, with Bottin’s transformation effects casting a nearly hypnotic spell.” – James KendrickQ Network Film Desk

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